Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete
Not so - your examples have one thing in common. They are empires thrown into the dustbin of history.
Empires rise and fall. Most declines are caused by similar social reasons. Rome did not fall in a day - took a couple of hundred years.
So the question about DADT repeal is "Is it helping us up or helping us down?"
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Richard is correct regarding empires.
But in Rome, the fall was triggered by an economic event. The salt mines flooded, (Rome's single largest revenue producer and natural resource export), causing an interruption in revenue and the ability to pay for legion guards to protect the city (Rome) from invaders. An attack was not "around the corner", it simply went unguarded for a few decades, then a century, then another. Rome felt safe for a short season, a 100 years, but Rome the city never recovered, nor did the mines ever re-open, still today.
Rome the empire could not financially sustain itself in remote regions. Religious and/or Idealogies pursuit changed the fabric of the city, the empire. The nature of Rome turned to self indulgence, the arts, entertainment.
Agriculture slowed because Rome was no longer exporting salt, revenues from crops or supported the supply chain management in feeding occupying troops in remote locations. Legions who would nornally buy/pay for services from local farmers began to starve. They remained in the area, but left the empire to marry locals and take up plows, farms and families or took up jobs working for other armies. Back in Rome, families were viewed as "old establishments". Being single, not having babies, families, was the "new" fashion. Rome the city was ripe to invading Northmen, rich in posessions, but lacking in substance/revenues.
Before there was a Greece, there was only a region.
Greece became a collection of countries, co-operating in collective benefits, agriculture to textile industry.
A woman launches a thousand ships and Greece invades Troy, a 8-12 year campaign according to Homer, depending on your start point, not a 3 hour episode.
Rome rises out of the dust of Troy, but that took awhile too.
America will fall when the following conditions exist...
Ecomonic instability:
When we are importing more than we export.
Our cash management, coffers, treasuries are thin.
Debt is high.
When we are held hostage to energy and supply chain management.
Occupation:
When our enemies can occupy terrain and land without consequences.
When having large families are not viewed as socially acceptable.
When the lines of culture are squewed.
When self indulgence is more important then responsibility.
Invasion:
Overt and covert
When the army is indifferent to leadership
When we are weak,....
I could be wrong, this has never happened before.
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