Tag Archives: empire

But Will II Last?

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In 1300 CE the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, as it was known, occupied an area of around 7,800 square miles. By 1462 CE that number had increased to 1,700,000. By 1584 CE it had swelled to 2,100,000 square miles. The peak, 8,800,000 square miles. was reached in 1913: celebrating, as Tsar Nicholas II did that year, the 300th anniversary of his Dynasty’s ascent to the throne, he could look back on six centuries during which its domains increased by 284 square miles each year on the average. Subsequent conquests brought some additional territory, especially at the expense of East European countries such as Finland, Poland and Romania, but nothing to compare with pas advances.

In the whole of history only two empires, the Mongol one and the British one, ever controlled more land. Much of this success was due to the fact that, especially in the north and the east (Siberia), the lands the Tsars and his men took over were either empty or nearly so. But not all; trying to expand, very often Russians met with determined resistance. By one list—surely a very partial one—the victims included Tatars (who had to be thrown off first), Kazakhs, Poles, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Cossacks, Moldavians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Finns, Galicians, Georgians,  Bessarabians, Armenians, Tajiks, Caucasians, Circassians, Chechens, Uzbeks, and Turkmens. And this is just a select list. Some of these nations were small, others large. Some were Slavs, others belonged to other races. Some were Christians (themselves divided into two major denominations), others not. Some were officially recognized in Moscow, others not.

Come 1989-1991. As the gigantic empire began to crumble Russia was left with 147,000,000 people, just a little over half of the 1990 Soviet figure. Over the three decades since then a combination of low fertility and a falling life expectancy has made things much worse for Russia. Back in 1990 roughly one in eighteen people on earth got his marching orders from the Kremlin. Thirty years later the number was down to just one in fifty-nine a two-thirds decline.

Nor is that all. As hostilities between Ukraine and Russia proceed and show some signs of a coming Russian defeat, any number of countries have waked up to the fact that, at some time in the past, they lost territory to Russia without signing any treaty to legitimize the transfer. Among them are the following:

Estonia. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Estonia hoped for the return of more than 2,000 square miles of territory annexed by Russia in 1945. By the Treaty of Tartu, which dates to 1920, the land in question was part of Estonia (even though the majority of inhabitants spoke Russian). However, when Russia’s first post-Soviet Government, led by Boris Yeltsin, came to power in 1991 he refused to abide by it and left things as they were.

Japan. In this case the dispute is over the Kurile Islands (Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Khabomai group). All of these belonged to the Japanese Empire from 1855 until the 1945 Soviet–Japanese War when the Soviet Union occupied them as well as the southern part of Sakhalin Island. Meeting at Yalta, the Western Allies recognized Soviet sovereignty. However, when Japan signed its treaty of capitulation to the Soviet Union the matter was not mentioned, thus enabling Tokyo to lay claim to what it called the “controversial northern territories”. Here it is worth adding that the islands’ population (those of them that have any) is entirely Russian. Why? Because, under Soviet occupation, all Japanese were expelled.

Finland. The 1939-40 Soviet-Finish War, as well as World War II which followed it, saw Finland allied with Germany. This led to its losing about ten percent of its territory to the Soviet Union, a situation which the latter’s subsequent disintegration did nothing to change. However, the matter has not been settled: while Russian leaders such as Yeltsin and Putin have repeatedly declared it “closed,” Finnish ones have been equally persistent in saying that it might be “revised” by “peaceful means.” Now that Finland has become a member of NATO the matter may again be laid on the table.

Germany and Poland. World War II left Koenigsberg, a German city going back to the Middle Ages, as a Soviet enclave within Lithuania and Poland, both of which would certainly lay a claim to it if the opportunity presented itself. In addition the Germans, who lost the city in 1945 and who in 1990 signed a treaty renouncing it, have been showing an increased interest in it.

There are several other unresolved territorial issues between Russia and its neighbors, though none sufficiently important to be worth discussing here. But people have long memories. The mere fact that a treaty has been signed and remains in force by no means always means all potential for conflict has been eliminated. Should Putin win his war, then there is little doubt that at least some of these issues will come alive. Should he lose it, then there is even less doubt that some of them will.

The real elephant in the room is not some god-forsaken tribes but China. Back in 1990 the Soviet Union and China signed an agreement that settled, or was supposed to settle, the border problems affecting them. It should, however, not be forgotten that, back in the nineteenth century, a series of treaties gave Russia approximately 600,000 square miles of territory at China’s expense, mostly in Manchuria. To be sure, the authorities in Beijing gave their agreement to these treaties; yet the name by which they are often known, “unequal,” speaks for itself.

To be sure, too, the lands in question are among the least populated on earth. Yet that is precisely the problem: the empty territories to the north are attracting Chinese immigrants the way a lamp attracts insects. Some sources have even mentioned their number, 1,000,000 per year: given that China has almost ten times as many people as Russia does, this is not surprising.

At the moment relations between Moscow and Beijing, focused as they are on Washington’s attempt to prevent the former from taking over Kiev, are as good as they have ever been. But will it last?

How Empires Fall

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As the philosopher Plato (428-348 BCE) and the statesman/historian Polybius (200-118 BCE) knew very well, empires come and go. The Babylonian Empire rose and declined. The Persian Empire rose and declined. Alexander’s Macedonian Empire rose and broke up. By the first century BCE the idea that the Roman Empire, too, would one day decline and fall had become commonplace among its educated inhabitants; as one of them, the Roman historian Livy, wrote, the empire was “struggling with its own greatness”. However, there was no agreement as to when this would happen, let alone how.

Over time many different reasons were invented to explain the decline. Speaking of the Graeco-Roman world, perhaps the most common one was the idea that power and prosperity undermine themselves. The more powerful and prosperous an empire, the softer its citizens and the more addicted to wine, song and women and the less inclined to serve, fight and die they became. During the late Roman Empire this reached the point where soldiers mutilated themselves so as to avoid military service and, if brought to justice, might be burnt alive. Sooner or later the point was reached when those in charge had to turn to foreigners in order to defend the empire against its enemies. Sooner or later those foreigners would become a liability, either because they did not fight hard enough or because they turned against their employers.

Since then many other explanations have been put forward. Sin or, in most non-Abrahamic religions, insufficient attention to the kind of religious rituals that make the world tick, caused God to turn His face away. Civil war, often the result of religious differences or excessive taxation or both, caused public order to break down. Egoistically-minded people, especially those belonging to the upper classes, refused to have children and raise them, preferring to use contraceptives or engage in homosexual sex. “Imperial overstretch,” a term made popular by the historian Paul Kennedy in his 1987 volume, The Rise and Decline of the Great Powers, created a situation whereby the Empire’s resources, material and human, were inadequate to support its commitments. Excessive use and abuse of natural resources caused the deforestation and desertification, not to say poisoning, of entire districts, even countries. Natural disasters increased in frequency and severity. Often more than one cause, or set of causes, were involved—all mingled with each other and now reinforcing, now contradicting, each other.

Fast forward to the present. As George Orwell in Nineteen-Eighty Four foresaw with uncanny precision, the world in which we live is divided among three gigantic empires: the US and its vassals (Oceania), Russia (Eurasia), and China (Eastasia). The first is defined by its wealth, the liberal-democratic way of life on which its members pride themselves, and its willingness to foster and adopt scientific/technological progress. The second, by its sheer geographical size, its military power, and the ability of its inhabitants to endure and suffer. The third, by the vast number and sheer industry of its people which, some researchers feel, are also the most able of the lot on the average. Again all these factors mix with each other and reinforce each other in a myriad of different ways. Too many by far to allow much more than a bare mention in the present essay.

Now to the hundred trillion dollar ($ 100,000,000,000, the world’s annual GNP) question: since no empire lasts forever, which of them is likely to collapse first? My answer would be, Russia. First, its population of 143,000,000 is by far the smallest and shrinking fast. Second, slightly over a fifth of this population are non-Russian, non-Slav, and even non-Christian. Originally subdued by force of arms, given the right circumstances parts of it may rise against the center, Moscow, causing the empire to break up. In which case, to quote Ukrainian head of state Volodymir Zelensky, only Muscovy will be left.

Third, Russia is immensely rich in natural resources and possessed of a huge arms industry. However, for reasons ill-understood has never been able to develop a strong consumer-driven industry such as, starting in the nineteenth century, has formed the backbone of modern economies and the kind of prosperity they alone seem capable of generating. Fourth, it still lacks the kind of access to the sea, hence to world trade, which first Britain and then the US has enjoyed for centuries.

Last not least, geographically speaking Russia is stuck between the other two empires. At the moment those empires are bitter rivals, quarreling over almost everything from Ukraine in the West to Taiwan in the east. However, that was not always the case. Remember President Nixon’s “opening of China” back in the early 1970s. The Soviet Union’s fear of collusion between Washington DC and Beijing—the sort that could only be, and was, directed at Moscow—even played a role in the Soviet Union’s collapse less than twenty years later. Another such rapprochement constitutes Putin’s nightmare. Should the US and China join forces, as they did against Japan in 1941-45, then there will be little the Kremlin will be able to do about it except threaten others, and hence itself, with nuclear annihilation.

Next, the US. The US has about two and a half times Russia’s population. Add its NATO allies, and the difference amounts to almost six to one. Add Japan, South Korea and Australasia, and it grows to about seven to one. Practically all these people are where they are because, unlike those of Russia, they are willing. They are kept loyal by consent rather than by force; this being an advantage very few previous empires enjoyed.

True, American industry in particular is no longer what it was between about 1945 and 1970 when it easily overshadowed the rest of the world. But it still remains enormously capable in terms of innovation in particular. Attention should also be attracted to the fact that the core member of the Atlantic alliance, i.e the US, is a global island. On the positive side, this means that any attempt to invade the Continental US must remain a pipedream. On the negative side it means that, to complement its own resources and retain its global influence, the US depends on maritime communications. Not only are such communications more vulnerable than land ones, but America’s Navy is even now in the process of losing its supremacy in favor of China. The closer one approaches China’s own shores, the more true that is. Another one of America’s weaknesses is the horrendous deficits it has incurred both in terms of foreign trade and in terms of the budget. Deficits which, unless they are addressed, will surely end up by bringing on the economic collapse not only of the US but of much of the rest of the world as well.

Finally, China. As anyone who has traveled in China can easily see for him- or herself, China’s industrialization over the last decades is one of the greatest, perhaps even the greatest, miracles in the whole of history. During that period its share of world GDP (ppp-calculated) increased more than tenfold, from 2.26 in 1980 to 27 percent at present. The most important constraint on China’s ability to make its weight felt in the world is geography, especially maritime geography. Reaching out for the Pacific Ocean, Chinese merchantmen and men-of-war are flanked by Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; reaching out for the Indian one, by the Philippines and the Strait of Sumatra. Each of these is an unsinkable aircraft carrier. Xi Jinpin himself is well aware of these facts. As proved, above all, by his launching of the so-called belts and roads initiative whose objective is precisely to bypass his country’s problematic maritime communications by going by land instead.

Furthermore, China’s ascent has led to a loose, US-led, coalition of other countries forming around its borders; whether through its own fault or that of others, Beijing now has territorial disputes with every one of its fourteen neighbors. Other weaknesses include a declining birthrate that will soon cause its population to be surpassed by that of India; following decades of a “one child” policy, a shortage of young people to man its industries and a corresponding increase in the number of old ones who have to be supported; horrendous ecological problems that led to a shortage of water and made the air of many cities unfit to breathe; and, judging by the ubiquitous and enormously expensive measures used to safeguard internal security, a widespread fear that the Communist regime may not last forever and that, breaking up, it will drag much of the country with it.

These are serious problems that may well lead to the kind of crisis that has many predecessors in Chinese history and which, during the last 200 years alone, killed tens if not hundreds of millions of people. Still, what by now is a highly industrialized country of 1.3 billion—more than that of the US, the rest of NATO, and Russia combined—able and ambitious people will not be easily thwarted from pursuing its imperial goals.

Most important of all, China is and has always been not just the kind of political structure known as a state but a civilization. As such it is about as old as the pyramids; for that reason alone, there is a good chance it will last as long as they have done.

Just Published! Equality: The Impossible Quest

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Martin van Creveld, Equality: The Impossible Quest, Castalia House, 2015.

Reviewed by Vox Day.

81h5u+UVSQL._SL1500_All over the Western world gaps between rich and poor are widening—or the headlines say. Nobody has done more to spread this view than the French economic historian Thomas Piketty whose best-selling volume, Capital in the Twentieth Century, not only documents the process but represents one long call for reducing the gaps so as to create a more equal society. But what is equality? Who invented the idea, when, where, and why? How did it develop, grow, mature, and interact with other ideas? How was it implemented, and at what cost? Are we getting closer to it? What is the promise? What is the threat?

There is equality before God and equality here on earth. There is natural equality and the kind of equality that society creates. Some people, incidentally, want to extend equality to animals and plants as well. There is equality of body and there is equality of mind. There is economic equality and there is equality before the law. There is civic equality and there is political equality and there is equality of opportunity and there is equality in front of death. There is equality among individuals and there is equality among groups, nations, and races. In Aldous Huxley’s celebrated book, Brave New World, this truth is held to be self-evident that men (and women, though Huxley does not say so) are equal in respect to their bodies’ physico-chemical makeup but in no other way. The list goes on and on.

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Equality: The Impossible Quest considers all these problems and then some. It begins by considering our primate relatives as well as various historical societies that never heard of equality. Next, it traces the development of the idea and its implementation in various societies throughout history. This include ancient Greek equality as realized in Athens and Sparta, monastic equality in both East and West, social revolts aimed at establishing equality, utopian equality, liberal equality of the American and French Revolutionary varieties, socialist, communist and kibbutz equalities, Nazi equality, the equality of women and minorities, and biological equality through medical and genetic science. The last chapter deals with the greatest equalizer of all, death.

This survey of the history of equality demonstrates that the vast majority of human societies have not only survived, but thrived without equality. And it appears that despite its popular appeal, if carried too far, equality will present a threat to justice, liberty, and even truth. More problematic still is the observable fact that the various versions of equality tend to be contradictory. For every form of equality achieved, another must often be sacrificed. That is why the attempt to establish it on a lasting basis has, in every previous instance, proven ephemeral.

Equality, especially absolute equality of the form Plato, Rousseau, and their modern successors are seeking, is a dream. When one takes into account the costs it involves, the contradictions to which it inevitably leads, and the tremendous quantities of blood that have been shed in its name, it is hard to conclude that the dream of equality is a beautiful one.

Martin van Creveld’s history of equality is an intellectual tour de force that is more education than polemic. Throughout the book, the author’s natural sympathies toward the basic concept of equality are readily apparent, but his scholastic rigor and integrity are too strong to be influenced by them. Which is why, in the end, the reader finds himself more than ready to respect, and more importantly, to accept, van Creveld’s reluctant conclusion. However desirable it may appear to us, however much it may appeal to us, we have little choice but to understand that Man’s quest for equality is an impossible one that is doomed to failure by virtue of its own inherent contradictions.