The Fate of Empires and Sir John Glubb

They Come, They Go, The Centuries Pass

Sir John-Bagot-Glubb was a British General who was wounded in World War One, then went on to be the commanding general of the Trans-Jordan's Arab Legion as of 1939, basically the Jordanian Army. Among his writings after retirement was an essay written in 1978 entitled The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, in which he maintained that empires usually have a lifetime of about ten generations, or around 200 to 250 years. The essay is available on the internet, and this is the link:

https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

A couple of links concerning the man himself are listed below:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Bagot-Glubb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb

In writing this essay the major purpose is to introduce those of you who are not already familiar with his ideas to him and his writing. Here all I can do is summarize what he wrote, and maybe throw in a few ideas of my own, since his essay is 25 pages long, and I'm not going to write 25 pages myself.

"Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results." ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

The thesis of his essay is that empires, and we should include the United States, go through phases in their lifetimes. The phases overlap somewhat, with one phase continuing to exist but decaying while the next is growing. They are:

The Age of Pioneers (outburst)

The Age of Conquests

The Age of Commerce

The Age of Affluence

The Age of Intellect

The Age of Decadence.

A small country, such as Mongolia, may suddenly burst from it's confines and begin a campaign of conquest, conquering neighboring lands. It becomes a super power, often called an empire. As time goes on the mind-sets of the people in the empire slowly change as new generations are born. Ideals of courage and patriotism give way to a desire to make money, and the empire will become wealthy, especially since the nature of an empire fosters wealth creation by allowing commerce between diverse regions far from each other, but with the same laws, money and relative ease of transport throughout. Glubb explains that trade in ancient empires was often over vast distances, it just took longer. The empire militarily transitions from an offensive posture to that of a defensive one, and the ideals of courage are lost while people justify it as taking the moral high ground of pacifism, forgetting that pacifists can be overrun by non-pacifist neighbors. (Pacifism is the privilege of the protected.) This gives rise to a time of much increased education, then an age of decadence. The latter stages are noted for the existence of a welfare state, the weakening of religion and an influx of foreigners. Lastly the empire ends, possibly by foreign domination.

That these phases are not widely known or understood he ascribes to the narrow way history is taught, usually focusing on the home country and a limited time period, plus the fact that it will tend to be taught in a propagandistic manner.

Since the accumulation of wealth seems to be a driving force, he speculates that a small country that never attains much wealth might dodge some of these negatives.

Rome is an anomaly, but he thought Rome really had two successive empires.

He mentions that he doesn't know much about the history of China or other oriental areas, but the opinion of a Chinese accelerator physicist of my acquaintance suggests that a similar phenomenon would go on there, but China was too large and powerful to be conquered from the outside, so they would have periodic revolutions on the same time scale as decadence set in.

Glubb's explanations for why this all happens are quite compelling, and he shows that it's a pattern followed by all great empires irrespective of their religion or political philosophy. How it ends for the empire may differ considerably, with Spain for instance simply shrinking back to it's original borders and not being over run by invaders, while others were not so fortunate.

His summary at the end of his work is below in bold lettering:

As numerous points of interest have arisen

in the course of this essay, I close with a brief

summary, to refresh the reader’s mind.

(a) We do not learn from history because

our studies are brief and prejudiced.

(b) In a surprising manner, 250 years

emerges as the average length of national

greatness.

(c) This average has not varied for 3,000

years. Does it represent ten generations?

(d) The stages of the rise and fall of great

nations seem to be:

The Age of Pioneers (outburst)

The Age of Conquests

The Age of Commerce

The Age of Affluence

The Age of Intellect

The Age of Decadence.

(e) Decadence is marked by:

Defensiveness

Pessimism

Materialism

Frivolity

An influx of foreigners

The Welfare State

A weakening of religion.

(f) Decadence is due to:

Too long a period of wealth and power

Selfishness

Love of money

The loss of a sense of duty.

(g) The life histories of great states are

amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.

(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are

largely the result of external causes.

(i) History should be taught as the history

of the human race, though of course with

emphasis on the history of the student’s own

country.

Hint; we are now in the age of decadence.

Those trying to create a worldwide totalitarian government might find that, should they do so, they will end up with an empire that will itself decay. What would come after would be uncertain, but most likely it would be a sort of fragmentation into small countries, along with massive bloodshed.

In the early 1950s Isaac Asimov wrote a science fiction trilogy entitled The Foundation Trilogy, still sold and read today. A synopsis at the left leaning Wikipedia is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series

The premise is that far in the future there is a civilization spanning the entire galaxy, humans only. A mathematician develops a mathematical version of social science based on treating various rules of human behavior that work only when applied to vast numbers of people, a sort of human statistical mechanics. ( I doubt that it would work myself, since I think people in various cultures think differently, and would therefore react differently in different situations. But it makes a good story.) The upshot is that he predicts the crumbling of the empire leading to a dark age, so he contrives to have a foundation set up to study the problem and compile knowledge in an encyclopedia to help people recover from the inevitable collapse. The foundation ended up located at the edge of the galaxy, far from the center of power since the Government was happy to oblige and get him and his troublemakers as far away as possible. The foundation's real purpose is to provide the nucleus of a new civilization which will expand as the old one crumbles, most of the three books covered the subsequent events. (Asimov was interested in the Roman Empire and many parallels thereto show up in his writings. As a PhD chemist he would have to have been subjected to a course in thermodynamics, no doubt providing the impetus for applying mathematics to masses of people, as is done with molecules.)

Therein lies thought for the rest of us.

As our civilization crumbles those of us with what you might call an original American mindset may indeed form a sort of nucleus for the following civilization, and to do so it's mostly just a matter of keeping on keeping on. I don't think we need to set up something like the Foundation, but I think it's already happening organically as people are moving from blue to red states and vice versa.

If we can avoid going into civil war we just have to wait out the collapse of old empire, which means making an effort to retain American civilization, and preparing in such a way that the dying civilization doesn't drag us down as well. We need to maintain ourselves at an early stage of this civilizational evolution, such as not being overly concerned with making money (but not under concerned.) To do so requires that we remain armed and free, otherwise we will be dragged down with it. Being armed helps one maintain a free mind-set. To be free, we must be prepared generally. I have had the thought that, as part of preparedness, everyone should try to learn the basics of at least one pre-industrial skill.

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself." ~ George Washington

If we can do that we cannot be controlled to the extent our would be overlords would like, but beware of medicine men.

"A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted." ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Stay Brave, Stay Free