How empires fall

A frequent theme in science fiction and fantasy literature is the fall of a great civilization or empire. Usually there is a young hero involved, someone who helps launch or galvanize a social upheaval against an evil and corrupt leadership and political structure.

In history there are seldom pivotal moments where simple farmers walk away from their former lives and become great war heroes. The ancient Roman general Cincinattus is a rare example of a man who answered the call to duty, performed his duty, and then returned to his former lifestyle.

I recently read an article about the decline of great empires and their militaries but I neglected to bookmark it for future reference. Today I noticed an article on CNN about the United States' increasing dependence upon contractors. I cannot help but think of how the Roman military gradually transformed itself into a non-Roman military organization.

When you think about it, our military is moving away from the classic model of the citizen soldier. We are developing remote-controlled technology to deploy on the battlefield. The CIA and military now regularly use remote-controlled aircraft to attack distant enemies. Soldiers may one day control robots that into battle for them on the ground.

As we combine our use of contractors with technology, we move further into the field of deploying surrogate troops -- which is exactly what the Romans did, although for other reasons.

The British empire went through a similar process. Like the Romans before them, the British built up a huge empire through efficient armed forces that were often outnumbered. But in order to maintain that empire the British relied upon foreign soldiers: Hessian mercenaries who fought against the American rebels, Indian armies that had originally been raised and equipped by the East India Company, and others.

The burden of maintaining vast frontiers becomes too expensive for any empire because frontier lands seldom if ever produce much profit. The Spanish Empire lasted for a couple of hundred years by importing tons of gold and silver from the Americas but eventually the impoverished populations of the Spanish provinces rose up and rebelled.

And now the United States is the last major colonial power on Earth. Our neo-colonialism saps the wealth out of foreign economies and relies upon puppet dictatorships to keep the poor nations under control. Okay, maybe that's how we did it in the 1950s but today we're still paying the price for our colonial policies by having to clean up Iraq and Afghanistan, both nations having once served as U.S. surrogates in foreign wars.

The basic model for imperialism remains the same: a powerful civilization exercises undo influence over its less advanced neighbors, drawing upon their resources for its own benefit and defending those resources against other aggressors. Eventually the imperial power loses the ability to sustain its military and the political will to hang on to the resources.

The United States has yet to achieve anything like a Pax Romana, which lasted about 200 years. During that 200 years people in the Roman Empire knew only relative peace. No major wars burned their fields and villages; their young men grew up, led productive lives, and did not think about the glories of war. The Roman armies gradually became more and more dependent upon foreign soldiers.

But it wasn't all just about the military. The Roman economy also transformed itself. The farmers grew tired of farming and they moved to the cities, where there were few if any jobs. The emperors had to keep the city populations happy so they invested in bread and circuses -- free food and free entertainment for everyone. Roman culture developed the ultimate consumer economy.

Of course, in today's America, we have lost many manufacturing jobs -- and many farm jobs. We still grow enough food for ourselves but we import more and more goods and services (through outsourcing). The self-sufficient America that stood up against the AXIS nations during the second world war no longer exists. Our software -- which we're not allowed to export to many nations -- is often written by people in other countries.

History is repeating itself, and science fiction has already acknowledged that fact with many stories about the decline of the United States (think of James Cameron's Dark Angel, for example). Some people would be quick to say we are already in our decline. But perhaps we are still in our ascendancy. Declines don't happen overnight. Their seeds are firmly embedded in the successes that precede them.

It's something to think about.

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