Edward Gibbon wrote in his classic "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" of the eventual dominance of the barbarians over that epoch’s "superpower":
Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue fortify the strength and courage of barbarians. In every age they have oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China, India, and Persia, who neglected, and still neglect, to counterbalance these natural powers by the resources of military art. The warlike states of antiquity, Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, educated a race of soldiers: exercised their bodies, disciplined their courage, multiplied their forces by regular evolutions, and converted the iron which they possessed into strong and serviceable weapons. But this superiority insensibly declined with their laws and manners;
Does this not sound familiar? Gibbon wrote it in 1788. "In every age" the barbarians did what barbarians do: attack and destroy civilized peoples. You cannot change this reality- unless the "barbarians" become civilized- at which point they are no longer "barbarians."
It is only logical that there are two required actions that civil societies must take in light of this reality: maintain a strong defense against attack, and at the same time try to make the wild enemies civil. Is this not what President Bush is doing today in Iraq and Afghanistan? Are not the Islamofascists the latest incarnation of the classic barbarian?
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As Gibbon reminds us, we cannot allow our superiority to be cut back- lest we join Rome and become the second fall of the West. I just have to believe that a Democrat- controlled federal government will mean a drawdown of the US military- surely an "insensible decline"…
