The Growths and Deaths of Empires
Classical military empires had typically expanded in oceans of blood and gore. They had often retreated and collapsed in the same way.
History is full of examples of both processes.
To remain stable and strong, military-economic empires that have been established over multinational, multi-ethnic domains need to secure not just the submission and compliance of the subjugated groups, but also some measures of willing participation, belonging, and loyalty from the subjugated nationalities or ethnicities--or at least from subgroups or classes within those.
Indeed, the military personnel of successful, stable empires of the old-fashioned sort almost invariably consisted largely of conscripts recruited from the ranks of the subjugated populations.
Many of us know this from our own family histories of service in the military forces of the British Empire recruited from the subcontinent. These were utilized not just in the subcontinent and adjacent areas such as SE Asia, but in distant theaters, such as West Asia, North Africa, and Europe.
Without the willing contributions of labor and skill from a fair number of those who had been subjugated, an empire is unlikely to last for long.
So some measure of inclusivity is needed for the longer-term survival of an empire, distinguishing it from a shorter-term raiding and looting venture.
Among the more recent empires, we see instances of more stability and so also often more inclusivity in, for instance, the developed Mughal, Ottoman, and British Empires.
We saw this also in the USSR, which inherited the Russian Tsarist Empire. This did not, however, save that vast multiethnic giant from collapse after eighty years of communist party rule that had granted the various regional nationalities and ethnicities far more recognition, including of their diverse cultures, beginning with their languages, than the Tsarist Russian Empire ever had, along with more relative autonomy, while still preserving highly centralized structures.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire saw the rise of strong ethnic nationalisms, such as Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Kurdish. The mayhem that ensued has still not abated.
The British Empire contracted after WWII, with varying degrees of management and violence. The ethnic nationalisms that rose and clashed in the subcontinent also led to mass mayhem and displacement. The echoes of the cries of that bloody partition can still be heard and may even be building in volume, with ominous implications.
In Africa, the British often did not leave without much violence. Kenya is a case in point.
The French did not generally manage their exits from their colonial ventures as adroitly as did the British. One notes the instances of Algeria, a horror story, and Indochina--which had to also deal with imperial Japan and with the USA, with lethal tolls in each case.
One notes what occurred in Yugoslavia during its own collapse. Although, like present-day India and even more so, it could not be considered to be an empire, it was a large, multiethnic state with a history of internecine warfare, mainly that of competing regional kingdoms and empires. Its central government and its diverse populations had been able to overcome that legacy--until the horrors of the 2000s.
One prays that India will not go the way of Yugoslavia--or of Pakistan as occurred in 1970-71.
The collapse of the USSR appeared for quite a while to have managed to be an exception to the general rule of multiethnic empires collapsing into violent conflicts between their constituent nationalities.
However, there was Chechnya, which was in some ways, though not all, an extension of what had begun in Afghanistan under US-Pakistani-Saudi auspices, spreading even as far into the Soviet interior as to strike Moscow, while metastasizing globally.
Putin, who emerged as the Russian strongman, appealing to Russian nationalism even as other fierce, exclusive nationalisms arose in the former components of the USSR, "solved" that Chechen rebellion with brutal force, as he did the one in Daghestan.
Since the Western-backed coup in Kiev in 2014, a lethal civil war had been ongoing in Eastern Ukraine, with the USA, especially during Trump's first term and continuing into Biden's presidency, pouring huge amounts of arms into Ukraine. Then came the Russian invasion of 2022 February. The mayhem continues and widens.
Within the US homeland, we note the increase in inclusivity that was the trend during parts of the last century and the first quarter of this century, embracing, to varying degrees:
- the long-exploited and oppressed descendants of African slaves;
- the few surviving members of the indigenous peoples;
- the large numbers of newer immigrants, including those from places other than Europe.
Sadly, we have been seeing sharp reversals of these trends over the past several months, with slower ones accruing over some past administrations.
Is it possible that the federation that is the US homeland will break up in the near future? One cannot rule that out, although that would be a grim chapter.
2025 September 18, Thurs.
Berkeley, California
