Barbarians at the Gate

Invaders don't win. Defenders lose.

If we're fretting about our own Golden Age falling to usurpers, let us remember that barbarians don't operate in a vacuum.

The Khwarazmian (Persian) Empire was corrupt and rife with elite infighting before the Mongols arrived. 

Barbarians also don't come empty handed.

Many cities saw the deal Genghis Khan was offering and decided it was better than the status quo.

Pax Mongolica initially decimated the citizenry and traditional elites, but merchants and minorities flourished with greater protections for pan-Empire trade and religion.

Fast forward to the 20th Century.

The once-powerful do not have a monopoly on victim narratives. 

Developing countries decry the IMF and World Bank imposing neo-colonial Structural Adjustment Programs, taking advantage of their financial distress to destroy homegrown governance structures and industries.

But economic mismanagement by indigenous elites arguably caused their woes in the first place. Technocracy is an improvement on statism.

(Poor countries cannot claim to be Guinea pigs in a neo-liberal experiment. Some of the first conditional bailouts were tested on Imperialists-par-excellence the UK in the 1970s).

If societal overthrow was an unalloyed disaster then humanity would have wiped itself out long ago. The uncomfortable truth is that in many cases, while conquerors hasten a culture's diminution, they also seed its regrowth.

To present day.

First World countries have done their share of supplanting. They have arguably freed nations from tribalism, communalism, and communism. Yet, there is growing complaint that their 'way of life' is besieged, be it by foreign forces or by the liberalism they once championed.

What is the developed world defending?

Paralysis. Its vast resources captured by interest groups and voting blocs. The best it can do is piece-meal performative compassion. Doling out concessions to manage tensions betwen property rights and human rights leaves little capital for defence, climate change, public order, or planning reform.

An increasingly regulated welfare state. What a prize.

Perhaps a better question to ask is, "What is the developed world defending itself from?"

Ask my Canberra-adjacent mates about China and they use the words "allies" and "First Island Chain" a lot. Meanwhile, their missuses say "Temu" and "Shein".

One sees cunning aggressors. The other sees affordable essentials. Prudence dictates we shun both, lest the latter be a Trojan horse for the former.

So we mumble "standards" as we raise the drawbridge on houses the price of cars, cars the price of scooters, and expertise for cents on the dollar. Fixes to the 'Cost of Living Crisis' are a greyed-out click away.

If on the other side of the barricades are a deluge of superior tech and skill, perhaps we are the barbarians propping them up.

(This opinion did not need to be written by AI to be awful.)