1/ On another topic, I'm reading Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook by Lutrwak and just put 2 and 2 together and realized that he's the same guy who wrote The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, which I read back in college (I double majored in Computer Science & Roman history)
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3/ A friend asked "so, these German tribes that invaded - they came out of nowhere, right?". And, well, that is the popular narrative. But, actually, no, the Romans were in DEEP contact with the German tribes for CENTURIES. And there wasn't a hard border. It was soft.
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4/ Lots of trade, lots of population flow. Lots of technological diffusion (both, e.g. metallurgical, but also social tech - in both directions!). As the centuries went on the border became less distinct in some ways. There were German speaking troops in the legions.
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5/ The analogy occurred to me the other day that the Roman / German border was similar in many ways to the US / Mexican border. How many American citizens are there living on our side of the border, working for Border Patrol ... and w the last name "Gonzalez" ?
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6/ Towards the end, yes, there was pressure on the German tribes from the east, and there was massive migration all over the ruins of the empire. That's the popular narrative. "One day the walls fell and the barbarbians swept in". There's some truth there, but ...
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7/ Another way to think of it is to put it into the realm of science fiction / historical analogy. To return to the US / Mexico story, push the tale forward 100 years. Arizona is having a bit of a fiscal crisis, central control from DC is weakening, Arizona taxes >
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8/ aren't being collected, and the teacher's union is angry because pensions aren't getting paid. Now the head of the local unit of the Border Patrol, a GS-18 named "Gonzalez", decides to step in and start collecting taxes and paying the teachers and paving the roads.
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9/ He's not disloyal to the US government that he theoretically reports to. (Even tho USG hasn't paid him or his men salary in 3 years). And he's not loyal to the Mexican federal government either. However, he does recruit troops and paving crew from both sides of the border.
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10/ Things are going decently in Arizona under Gonzalez, but pretty soon the Oklahoma National Guard (which also hasn't been paid in 15 years at this point) decides to invade Arizona and collect some taxes. Gonzalez pushes back, gets some more troops from Baja California ...
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11/ And that scares off Oklahoma Nation Guard, who decides to (a) recruit some cartel troops from .mx, and also head north into Kansas to collect some taxes there. This whole thing plays out over centuries or decades And meanwhile, the teacher's union in Arizona LOVES Gonzalez
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12/ Gonzalez paves the roads, and pays the pensions, unlike those feckless bastards in DC, who haven't deployed the official US Army west of the Mississippi in 40 years (except to invade Chicago, for some reason, during the civil war of 2099).
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13/ High school kids looking back at this from the year 4,000 AD think "OK, so the US fell apart because of lead pipes and the water supply - and then Mexico invaded. Got it. I'm just curious, tho - why did we never hear about Mexico before 2100 AD?"
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