Bloomberg
David Fickling
August 12, 2018, 2:00 AM EDT
[excerpt]
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-12/soviet-collapse-echoes-in-china-s-belt-and-road-investment
What causes empires to fall?
According to one influential view, it’s ultimately a question of investment. Great powers are the nations that best harness their economic potential to build up military strength. When they become over-extended, the splurge of spending to sustain a strategic edge leaves more productive parts of the economy starved of capital, leading to inevitable decline.
That should be a worrying prospect for China, a would-be great power whose current phase of growth is associated with an increasingly aggressive military posture and a tsunami of capital spending in its strategic neighborhood.
-------------------------------------------
Emphatically disagree.
As the 5th century dawned, Rome stretched from Hispania
to Mesopotamia and was the wealthiest entity in the world.
Yet within seven decades it had fallen, but why?
Because it had lost its soul; the values and virtues that had
allowed it to survive and thrive, among them self-discipline,
responsibility, courage, loyalty and honor.
So it is w/all nation/states. What they have in their bank account
is a triviality compared to what they have in their heart and soul.
The spiritual sustains us while the material makes us feel good.
Doubt any of our political schmucks ever heard of this reality?