Russia and Ukraine flashpoint

[Dulfite]

Bofferbrauer2 said:

Dulfite said:

That's how humans have always been. The Babylonians made everyone around them look like a joke, the Persian/Medes did the same, then the Greeks under Alexander, then the Romans. While no country since the Romans has been quite as heavily dominant over the rest of the world, the world has always had a super power or two at any time.

The only reason China can compete with the USA is because they have like 3-4 times our population. If you evened the populations then their GDP would be a joke compared to America right now. USA is the current super power, there is always a super power, just how it is.

You could argue for both the Franks under Charlemagne, who basically conquered all of France, Benelux, Germany, Switzerland, most of Austria, northern Italy and a part of Spain. It was very short-lived because they screwed themselves over with their succession law, instead of the firstborn they divided up the entire country by all of their sons. Without that law after Charlemagne's death, they probably would be reigning over most, if not all of Europe by now.

Another short-lived one would be the early Arab conquests when they were all united in the 7th century and conquered everything from Persia to Spain and almost trashed the Byzantine Empire. They too broke up soon afterwards, otherwise Islam would be the dominant religion by a long shot.

Finally, you could add the Mongols in their various incarnations, managing to get everything from China to central Europe into their hands, with later conquests also going to the middle east and conquering Persia.

None of them were so long-lived as the Romans, mostly due to succession issues. But during their heights, they were every bit as dominant as the romans were.

When I talk about power, I'm including a lot of things into the collective. What power level your neighbors were when they were conquered and how long your empire lasts are definitely included, so short lived empires or ones that took over a bunch of mostly empty land aren't comparable to what Rome accomplished, which itself isn't comparable to what The Hellenists accomplished, and so on back to the Babylonians. And yes, I'm aware Alexander died and his empire, by the books, split off, but all the lands he conquered remainder culturally unified after for a very long time, some still to this day, which is absolutely insane if you think about it!

Anyway, I'm afraid we are at risk of taking attention away from the Russia/Ukraine situation so I should probably stop this lol