[Wrecked944]

Guys, I refer you again to the "bean" analogy. The Roman Empire was well designed and operated with a high degree of competence. So it took a LOT of factors to bring about its demise. You can throw in the use of mercenary armies over citizen soldiers. You can include the change of allegiance of the military from the state to the emperor (and/or individual generals) which undermined the stability of the state. You can cite the unexpected influx of central asian refugee populations. You can also argue that the empire required continued conquests in order to maintain its economy and that the stabilization of the borders marked the beginning of the end.

There are a zillion different theories and they may all be correct.The empire was too well designed and functioned too well to fall for just one reason.

But back to Rodeo's original point. I do believe there are some lessons to be learned from past empires. For instance, I am impressed that Rome always made it a point to rebuild conquered lands better than - actually FAR better than - they were before. So more than one nation essentialy "gave" themselves to Rome on the theory that joining the empire would be a great boon - which was usually true. I suggest we should have done something similar in Iraq. Had we devoted enough troops and spent a couple of trillian dollars to make Iraq a paradise, then I suggest we may not have the problems we have now. If every Iraqi woke up every day feeling glad that we rebuilt their towns, gave them great schools and jobs etc , then we'd be in great shape now.

Of course, when the Romans did it, they always devoted an enormous military force to make sure nothing went wrong during the reconstruction. So we'd need to have put a LOT more boots on the ground as well.