MAIN IDEA

This book is not just about the history of destroyed
civilizations but also about applying the lessons of this destruction to the
contemporary world. Here is how the author defines his main point:” Naïveté,
hubris, flawed assessments of relative strengths and weaknesses, the loss of
deterrence, new military technologies and tactics, totalitarian ideologies, and
a retreat to fantasy can all explain why these usually rare catastrophic events
nevertheless keep recurring—from the destruction of the Inca Empire to the end
of the Cherokee nation to the genocide of a populous, vibrant, and
Yiddish-speaking prewar Jewish people in Central and Eastern Europe. The
continual disappearance of prior cultures across time and space should warn us
that even familiar twenty-first-century states can become as fragile as their
ancient counterparts, given that the arts of destruction march in tandem with
improvements in defense. The gullibility, and indeed ignorance, of contemporary
governments and leaders about the intent, hatred, ruthlessness, and capability
of their enemies are not surprising. The retreat to comfortable nonchalance and
credulousness, often the cargo of affluence and leisure, is predictable given
unchanging human nature, despite the pretensions of a postmodern
technologically advanced global village.” And, just in case somebody missed
this point, the author adds:”Unfortunately, the more things change
technologically, the more human nature stays the same—a law that applies even
to the United States, which often believes it is exempt from the misfortunes of
other nations, past and present. This book makes clear, however, that there is
no certainty that as scientific progress accelerates and leisure increases, and
as the world shrinks on our computer and television screens, there is any
corresponding advance in wisdom or morality, much less radical improvement in
innate human nature.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

This is a great description of what happens when people become too self-assured, try to find a compromise with enemies who are clearly looking to destroy these people and refuse to fight seriously until it is too late. I think that the author’s diagnosis is pretty much correct. I can understand when people believe that it would be already too late to save the USA and Western civilization from destruction by barbarians, whether these barbarians are Islamic religious fundamentalists living mentally in the 7^th century or they are Chinese communists striving to remake the XX century, or they are Russian imperialists dreaming to bring the world into XIX century with global dominance of Russian Empire, which in historical XIX century Russia failed to achieve. 

I am much more optimistic than that, mainly because of the war in Ukraine, which demonstrated the huge technological superiority of even older Western weapons and the barbarians’ clear inability to be effective and efficient in their attacks. Another interesting point is the barbarians’ economic dependence on the somewhat civilized world, which leaves the moral weakness of the Western population as the one and only reason for the barbarians’ hope to achieve their objectives. 

However, human psychology is not something constant and can change really fast. It was clearly demonstrated by the recent attack of Islamic barbarians on Israel. Initially successful due to the bureaucratic ossification of the Israeli army and political divisions in the society, it failed to break this society, consequently leading to the massive violent response that clearly was not anticipated by the aggressor due to decades of previous weak responses. Similarly, Russian aggression against Ukraine changed the calculation of European leaders and led to a much stronger, even if insufficient, response. It is quite possible that this response convinced Chinese leaders that it was too early to attack and that they had to wait until the moral degradation of Western societies reached more significant levels.  

In short, I believe that the impact of leadership failures on the Western population will be big enough to change the attitudes of this population and consequently lead to a change in leadership well before the balance of power will change sufficiently for barbarians to have a good chance for victory. When this happens, the unconstrained use of Western power will make Israel’s slow, constrained, and tentative use of power look miniscule.