Earlier this week I posted about recurring themes in history, one about China and Taiwan, one of the many continentalist-maritime issues that are highlighted in my three books on maritime trade, How Maritime Trade and the Indian Subcontinent Shaped the World- Ice Age to mid-8th century and The Millennium Maritime Trade Revolution 700-1700, How Asia Loat Maritime Supremacy and forthcoming, The Ascent of Maritime Trade 1700-2025 Enlightening the World. This week’s announcement that Britain has been subject to 90,000 cyber hacks over the past year, mainly from Russia, shows the enduring central Asian threat to the maritime periphery.
Historical Continental Threats
Goths, Alans, Vandals and Huns invaded the Roman Empire, wishing to participate in its wealth. Invited to settle following the 166 AD pandemic and fait accompli of their presence, they did not assimilate and were a strong cause of decline and the onset of the Dark Ages. The resulting European poverty meant that when Genghis Khan and successors led Mongol hordes in every direction, they concentrated on wealthy China (and then Japan and Java). After attacking eastern Europe, they lost interest in further incursions about 1250, concentrating on the still wealthy but declining Abbasid civilisation (because it became devoted to ideology, rejecting rationalism) centred on Baghdad in 1258. Wanton destruction of 500 years of accumulated wealth and wisdom was dumped in the Tigris which reportedly turned black with the ink. Braudel says its weakness was comfort in the ‘conviction of being at the centre of the world, of having found all the right answers, not needing to look for any others’ much like current Eurocentric arrogance?
Lessons for Maritime Powers Today
Russia from geographically the same area occasionally invades adjacent areas and constantly harasses Europe, declining but not yet down-and-out, in cyber warfare. China threatens maritime-influenced Taiwan.
British school history curriculums for teenagers rarely cover anything other than 20th century history. Many contemporary British politicians are historically ignorant. But as Winston Churchill said, ‘The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.’ History does not repeat itself, but geographical themes have a tendency to, and we should learn from them about the inherent dangers.
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Nick Collins 
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