Historically, Russia and China's strategy as continental empires involves avoiding two-front wars and actively destabilizing neighboring states. This creates buffer zones and prevents any single power from becoming a threat on their borders, ensuring their own security through regional instability.

The centralizing technologies of the 20th century (mass media, mass production) are being superseded by decentralizing ones (internet, crypto). This is causing history to "run in reverse," with modern events mirroring 19th-century patterns like the rise of robber baron-like figures and the fracturing of empires.

Societal decline doesn't have to be a painful collapse. A wealthy culture can enjoy a long, comfortable "sunset period" by remaining open to importing technologies, ideas, and services from rising powers. The Byzantium Empire's 1000-year decline was sustained this way. The alternative is isolation and rapid decay.

Openness is a tool for dominance, not just a moral virtue. The Romans became powerful by being strategically tolerant, quickly abandoning their own methods when they found better ones elsewhere. This allowed them to constantly upgrade their military, technology, and knowledge from conquered peoples.

The two dominant powers, Rome and Persia, engaged in a decades-long, civilization-shattering war that left both empires fiscally and militarily broken. This created a massive power vacuum, allowing newly unified Arab tribes to expand with astonishing speed into unguarded territories.

With the U.S. stepping back from its traditional leadership role, European countries are creating new, direct alliances to ensure their own security. A notable example is the emerging UK-Scandinavia-Baltic-Poland axis, which signals a fundamental shift in the continent's geopolitical architecture away from a singular reliance on Washington.

A language's global status is a function of the social, political, and economic power of its speakers. English, once considered a "crude" language spoken on an island, spread through imperialism and the economic rise of English-speaking nations, not because it is an inherently better or simpler language.

Unlike the personal, lord-vassal ties defining Western European power, Byzantine society was built around a centralized, institutional emperor. Western visitors were awed by the grandeur but found the courtly protocols and lack of personal access to the emperor to be distant and arrogant.

Faced with the shocking rise of the Arab Empire, Byzantines questioned if their use of religious icons was angering God. The success of the aniconic Arabs suggested that adopting a stricter, image-free worship might be the key to divine favor and military survival.