I watched two history documentaries yesterday. One was about Ancient Greece, and the other one was about Napoleon’s invasion of Moscow.
In the Ancient Greek one, as the Persians were invading, the Greeks evacuated Athens and lured the Persians into it. It was a bold and self-sacrificing move, but it ultimately enabled the Greeks to win and brought defeat and disgrace to the invaders.
In the Napoleon one, the Russians evacuated Moscow (and burned most of the city and countryside around it) and lured the French into it. It was a bold and self-sacrificing move, but it ultimately enabled the Russians to win and brought defeat and disgrace to the invaders.
Now, I’m not saying the situations were identical. The Greeks’ triumph was a Naval one, whereas the Russians just let nature take its course on the French army in an abandoned city with no food in wintertime. I’m just saying that you start to see the same things happening again and again in history.
You may find my blog posts boring, but when your Capital city is being invaded by the army of a Foreign Emperor, you’ll thank me.
History is a series of people making the same choices in similar situations. Those who understand history know how those in previous situations won or survived and those who don’t understand history eventually suffer the consequences. Too many of our politicians don’t understand history or we would have never been involved in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan…
History is a series of people making the same choices in similar situations. Those who understand history know how those in previous situations won or survived and those who don’t understand history eventually suffer the consequences. Too many of our politicians don’t understand history or we would have never been involved in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan…
You are right–too often, leaders either are ignorant of history, or worse, so arrogant that they think “It can’t happen to me–I’m too good.”
Ego, greed, money, insanity all too often play a major part too.
Case in point: this interview where Ted Cruz answers a question saying “I wasn’t alive then”.