Empires Wax And Wane…

                “Empires wax and wane; states cleave asunder and coalesce.” 

This is the opening line of China’s great 14th century novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms ( San Kuo Chi Yen-i). And while it might have been an accurate description of the Three Kingdoms period, it might also be a real template to examine our own era.  There are many examples of this process since the close of WWII. The most dramatic would be Russia’s hegemony over eastern Europe in the 1940s and 1950s, and then the gradual dissolution of that hegemony with the defection of Yugoslavia, and finally the dramatic disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In the 1990s we saw the breakup of Yugoslavia and the creation of new ethnic-based states. In more recent times in the Middle East and North Africa governments have fallen and tribal and ethnic loyalties have become the basis for nation states. And now we have Ukraine apparently about to “cleave asunder” over ethnic lines. So this week’s question is this: Do you agree that the breakup of states is inevitable, or do you think that national stability is a possibility? Log in and post your thoughts.