Section Three:

Once upon a time, a Crusader met a Saracen in battle. The Saracen struck the Crusader's neck, a blow which the good knight believed must have missed, since he felt none the worse in the immediate sequel. What was his surprise a few hours later, therefore, when he tugged at his forelock and his head came off.

--An Anecdote attributed to De Joinville.

1955 A.D.
Rome, 172 B.C.: War between Rome and Macedonia.

1958 A.D.
China, 342 B.C.: The ruler of Ch'in acquires the title of Hegemon.

1959 A.D.
Rome, 168 B.C.: Rome defeats Macedonia at Pydna.

Rome, 168 B.C.: Macedonia is placed under a Roman governor. Rome is increasingly seen as world hegemon.

1967 A.D.
Egypt, 1580 B.C.: Ka-mose the Hyskos.

1971 A.D.
China, 329 B.C.: Ch'u conquers and annexes Yueh.

1977 A.D.
Egypt, 1570 B.C.: Reign begins of Ah-mose I of Thebes. Native revival.

China, 323 B.C.: Ch'u and Ch'i, after years of conflict, sign a peace convention mediated by Ch'in.

1978 A.D.
Rome, 149 B.C.: Third Punic War begins.

1980 A.D.
Rome, 147 B.C.: Rome destroys Carthage and Corinth; Greece comes under Roman control.

Islam, 1354 A.D.: The Turks take Gallipoli.

1989 A.D.
China, 311 B.C.: Ch'u loses a critical strategic pass to Ch'in.

1992 A.D.
Islam, 1366 B.C.: The Turks make Adrianople their capital, thus dooming Constantinople.

In each world, too, the political and military facts of this period are modified not only by the particulars of strategy as they relate to each civilization's geography and technical competence, but also by each culture's general style, something which applies as much to international relations as it does to its arts or philosophy. In China, warfare was almost continuous. Nearly every year, the major powers would be in combat either against each other or one of their smaller neighbors. Nothing was left implicit in this culture's international life. Economic capacity which was developed for strategic reasons was used to fight actual wars, not as an implied threat. Alliances were formed not to prevent wars but to fight them. All the while, an intricate diplomatic dance was played out according to forms which went back to the beginnings of the international system in the early days of the Chou Dynasty. (That institution, the theoretical centerpiece of the civilized world's political life, had fallen into honored decay centuries before in a way strongly reminiscent of the Holy Roman Empire in the later West.) This system of conflict and negotiation, however, almost never had the effect of preventing the outbreak of hostilities; it existed to facilitate them, to direct what would otherwise have been a chaos of all-against-all into the rational forms required by state policy.

The contrast with the later West is instructive. Both these civilizations assumed that the world was governed by impersonal, order-creating forces. But whereas in China during this cycle of civilization these forces were always thought of as being closely bound up with particular material bodies, the West assumed the existence of wholly disembodied forces, working in empty space. Western statesmen (if not soldiers) flattered themselves with the belief that they did not have to fight a conflict to be able to predict its outcome. Thus, the most curious effect of the strategic planning for cataclysmic future wars which became a staple of Western statecraft was to dispense with the need for actual fighting. In China, on the other hand, it was tactical theory which emphasized the possibility of victory through symbolic manipulation, without the need for a literal clash of arms.

The irony, therefore, was that in many ways this period marked the beginning of a lessening of military tension for the West, in that war came to command less and less of the attention of civil society. (Much the same thing happened in Classical civilization, where the most severe international conflicts of its history had already occurred.) Military forces could be large, but only at the very end of the modern period would they again be composed of conscripted civilians. The paradox is that even in the West, the number and intensity of military engagements began to rise. The lack of major strategic opponents made the possible consequences of small wars less costly.

Within the boundaries of the West, this period was entirely peaceful, continuing the style of statecraft invented at the beginning of the modern era. In this world, the exchange of information was seen to be as important as physical events. Where other civilizations might enter into half a generation of warfare to confirm the implications of a balance of forces which was apparent to all intelligent observers at the beginning, Western nations simply exchanged notes. Where victory in other civilizations meant the annexation of enemy territories or even the annihilation of other states, for the West the price of defeat in even the most terrible war might be no more than the co-optation of the hostile powers into international advisory councils and bureaucratic structures. However, while in principle these international bodies served the interests of the permanent alliance of which the United States was the lynchpin, they did tend to take on a life of their own.

Though in many ways the international system of the Classical Mediterranean was more primitive than either that of pre-Han China or of the later West, it did resemble the later Western international system in that so much of it consisted of alien societies. The rulers of almost all the states with which Rome had to deal had Hellenic educations, they read the Greek classics and conducted much of their official business according to Greek models. Only a step or two below the aristocracy, however, traditional forms of life and thought went on with only the most superficial influence from the dominant civilization. This meant that the Romans often communicated at cross-purposes with the people they were attempting to bring within their system. While Roman domestic politics was intensely personal, the state was impersonal, numinous, embodied only by the assembly of the citizens. The Republic was based on the rejection of sacred kingship. Even dictatorship, when it occurred, was a constitutional office. All citizens recognized that the state had interests and purposes beyond those of its ephemeral rulers. Thus, repeatedly, the Romans found themselves at loggerheads with states whose submission they thought they had secured. In fact, the people in question thought that they had only been required to offer transitory tribute. When a neighboring king died, those whom he had overawed would generally feel themselves freed from any obligation to remain in submission to his successors. The tendency to regard the Republic as just another ephemeral sovereign caused no end of grief.

In many ways, in fact, this was the period in which Alexander's legacy seemed to be unraveling. The Hellenistic empire of the Seleucidae in Syria showed itself quite incapable of suppressing the nativistic religious revolt in Judea, while Parthia threatened the whole region from the east. All of the post-Alexandrine monarchies were rapidly going native to one degree or another. While many aspects of Greek culture could be enjoyed in isolation from the matrix of Hellenistic municipal life, the Greek habits of open government were not among the things which transplanted easily.

In this period, some of the policies and strategies which will make the later world polity possible are devised and fixed in stone. This burst of creativity, however, happens towards the beginning of the period. In several civilizations, there were examples of tactical overreaching. Indeed, this lack of surefootedness is apparent not only among generals, but also among artists, politicians and philosophers. In China, the contending states bite off more than they can chew from each other: what seem to be final victories turn into routs when the victors attempt to hold new territory. In the West, the American attempt to employ the information-theory style of statecraft (developed for the nuclear standoff) to conventional conflicts resulted in defeats wherever it was tried. As a military analyst would later remark, "We would not have lost so many planes if their defenses had not been so primitive."

By the end of the period, however, none of these missteps can be shown to have significantly influenced the course of events. The state of the international system at the end of the period merely served to clarify the results of the previous, decisive phase of the civilization's history.

This is not to say, however, that even the nucleating nations are quite without problems by the time this epoch reaches its end. Indeed, the long years of close state control of everyday life, coupled with the personal disasters which Realpolitik imposed on ordinary people, have soured the internal society of much of the civilized world. In most of the world, in fact, this is a period of fundamentally enfeebled societies, nations which cannot be asked to do too much, whose rulers fear to spark revolts even when national independence demands sacrifices. What are called "nucleating nations" were, in fact, simply those which were still capable of conducting a foreign policy directed at the policing of the entire international system. However, a stratum of personal indiscipline and potential political anarchy underlies even the most imposing constitutional and economic edifices by the end of this epoch.