To hold territory, a state must be populated by those loyal to the central authority. When immigration overwhelms assimilation, the fall is predicted.
In the summer of 376 AD, the Roman Emperor, Valens, agreed to allow a very large tribe of Goths to settle in Thrace. He could not have imagined that this decision would set in motion events which led to the Empire’s total defeat at Adrianople and, ultimately, the sack of Rome. It was in Thrace, an Eastern province, where the Goths first settled. After they migrated into Italy and sacked Rome, it was the West that granted this very same band of brigands a homeland in southern Gaul, proving to the barbarian world that rebellion would be rewarded.
In the East, the disastrous policy of settling whole tribes inside imperial borders was abandoned. Moreover, the East never lost its devotion to the realm. The citizens of Constantinople proudly proclaimed themselves Romans until the last day of their empire in 1453. During the second, third, and fourth decades of the fifth century the West continued to admit vast numbers of Germans into the Western Empire under the terms of formal treaties, while they fecklessly allowed Roman localities to be plundered and, ultimately, subjugated by these same new arrivals. Consequently, in large swaths of the West, Romanization and a commensurate loyalty to the central government continued to disintegrate. The result was that often whole Western regiments failed to report for battle while others even defected to the German side.
Today, all across Europe, in Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, there are huge numbers of “no go” zones (over 180 in France alone). These zones are inhabited by unassimilated Muslims where the police will not enter; where sharia courts, not Euro common law, are increasingly the legal authority; and where home-grown terrorists are cultivated and attacks are planned. In 2008, British Intelligence services were following two thousand potential terrorists, two hundred radical Islamic networks, and thirty active terrorist plots.
Law #1: No nation has ever survived once its citizenry ceased to believe its culture worth saving. (Hanson’s Law)
Law #2: In battle, free men almost always defeat slaves. (Herodotus’ Law)
Law #3: Appeasement of a ruthless outside power always invites aggression. Treaties made with ruthless despots are always fruitless and dangerous.
Law #4: If a people cannot avoid continuous internal warfare, they will have a new order imposed from without.
Law #5: When a free people, through taxation, is deprived of its ability to acquire wealth and property, collapse is presaged.
Law #7: With the loss of fiscal solvency comes a loss of sovereignty.
Law #8: Debasing the currency always destabilizes the governing authority.
Law #9: When a civilization accepts the propaganda of its enemy as truth, it has reached the far side of appeasement and capitulation is nigh.
Law #10: Declining civilizations will always face superior firepower from ascending civilizations because sovereignty is only temporarily uncontested.
