Opinion | National security elite ignore needs of the people at their own peril

When leaders become predatory through corruption and infighting, their empire or civilisation risks falling through a combination of internal collapse and foreign invasion

Today, elite interests are increasingly out of touch with those of the masses, who want peace, stability, better jobs and healthcare, leading to a loss of public trust

Reading Time:3 minutes

South Korean K-2 tanks fire during a joint South Korea-US military drill at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, South Korea, on June 15. Keeping the military onside is an essential task for any ruler hoping to defend their country’s national interests and expand their influence. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 3:30am, 17 Jun 2023Updated: 5:08am, 17 Jun 2023

Every empire has its grand historian to explain its successes more than its failures. In 1776, when Adam Smith published his classic The Wealth of Nations, British essayist Edward Gibbon wrote an equally famous text, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The year 1776 was an historical turning point, when Britain faced the loss of its American colonies even as it focused on conquering India 19 years after the British East India Company’s victory in the 1757 Battle of Plassey against the Mughal empire and their French allies.

Gibbon attributed the Roman fall to four principal causes, which persisted across more than 1,000 years: the “injuries of time and nature”; the hostile attacks of the Barbarians and the Christians; the use and abuse of materials; and, the domestic quarrels of the Romans. His warnings apply even today, even though he was reminding the rising British elite what to look out for in their bid for empire.

The Roman empire was built on conquest. Its legions were legendary, but the elite core that defended Rome’s consuls, procurators and emperors were the Praetorian Guard, who played a significant role in the intelligence, logistics and national security functions of the empire.

The Roman empire rose as the effectiveness of Roman military discipline and organisation overwhelmed all enemies. The Praetorian Guard was the core staff between the consul and his legions. They also operated as the intelligence arm of the empire, involved in strategy, logistics, information couriers and diplomacy with allies and enemies alike.

Within Rome, as the elite charged with defending the capital, the Praetorian Guard later became kingmakers since weak emperors needed to have the military on their side. They took part in the assassination of at least one emperor and helped put several others on the throne.

Fast forward to World War I. Amid Europe’ ruinous self-destruction, German polymath Oswald Spengler wrote The Decline of the West, positing that empires or civilisations have the same human biological cycle of birth, life and death. He speculated that the West would enter a crisis and that two centuries of Caesar-inspired concentration of power into one leader would lead to the collapse of Western civilisation. He also warned in his 1933 work Man and Technics that the spread of Western technology to hostile “coloured races” would be used against the West.

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