14 Comments
Oct 30Liked by John Birmingham

When the Mongol Empire swept across Asia and Europe it, for a certain point of view, could be considered a positive outcome (certainly some environmental metrics improved). An argument can be made that the empire forged by Genghis Khan could be considered to have made the modern world. I can make this claim because I read a book by Jack Weatherford titled 'Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World'.

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Oct 30Liked by John Birmingham

i must be reading the wrong spots on the internet - this is the first time i've seen it mentioned and i've been busting to see the hot takes ever since it was first hinted at. Severely disappointed up to this point. I guess the circus over in the US is pushing everything off the front page so far.

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Isn't the crucial difference here motivation?

The Mongols were pretty sure about what they wanted (gold) and how they could get it (the ravaged ruins of the conquered towns and cities).

Here, the NK army has no stake in the fight at all, beyond their lives. L'il Kim wants hard(ish) currency and Putin needs a slave-army.

Not sure how it will turn out, but Ukraine appears to be inverting another paradigm: "never get involved in a land war in Asia."

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author

Yeah, it’s a reasonable point. But I’m thinking systemically rather than specifically. When a system that has worked one way for centuries suddenly flips and works another way, things become… disordered.

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So what you are saying if I may paraphrase the Italian writer, politician and political theorist Antonio Gramsci "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters".

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So: situation normal?

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Did we ever do that book club session on the Genghis Khan book?

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That's a trifle simplistic view of the Mongol Empire's goals.

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Of course it's simplistic. This _is_ the internet, you know?

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I was joking with a mate last week and I said something like "Hahaha, fuck I didn't have War in Ukraine triggers new Korean War on my bingo card, but here we fucking are."

I mean, it won't come to that, right? It won't. Probably.

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Hey, we have a Middle Eastern triggered world war to survive first.

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Possibly concurrently, neither seems to have an end.

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Ahem.. Indian soldiers in most theatres of both World Wars…

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No, I've been tracking this.

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