This is the Friends of History debating society. I am Gaius John Bachelor. I welcome

Dramanicus, Mark of Layhose, for a thought experiment. We are in Londonium, 91 AD winter.

The Thames is turbulent. There is no immediate threat to Londonium and hasn't been for some decades now.

We're far from Rome, so we're not bothered by the politics of division. Who is a disappointment?

To the Vace patient fans, he's a disappointment. He's not his father's son. Titus was his father's son.

But in any event, we don't get involved with that. We're surrounded by retired centurions.

We're in the marketplace. There's flooding, but it's south of the Thames. Doesn't bother us. We're

at Quest Class, meaning Greek Friedman, do our labor force. And we don't worry about our farms. We

come on Sundays to drink our cup of wine and then go off to the theater. However, we have the ability

to see 2,000 years ahead. And we can see back as well. But 2,000 years ahead is fetching to us,

because we see that the inheritors of our institutions, chiefly Europeans and after that the Americans,

are in a quandary. They're up against what looks to be invaders from the east.

That we would in our time be the parthians, but in their time the Russians and the Chinese.

And they're struggling to make virtuous remarks and win without getting involved in casually lists.

The Ukrainians are the surrogate army. The Russians are not in need of surrogate. They use Russian troops.

The Chinese have stayed out. That's the condition now. But the thought experiment is not what happens

next in the year 2023. It's what does the year 2023 imagine the year 21-23? Well, it looks like.

And I've told you, Manicus, I would set it up this way. In 1923 the two powers on the earth

were France and Britain, the putative winners of the Great War. Their subordinate,

Dutiful subordinate, was the United States of America. A man named Harding, Warren Harding was

the president. A man named Charles Evans Hughes was Secretary of State. And in Washington,

this is how long ago it was. It was a gathering in 1922 that led to a treaty, a naval treaty.

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