This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I am Gaius, John Bachelors, Michael Blahos,

Germanicus, and Lundinium, enjoying ourselves a cup of wine. We're about to go off to the theater.

More Greeks. However, and I'm told that Euripides is very hard to translate into Latin. So,

they do it in Greek and my Greek is shoddy and I can snooze. I know what they're doing.

However, we're looking at the third, fourth, and fifth and sixth century of the Roman Empire.

When it comes apart, phrase falls down the steps, there are many metaphors, Germanicus.

And one explanation is that the Roman army, which here to four, had been composed of the provinces

of the Mediterranean Empire, Spain to Syria, and Africa and Egypt to Gaul. That had been

the components of the army. 25 legions, the height of the empire, I believe, in the beginning

of the second century AD. But the criticism is that Rome decided that it would hire the savages

that here to four had been our enemies. We'd hire them to patrol our borders and we would

enjoy our prosperity. Increasingly, Rome was separating the very rich from those who worked

for them either the freedmen of Greece or the slaves of the empire. The army deteriorated

and that led to the crushing of the empire by the six and seven century and the move of

the shingle from Rome to Byzantium. That is a lesson learned not to let the army deteriorate.

Is the US committing itself to that path by challenging NATO to match the US?

The US is falling into the same issues of military effectiveness and how to keep it at a level

that will ensure the survival and security of the empire. I'd put the US in third century

Roman territory right now. In the third century, the Roman Empire collapsed. It was put

back together but it was done in a bifurcated way. Instead of having legions, they were all

rooted in tribal community connection and had a sense of bonding even when they became

professionals and were recruited from outside of Italy. They still were very tight-knit units.

...