Global Strategy - blog

Does this sound familiar: one language and cultural heritage dominates business, arts and science across regional borders; first national leader who has African origins; increasingly complex and sophisticated economic system has diffused to the most peripheral regions of the globe; the leading nation is tied in a variety of military conflicts in South West Asia and simultaneously prepares for possible / probable conflicts in Balkan and North-East Europe?

Yes: the correct answer is both US (now) and Rome (roughly 1800 years ago). History does not repeat itself etc. and other criticism from professional historians yet we still know lot more about history than future. Also, we have serious academic research that tautologically demonstrates similar tendencies in a variety of evolutionary processes. Organizational ecologists, for instance, have produced massive evidence about some law-like elements in industry evolution. These structural similarities can be found in any given industry and are rather easily transferrable to almost any managerial realm – or rather could be transferred if business executives would like to hear all the bad news resulting from ecological research.

A more relevant academic angle to US – Rome comparison is the group of research that focuses on the rise and fall of big nations. Especially, Paul Kennedy and Jared Diamond should be obligatory reading for everyone doing any significant political or economic decisions. A more fundamental angle to these questions relates to the functioning of any large systems (biological, political etc.) as discussed, for example, here: edge.org or here: santafe.edu

Yet back to Rome. The fall of Rome has probably been one of the most studied subjects in the world history. And for good reasons: 500 hundredths years of cultural, political and economic dominance just collapsed in the West resulting in severe drop in living standards, technology and other important areas of life. ‘Just collapsed’ is the correct description according to modern researchers as the Roman administrative and economic system was even surprisingly robust until the very last decades before the last emperors. For an amateur historian, it seems that the fall of Western parts of the Roman empire was a function of some bad luck in decisive military operations (like the unsuccessful attacks to North-Africa), rising sophistication of the previously barbarian German tribes and the gradual loss of tax income needed for the professional military units.

In any case, the Roman Empire manifested longevity and overall sophism in administration and economic issues – one argument is that it took almost thousand years to recover the level of economic complexity in the Roman Empire after the German tribes overtook Rome in the 5th century. As US today, Rome exhibited large-scale cultural dominance in terms of language and habits – in fact, it was impossible to be an elite member of the society without perfect knowledge in Latin (excuses for my barbarian English dialect). Also, the Roman economic system in terms of mass production (bounded by the technology of a proto-industrial society) and complex trade relationships had equal characteristics than our contemporary world-order. Differences may be found as easily as similarities. Late Roman emperors were primarily promoted from leading army officers, there was no democratic system as we define one today and Rome never acquired a global hegemony due to limitations in logistics and technology. However, the election of Barack Obama reminded me about the importance of understanding life-cycles of any social system. As it happens, I was reading the biography of Septimus Severus who was the Roman emperor in 193-211. According to history books, Septimus Severus re-organized harshly both civil and military organization and turned Rome again to a healthier trajectory after Commodus and other not so capable emperors. The interesting thing here is that Septimus Severus originated to North-Africa and thus meant a radical change in the Roman meritocracy. If Obama will receive similar position in the US history we need to wait another two or three centuries before a truly new world order emerges. I am not sure if this is more positive or negative news yet the summarizing message (in ecological spirit) is that the older and larger a system (in this case a nation) the longer it takes to collapse. Same in business.