President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
Professor Harper has produced a wonderful case study that demands a general rethinking of how we view the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. It turns much of the earlier views on Rome’s decline into surface explanations and places the chance happenings of nature in a driver’s seat that we can barely comprehend. It should also give us pause in how we think about the future.
