None of what's going on has any of the scent of the folks who'd most want to do it. The players who could be doing it have little reason to want to at present. This one's mainly internal, I think, and has been simmering for a long time. We'll see just how long it can simmer for before it boils over. White Knight brings up the (western) Roman Empire and it's instructive to remember that nation's decline lasted centuries before it finally collapsed, not mere years or decades, with a number of short-term revivals here and there mixed within. The formerly great Spanish empire also took an exceedingly long time to break apart. As a spectator in realtime it's hard to keep perspective on events that may ultimately span multiple human lifetimes. Granted there are cases where the end comes quickly, like the French and Russian revolutions. The speed of sthose events tended to take even the participants by surprise.
Danth
|