{"id":8678,"date":"2025-01-26T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=8678"},"modified":"2025-01-13T14:15:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T19:15:36","slug":"the-end-of-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/the-end-of-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"THE END OF EVERYTHING"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes what is true in macrocosm is true in microcosm. Reading military historian Victor Davis Hanson\u2019s 2024 book \u201cThe End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation\u201d <\/a>reminded me of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanson goes into scrupulous detail of cases across the millennia of nations utterly crushed, and city-states razed to the ground with their population enslaved or wiped out. With each, he analyzes the mistakes by defeated leaders, virtually all of which reminds someone who does what I do for a living that the very same mistakes turn individual potential victors into devastated victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hanson addresses the Greeks versus the Macedonians, the devastation of Carthage, the sack of Constantinople,  Byzantine versus Ottoman, Cortez\u2019 small force\u2019s conquest of Tenochtitlan, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What led to the annihilations he focuses on? \u201cWe\u2019ve done nothing wrong, those others have no reason to attack and destroy us.\u201d Hopeless naivete. <\/em>\u201cWe can fight with words, not weapons.\u201d Sounds like de-escalation at its worst, the doomed concept of attempting to reason with the unreasonable. <\/em>\u201cWe are so powerful, none can defeat us and therefore they will not try.\u201d Hubris. <\/em>\u201cIt has never happened (to us) before, so it will never happen.\u201d Famous last words. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being prepared to use maximum force doesn\u2019t mean it has to be used. But being prepared and capable of doing so creates a deterrent effect that can prevent bloodshed on either side. In macrocosm, this concept has prevented the Planet Earth from becoming a burned-out cinder in space for about three-quarters of a century, since the then-Soviet Union became the second entity after the US to possess nuclear weapons. (There are now nine nations so capable, by the way.) The concept was called MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction. It said in essence, \u201cYour country may try to destroy ours, but if it does, your country will assuredly be destroyed too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see the same in microcosm, with armed citizens protecting themselves and those within the mantle of their protection via deadly weapons. Why do 90-some percent of armed citizen encounters, according to virtually every study, end with no bloodshed? Because the armed citizen drawing a gun is wordlessly telling the criminal aggressor, \u201cYou are threatening to harm me and mine, but if you try, YOU will surely cease to exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In either scale, the intended victim is communicating to the threatening party that it has not only the same power level, but the absolute willingness to use it for a just and righteous purpose. \u201cDeterrence\u201d is the proper word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oddly enough, on the same trip when I read \u201cThe End of Everything\u201d I was also re-reading Anthony Storr\u2019s 1967 book \u201cHuman Aggression<\/a>,\u201d subtitled \u201cA leading psychotherapist writes with wisdom and charm of the part this essential instinct plays in human life and how it can be turned to good advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found that the two books paired well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes what is true in macrocosm is true in microcosm. Reading military historian Victor Davis Hanson\u2019s 2024 book \u201cThe End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation\u201d reminded me of this. Hanson goes into scrupulous detail of cases across the millennia of nations utterly crushed, and city-states razed to the ground with their population enslaved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8678","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8679,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8678\/revisions\/8679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}