Description of John Glubb's thesis on cycles of empires and how its relevant to us today.

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Cycles of Empires
TED Talk
Feb 2020
Canada Strategy

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What will we cover?
• Who is John Glubb? What did he discover?
• Stages of empires & some markers
• Why should we care?
• Where are we today?

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Who’s John Glubb & what did he discover?
• British officer and scholar who saw action in WWI and later saw service
across the middle east until his retirement
• Was deeply immersed in the local culture and helped trained military
units across the region, advisor to King of Jordan
• Adopted a Bedouin girl and two Palestinian children and brought them
up in England
• Wrote a slim book called ‘Fate of Empires’ that laid out his thesis on the
rise and fall of empires and what patterns we can see across the ages

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View from the past: well known empires over 3000 years
Empires Rise
and
Fall
~ Duration
Assyria 859-612 B.C. 247
Persia
(Cyrus the Great and his
descendants)
538-330 B.C. 208
Greece
(Alexander and his successors)
331-100 B.C. 231
Roman Republic 260-27 B.C. 233
Roman Empire 27 B.C.-A.D. 180 207
Arab Empire A.D. 634-880 246
Mameluke Empire (Egypt) 1250-1517 267
Ottoman Empire 1320-1570 250
Spanish empire 1500-1750 250
Romanov Russia 1682-1916 234
Great Britain 1700-1945 250
USA ………….. ………
• Each empire lasts about 250
years from its founding to
decline (~8-10 generations)
• Exact start of decline could be
debated but the signals that
indicate decline show up at
around the same period in the
life cycle
• Level of sophistication in
technology, governance do not
seem to have much impact on
how the cycles play out

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Stages of an empire and key markers
Outburst/Beginning
§ Small nation, first generation of conquerors, driven by courage, enterprise, risk taking.
Ability to experiment, reinvent social norms, military traditions and governance models
Expansion
§ Government stimulates commerce, removes internal barriers, facilitates trade.
Consolidation and political stability drives expansion in trade
Age of Commerce
§ Flywheel of commerce due to greater taxation and established merchant class.
Government structures and stability makes merchant class very wealthy and there’s
some trickle down to rest of society
Affluence
§ Gradual shift from service towards more selfishness. Military capability stagnates and
wealth used to buy off enemies, arm mercenaries. Rise of pacifism and negative
sentiment against empires, conquest
Age of Intellect
§ Wealth and comfort fuels flowering of arts and culture. Significant advances in science
and technology. But internal rivalries and class differences become more prominent.
Pessimism replaces the natural tendency for growth
Age of Decline
§ Pursuit of affluence dissolves sense of community. Frivolity and excess increase. Role
models are celebrities (gladiator > performers/businessmen > reality TV star,
celebrities!) vs. statesmen, soldiers and thinkers

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Why should we care and where are we today?
US revolution/Independence
Expansion into the west
Commerce/industrialization
Affluence/’Gilded Age’
Post War flowering
Signals today ?

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Further reading
• Guns, Germs & Steel (Jared Diamond)
• Sapiens (Yual Noah Hariri)
• The Sovereign Individual (James Davidson, William Rees-Mogg)