South Korean K-2 tanks fire during a joint South Korea-US military drill at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, South Korea, on June 15. Keeping the military onside is an essential task for any ruler hoping to defend their country’s national interests and expand their influence. Photo: EPA-EFE
Opinion
Andrew Sheng
Andrew Sheng
National security elite ignore needs of the people at their own peril
When leaders become predatory through corruption and infighting, their empire or civilisation risks falling through a combination of internal collapse and foreign invasion
Today, elite interests are increasingly out of touch with those of the masses, who want peace, stability, better jobs and healthcare, leading to a loss of public trust
Every empire has its grand historian to explain its successes more than its failures. In 1776, when Adam Smith published his classic The Wealth of Nations, British essayist Edward Gibbon wrote an equally famous text, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The year 1776 was an historical turning point, when Britain faced the loss of its American colonies even as it focused on conquering India 19 years after the British East India Company’s victory in the 1757 Battle of Plassey against the Mughal empire and their French allies.
Gibbon attributed the Roman fall to four principal causes, which persisted across more than 1,000 years: the “injuries of time and nature”; the hostile attacks of the Barbarians and the Christians; the use and abuse of materials; and, the domestic quarrels of the Romans. His warnings apply even today, even though he was reminding the rising British elite what to look out for in their bid for empire.
The Roman empire was built on conquest. Its legions were legendary, but the elite core that defended Rome’s consuls, procurators and emperors were the Praetorian Guard, who played a significant role in the intelligence, logistics and national security functions of the empire.
The Roman empire rose as the effectiveness of Roman military discipline and organisation overwhelmed all enemies. The Praetorian Guard was the core staff between the consul and his legions. They also operated as the intelligence arm of the empire, involved in strategy, logistics, information couriers and diplomacy with allies and enemies alike.
Within Rome, as the elite charged with defending the capital, the Praetorian Guard later became kingmakers since weak emperors needed to have the military on their side. They took part in the assassination of at least one emperor and helped put several others on the throne.
Fast forward to World War I. Amid Europe’ ruinous self-destruction, German polymath Oswald Spengler wrote The Decline of the West, positing that empires or civilisations have the same human biological cycle of birth, life and death. He speculated that the West would enter a crisis and that two centuries of Caesar-inspired concentration of power into one leader would lead to the collapse of Western civilisation. He also warned in his 1933 work Man and Technics that the spread of Western technology to hostile “coloured races” would be used against the West.
Spengler was discredited after World War II for being one of the inspirations behind Nazi expansion. Thereafter, British historian Arnold Toynbee gave Spengler’s fatalism an optimistic spin in his 12-volume Study of History. His study of major civilisations argued that empires can rise to historical challenges when their creative minorities composed of elite leaders respond with innovation and inspiration.
In other words, the success of those elites tasked with preserving the integrity of the empire – including emperors, presidents or other political leaders – is essential to growing an empire. When those elites become predatory through corruption and infighting, though, that empire or civilisation risks weakening and falling to a combination of internal collapse and foreign invasion.
Every nation has its own praetorian guard or cohort of agencies in defence, national security, intelligence and other areas that safeguard the national interest. A modern parallel would be the US national security elite that includes the Department of Defence, State Department, intelligence community and foreign affairs think tanks. Former US president Dwight Eisenhower called it the “military-industrial complex”.
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‘Preparing for war’: China revises military recruitment rules for the first time since 2001
‘Preparing for war’: China revises military recruitment rules for the first time since 2001
Moscow’s praetorian guard is otherwise known as the Kremlin. Countries such as China, Russia, India, France and Japan have their own praetorian elite who consider it their mission to safeguard national integrity against all enemies, including threats to their national identity, creed and values.
One could argue that there is no “clash of civilisations” but rather a clash of national praetorian guards who feel their national interests are being threatened, not just by foreign intrusion but also by weak leaders who betray their interests. In the past decade, US security elites have taken power from Wall Street for the perceived crime of selling out US national interests.
As Mao Zedong said in 1927, “political power comes from the barrel of a gun”, meaning those who have the military behind them will beat those who don’t. Stable governments are those able to keep the military in their barracks. Those who do not keep the military happy are vulnerable to being overthrown.
Former US president Donald Trump gestures after speaking at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Tuesday. He pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom earlier in the day to dozens of felony counts that he hoarded classified documents and refused government demands to give them back. Photo: AP
But what if the praetorian guards’ interests are not aligned with those of the masses, who want peace, stability, better jobs and healthcare? In this modern age, the masses are rightly worried about whether their praetorian guards are looking after the people’s interests or their own.
This is reflected in the loss of public trust in the ruling elite, which feeds the populist desire to have one of their own to oversee the elite. Former US president Donald Trump has pitched himself as such a populist. The more resistance there is to him returning as a presidential candidate, including his recent indictment, the more Trump’s supporters will cling to their belief that the elite are looking after their own skin.
History tells us that empires decline if their elites are feeding at the trough at the expense of the masses. They sometimes start wars to deflect the anger against them towards outsiders. Are there parallels in the current age? That is for history to judge.
Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective
