• PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
    10·
    18 days ago

    Explanation: Oftentimes, Rome would ‘subsidize’ vassal states on the frontier. In early periods it was actually very effective. Roman ‘subsidies’ to their client states reinforced the power of pro-Roman elites and improved the capabilities of the clients to repel their neighbors - which was usually their primary purpose, as buffer states.

    … but by the Late Empire, when the barbarian tribes were more desperate to get into the Roman Empire to escape enemy tribes and climate change, not just seeking loot and glory; and when the Empire’s own military forces had degraded, especially in comparison to the barbarian tribes, it was… probably quite counterproductive.

    • PugJesus@piefed.socialOPMEnglish
      4·
      18 days ago

      Oh come on, name ONE ally we’ve armed that turned out to be a bad idea*, other than Iraq and Panama?

      *excluding captured equipment, of the like which fell into the hands of Vietnam, ISIS, and the Taliban; or states which swapped sides unexpectedly, like Venezuela, Iran, and Ethiopia; or countries which we supply which regularly stab us in the back, like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.

      I can legitimately name foreign policy successes of US military aid. But the fact that I can rattle off so many failures suggests that US foreign policy has been less-than-fucking-stellar, even from a purely self-interested standpoint.

      Almost like international politics is hard, and dipshits who want to imagine it as dominoes or staring contests are responsible for millions of fucking deaths or something.