After the Julians and Flavians, Rome found itself somewhat under siege. The better of the Emperors who followed spent most of their time maintaining the borders -- Marcus Aurelius, Diocletian, Constantine, Constantius, Justinian and so on. The withdrawal of the legions resulted in a power vacuum that the barbarian hordes wandered through. Thanks AXE, but so what...Toward the late empire's twilight, middle class and noble Roman citizens did not want to serve in the legions, which was considered everyone's civic duty. However, to serve one needed to be physically complete -- the legionnaire had plenty of opportunities to get maimed, so they figured he needed to start whole. Particularly on the frontiers, Roman citizens began to maim themselves by cutting off a thumb so that they could not hold a shield. Somewhat more extreme than going to Canada, but basically the same thing. The rationalization was that they were too important and would do other things, like work in politics. ( Mittius Romnious?)
Which leads me to a conundrum -- Iraq. Barring Tiffany wiping the place out because all the noise is aggravating her migraines, there is no acceptable policy. The presence of our legions -- Army and Marines along with local auxiliaries -- is the sine qua non of some level of stability. However, success can only be measured on our part by withdrawal... a process that will probably not work well for the future. There are simply not enough soldiers to continue this war, unless we do a WWII, serve for the duration in the forward areas policy shift, and that is almost as politically impossible as the idea of bringing back the draft.
We need to withdraw, but if we withdraw, will we be able to accept the on the ground reality after we're gone? A reality that will include further civil war, the slaughter of the innocents, the aggrandizement of Iran, and probably a Saudi-Iranian conflict which will draw us back into the mess we created and the real possibility of a Iranian-Turkish rapprochement to slaughter the Kurds. Yea....Hurrah.
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