Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran — how intelligently is the West, especially America, handling the East? The Romans may have something to say on the matter.
When the Romans took on Carthage in the two Punic wars for mastery of the western Mediterranean (264-241 and 218-201 bc), they engaged with an enemy as militarily brutal as themselves. Carthage defeated, Rome turned its attention to states that had supported Hannibal and took them out as well — and so the Roman empire grew. Such a strategy was wholly typical of Rome, the method by which this small city-state had earlier won power across all Italy. From the 6th to 3rd centuries bc, they had taken on and eventually taken out Etruscans, Celtic invaders, Samnites, Greek states in the south and so on, all by military might, until they were masters of the Italian mainland.
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