This was a fascinating read. There were a lot of surprises here. I’ m glad Mike Hampton pointed me here. Looking forward to more great content. Thank you.
That was a quick way to learn a lot. As for any causal relationships or even correlations, it's hard to interpret the data (given small samples for each type of outcome) with anything close to rigor. But well, I'd like to punt a little bit:
1. The gulf states > colonizers seems like it's oil doing most of the heavy lifting
3. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan - Also got rich by building institutions and generally free market capitalism. I don't have a great hunch here except that after the destruction wreaked by WW2, maybe Japan also started from a low base.
4. Others. like Bangladesh> Pakistan isn't super surprising to me since colonization or conquest was largely a matter of size, not differential wealth or technology.
1. The Chinese tributary system wasn't really a vassal system, more like an economic free-trade zone (kind of like the EU or NAFTA). Yes, you got to pay respect to the Chinese court, and so did the Brits and Dutch for a time. Do most historians consider Britain and the Netherlands to be a Chinese vassal? No. Nor should the countries that were under this tributary system. The caveats are times where the Chinese actually sent armies into places: Vietnam was actually colonized by China in 1 CE and 1400 CE. The Mongols tried to invade and colonize Japan, Burma, Vietnam, and Indonesia, all failing. The Qing successfully colonized Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang.
2. I think you can make an argument that Japan was an American colony between 1945 and 1951, in which they completely restructured the political and economic system copying the US'. Same with Germany/West Germany. You should also include the Philippines into that too (considering it was an American colony from the 1900s to 1940s).
Further links:
Understanding Sinic Civilization in World History | Professor Wang Gungwu
You made quite substantial research. Yet, to make it complete one would need to write a substantial book. For instance, in Europe alone there were so many conflicts where countries disappeared and were ruled by others. Consider the Roman Empire, the Habsburgs, the French Empire of the Napoleon, or Germany's conquests of WW2.
Yet, to make some generic conclusion one could say that indeed, the former slaves are rarely richer by their former masters. This could mean two things. Either the act of conquest empoverishes the conquested territory to such an extent that it is impossible to recover. Or (more probably) the preexisting factors that made the conquest possible are driven by long-lasting forces and phenomena that don't change rapidly and continue to last centuries.
To explain this by an example: Great Britain's conquest of parts of Africa may have been possible due to certain factors that made Great Britain develop faster: mild climate and few natural disasters leading to prosperity, island location providing security and stability, and the superior technical and political culture that developed in consequence. African countries were not fortunate to have any of that. One could argue that all those factors continue to exist today in both countries, resulting in the fact that the UK remains a prosperous country while their former dominions are not.
Question for you: Do you see any additional countries breaking up in the future? If so, which ones? Or at least having a high likelihood of breaking up?
I'm asking because in real life, many countries have broken up. Specifically Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, British India (technically a colony), the British Mandate of Palestine (technically a colony), Pakistan (in 1971), et cetera. A lot of these breakups were also done based on ethnic or at least religious lines. And this is not to mention the general trend of decolonization.
I'm wondering if, for instance, Ethiopia or Afghanistan or Burma (Myanmar) or some other country is likely to see a breakup in its own future.
I can see so many African countries splitting... I can definitely see a Libya splitting in two. It's already two seperate governments - one in Tripoli and another in Tobrok.
I can also see Darfur leaving Sudan once this second genocide is over.
A pro-Russian Haftar family dictatorship in control of eastern Libya’s oil probably wouldn’t be a very good thing. But isn’t Turkey allies with western Libya’s government?
I really do hope that Darfur will eventually leave Sudan, but will other countries actually allow it?
Do you think that had Al Gore been US President instead of George W. Bush in the 2000s, then he would have done a Kosovo on Darfur? As in, gotten NATO to militarily intervene over there, possibly in place of Iraq, and then had the Western world support a subsequent unilateral declaration of independence by Darfur?
Yes, Turkey is allied with the Tripoli Western Libyan government.
Just like the UN told Sudan to let South Sudan have a vote to leave, I can see it happening with Darfur since its in its 2nd genocide.
I don't think Al Gore would have done anything about Darfur. Just like how Clinton didn't go anything about the Rwanda Genocide or the 2 Congo Wars that killed 6M Congolese. Africa really isn't that important to America unless its about countering terrorism to prevent those countries from going to another country to counter terrorism.
BTW, I hope that western Libya will eventually reconquer eastern Libya, simply because my intuition is that the western Libyan government has a better human rights record than the eastern Libyan government. Am I wrong in regards to this?
If Libya is to have any form or sort of democracy in the future, then it needs to become united again, and not under Khalifa Haftar, who seems like an aspiring strongman to me.
I don't know your political leanings, but if you believe that internationally recognized governments should rule, then the World agrees with you that West Libya should remove Haftar.
However, there isn't a chance in hell that Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria or UAE would let West Libya rule. All those states I mentioned hate the Muslim Brotherhood which many people in the West Libyan government are apart of. They would topple that government on sight.
I think that Clinton subsequently had regrets about Rwanda, but Yeah, he didn’t do anything about the mass killings in the Congo War either.
Libya I would presume was important to the West due to its oil and due to the West’s desire to showcase another example of a successful Arab democratic movement? Ultimately didn’t work out that way, of course, but that was the intention.
BTW, off-topic, but while I do agree that the US’s regime change wars have a very mixed record (more success in Europe and East Asia and less success elsewhere), there was one specific regime change war which the US did not engage in but really should have: Russia 1919. Hard to see any fate for Russia short of a total Nazi conquest of Russia that would have been worse than what Russia actually endured in real life. And in a sense, the US was indirectly responsible for the Bolshevik coup in late 1917 since its entry into WWI might have encouraged Russia to stay in the war by (correctly) massively increasing Russian hopes of ultimate victory in WWI.
The Western intervention in the Russian Civil War was half-assed. I’m talking about a US troop commitment of, say, half-a-million to one million troops for Russia.
This was a fascinating read. There were a lot of surprises here. I’ m glad Mike Hampton pointed me here. Looking forward to more great content. Thank you.
Thanks!
That was a quick way to learn a lot. As for any causal relationships or even correlations, it's hard to interpret the data (given small samples for each type of outcome) with anything close to rigor. But well, I'd like to punt a little bit:
1. The gulf states > colonizers seems like it's oil doing most of the heavy lifting
2. US, Canada, Australia, Israel - Got rich by building better institutions but these were all settler colonies too and this somewhat seems to prove Garrett Jones' thesis that institutional trust tends to persist. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-culture-transplant-review-immigrations-legacy-11670794152)
3. Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan - Also got rich by building institutions and generally free market capitalism. I don't have a great hunch here except that after the destruction wreaked by WW2, maybe Japan also started from a low base.
4. Others. like Bangladesh> Pakistan isn't super surprising to me since colonization or conquest was largely a matter of size, not differential wealth or technology.
Interesting piece, although I have two comments.
1. The Chinese tributary system wasn't really a vassal system, more like an economic free-trade zone (kind of like the EU or NAFTA). Yes, you got to pay respect to the Chinese court, and so did the Brits and Dutch for a time. Do most historians consider Britain and the Netherlands to be a Chinese vassal? No. Nor should the countries that were under this tributary system. The caveats are times where the Chinese actually sent armies into places: Vietnam was actually colonized by China in 1 CE and 1400 CE. The Mongols tried to invade and colonize Japan, Burma, Vietnam, and Indonesia, all failing. The Qing successfully colonized Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang.
2. I think you can make an argument that Japan was an American colony between 1945 and 1951, in which they completely restructured the political and economic system copying the US'. Same with Germany/West Germany. You should also include the Philippines into that too (considering it was an American colony from the 1900s to 1940s).
Further links:
Understanding Sinic Civilization in World History | Professor Wang Gungwu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Uu64xgUic
IPS-Nathan Lectures by Professor Wang Gungwu — Lecture I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4_icDjnvfI
Rich read.
Interesting and insightful as always Yaw
You made quite substantial research. Yet, to make it complete one would need to write a substantial book. For instance, in Europe alone there were so many conflicts where countries disappeared and were ruled by others. Consider the Roman Empire, the Habsburgs, the French Empire of the Napoleon, or Germany's conquests of WW2.
Yet, to make some generic conclusion one could say that indeed, the former slaves are rarely richer by their former masters. This could mean two things. Either the act of conquest empoverishes the conquested territory to such an extent that it is impossible to recover. Or (more probably) the preexisting factors that made the conquest possible are driven by long-lasting forces and phenomena that don't change rapidly and continue to last centuries.
To explain this by an example: Great Britain's conquest of parts of Africa may have been possible due to certain factors that made Great Britain develop faster: mild climate and few natural disasters leading to prosperity, island location providing security and stability, and the superior technical and political culture that developed in consequence. African countries were not fortunate to have any of that. One could argue that all those factors continue to exist today in both countries, resulting in the fact that the UK remains a prosperous country while their former dominions are not.
Substack gold.
I'm most intrigued by your first example, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A deep dive into that inequality is desired.
I watched the Dominican 'Bantu Mama' last month, a decent movie though 'Hotel Coppelia' was better.
Update 12/8/2023: Added Oman's empire
Question for you: Do you see any additional countries breaking up in the future? If so, which ones? Or at least having a high likelihood of breaking up?
I'm asking because in real life, many countries have broken up. Specifically Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, British India (technically a colony), the British Mandate of Palestine (technically a colony), Pakistan (in 1971), et cetera. A lot of these breakups were also done based on ethnic or at least religious lines. And this is not to mention the general trend of decolonization.
I'm wondering if, for instance, Ethiopia or Afghanistan or Burma (Myanmar) or some other country is likely to see a breakup in its own future.
I can see so many African countries splitting... I can definitely see a Libya splitting in two. It's already two seperate governments - one in Tripoli and another in Tobrok.
I can also see Darfur leaving Sudan once this second genocide is over.
A pro-Russian Haftar family dictatorship in control of eastern Libya’s oil probably wouldn’t be a very good thing. But isn’t Turkey allies with western Libya’s government?
I really do hope that Darfur will eventually leave Sudan, but will other countries actually allow it?
Do you think that had Al Gore been US President instead of George W. Bush in the 2000s, then he would have done a Kosovo on Darfur? As in, gotten NATO to militarily intervene over there, possibly in place of Iraq, and then had the Western world support a subsequent unilateral declaration of independence by Darfur?
Yes, Turkey is allied with the Tripoli Western Libyan government.
Just like the UN told Sudan to let South Sudan have a vote to leave, I can see it happening with Darfur since its in its 2nd genocide.
I don't think Al Gore would have done anything about Darfur. Just like how Clinton didn't go anything about the Rwanda Genocide or the 2 Congo Wars that killed 6M Congolese. Africa really isn't that important to America unless its about countering terrorism to prevent those countries from going to another country to counter terrorism.
BTW, I hope that western Libya will eventually reconquer eastern Libya, simply because my intuition is that the western Libyan government has a better human rights record than the eastern Libyan government. Am I wrong in regards to this?
If Libya is to have any form or sort of democracy in the future, then it needs to become united again, and not under Khalifa Haftar, who seems like an aspiring strongman to me.
I don't know your political leanings, but if you believe that internationally recognized governments should rule, then the World agrees with you that West Libya should remove Haftar.
However, there isn't a chance in hell that Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria or UAE would let West Libya rule. All those states I mentioned hate the Muslim Brotherhood which many people in the West Libyan government are apart of. They would topple that government on sight.
I think that the government that should rule is the government that would best promote prosperity, human rights, and the like.
Would Haftar be better on these things relative to the western Libyan government?
I think that Clinton subsequently had regrets about Rwanda, but Yeah, he didn’t do anything about the mass killings in the Congo War either.
Libya I would presume was important to the West due to its oil and due to the West’s desire to showcase another example of a successful Arab democratic movement? Ultimately didn’t work out that way, of course, but that was the intention.
BTW, off-topic, but while I do agree that the US’s regime change wars have a very mixed record (more success in Europe and East Asia and less success elsewhere), there was one specific regime change war which the US did not engage in but really should have: Russia 1919. Hard to see any fate for Russia short of a total Nazi conquest of Russia that would have been worse than what Russia actually endured in real life. And in a sense, the US was indirectly responsible for the Bolshevik coup in late 1917 since its entry into WWI might have encouraged Russia to stay in the war by (correctly) massively increasing Russian hopes of ultimate victory in WWI.
The "We went in for oil!" in Libya was a populist myth. America only started trading with them around 2003 and America barely bought oil in Libya.
It seems that everyone forgets that people thought Gaddafi was going to genocide the rebels.
There was a UN vote and no one vetoed establishing a no-fly zone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1973
The problem was that NATO and the Arab league ended up helping the rebels, even though Gaddafi begged for a ceasefire.
#2
America, Canada, Japan, UK, Australia, France and etc. intervened in the Russia revolution. The mission just failed.
The Western intervention in the Russian Civil War was half-assed. I’m talking about a US troop commitment of, say, half-a-million to one million troops for Russia.
I think there will be many breakups of countries in the future. But I don't think people are good at predicting which ones.
Well, let’s just hope that these future national breakups will involve as little suffering as possible.
BTW, one failed national breakup in recent years was Iraq. It successfully managed to beat back and mostly destroy the ISIS threat, thankfully.
Interesting. Although curious Palestine is not acknowledged as a country (it is referred to as West Bank & Gaza)
I was just using the World Bank terminology which is "West Bank and Gaza", but I have no issue calling that Palestine. Just changed the phrase.
Source:
https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups#:~:text=For%20the%20current%202024%20fiscal,those%20with%20a%20GNI%20per