Marginal Issues

Yemenat

Abdulkarim Al-Shahari

When Civilization Cannot Defend Itself

From Athens to Baghdad: Why Does the Sword Triumph Over the Mind?

What makes a city that gives birth to philosophers, embraces the arts, and lays the foundations of intellectual and political traditions unable to defend itself against a city that has made war the center of its life? How can a capital that once stood as a beacon of learning and knowledge fall to armies that neither carry its cultural legacy nor share its intellectual history?

These are not hypothetical questions. They are paradoxes that have recurred throughout human history. Athens, whose name is inseparable from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, was defeated by Sparta. Baghdad, which nurtured a golden age of science, philosophy, and literature, fell to the Mongols. Rome, which left its mark on law, administration, and urban development, failed to preserve its Western Empire.

History seems to confront us with a harsh paradox: civilization alone does not guarantee survival, and knowledge alone does not give people the power to determine their own fate. A society that has contributed less to intellectual and artistic life may defeat one that has achieved far more in these fields simply because, at a decisive moment, it possesses the means of power its rival lacks.

But does this mean that the primitive defeats civilization? Or is the deeper question this: how can societies succeed in building great civilizations, yet fail to build the political and institutional strength needed to protect them?

Athens and Sparta: When Intellectual Greatness Is Not Enough

In ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta seemed to represent two very different models of political life. Athens was a center of philosophy, theater, the arts, and democratic experimentation. Sparta, by contrast, was a more heavily militarized society, built on discipline, military training, and a harsh social system that kept the Helots in subjugation. Sparta’s agricultural economy depended on these people, who were forced to work the land.

The Peloponnesian War, which lasted from 431 to 404 BC, ended in Athens’ defeat.

Sparta did not win simply because it was more ruthless, nor was Athens defeated because it devoted itself to philosophy. The war drained Athens of its resources, and the city was struck by a devastating plague. Then came the disastrous Sicilian Expedition, which inflicted heavy losses on its military strength. Sparta, meanwhile, received financial support from Persia and strengthened its navy until it could challenge Athens in the very field in which Athens had long been renowned for its superiority.

What mattered was not ignorance defeating knowledge, but the ability to adapt and exploit an opponent’s mistakes in a prolonged struggle.

Yet this war reveals a vital political lesson: a society may possess immense intellectual and cultural wealth without being able to turn it automatically into the strength needed to endure. Philosophy cannot spare a state the consequences of poor governance, theater cannot make up for the loss of a fleet, and the greatness of the past cannot protect the present from the consequences of misguided decisions. Athens was not lacking in brilliant minds, but its intellectual achievements could not shield it from defeat.

Baghdad: When Knowledge Fell Beneath the Hooves of Horses

If Athens offers an example of a city flourishing in intellectual and political life only to suffer defeat, the fall of Baghdad presents an even more painful picture.

In 1258, Hulagu’s armies laid siege to Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. The siege ended with the city’s fall, the death of Caliph al-Musta’sim, and the collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.

Baghdad possessed an extraordinary scientific and cultural heritage. Its name was closely associated with the translation movement, philosophy, medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and literature. Yet the city had already lost some of its former political and military strength and was no longer at the height of its earlier prosperity when it faced the Mongol invasion.

The Mongols, for their part, were not superior to Islamic civilization in philosophy or the sciences. They did, however, possess a well-organized military force, the ability to mobilize and move their armies, and extensive experience in military campaigns and siege warfare. They also benefited from technical expertise drawn from the peoples they had conquered.

Here lies the paradox: Baghdad’s vast store of knowledge could not prevent the fall of its state. But this does not mean that knowledge was worthless, nor that the fall of the capital marked the end of Islamic civilization. The fall of a city does not mean the end of everything it has produced, just as a military victory does not automatically make the victor the heir to everything it has defeated.

A state may fall while its culture survives in other cities. Conquerors may win on the battlefield and then find themselves relying on the knowledge and expertise of the very peoples they have subdued to govern their territories.

Still, one painful question remains: what is the value of a city that serves as a home to learning if its state cannot muster the strength needed to protect it?

A library cannot defend itself. A scholar cannot turn back an army alone, and a philosopher cannot take the place of a military institution. Knowledge needs an economy to sustain it, institutions to protect the conditions in which it is produced, and a state capable of defending the society that carries it.

Rome and China: When Civilization Crumbles from Within and Barbarism Prevails from Without

Rome offers another telling example of this paradox.

In 410 AD, the Visigoths, led by Alaric, entered the city of Rome and sacked it. Several decades later, imperial rule in the West came to an end in 476 AD, the date traditionally associated with the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

This did not happen because the invaders were more advanced than the Romans in every aspect of civilization. Rather, it unfolded amid mounting political, financial, and military crises, growing difficulties in governing the empire, and changing relations with Germanic groups, some of which had served as Rome’s allies or even formed part of its own military forces.

External pressure alone cannot explain Rome’s fall. It compounded the internal crises, leaving the state less able to contain the growing threats.

A similar pattern emerged in China when Manchu forces entered Beijing in 1644, amid the collapse of the Ming dynasty. Internal rebellions and political crises converged with foreign military intervention. The new rulers subsequently relied on Chinese institutions and expertise to consolidate their authority.

In both cases, we find no simple victory of primitiveness over civilization. Instead, we see how internal divisions can turn an external force into a decisive factor in the fate of a great state.

The enemy may appear to be the one who brought a state down, but the road to its collapse may have begun much earlier, when its ability to manage its resources weakened, when power struggles drained its strength, or when preserving the privileges of the ruling elite became more important than maintaining the cohesion of society.

Civilizations do not always fall because their adversaries are more intelligent. They may fall because their institutions can no longer turn their resources into a coherent and effective force.

The Normans and England: Primitive Force May Win a Temporary Victory, but It Remains Unable to Govern a State

The Norman conquest of England in 1066 reveals another side of the issue.

William of Normandy won the Battle of Hastings and conquered England, but his victory was not a clash between an advanced civilization and a people without organization. The Normans had their own military and political traditions, while the English had a kingdom, institutions, and an army.

The victory did not prove that the conquerors were superior in every sphere of life. It was the outcome of a particular conflict, decided by leadership, political circumstances, and the ability to mobilize forces and wage war.

More importantly, winning a battle is one thing; governing the country one has conquered is another. Force can open doors, but sustaining power requires administration, institutions, and knowledge.

Here, the limits of the idea that the victor must necessarily be more advanced become clear. If military victory were an absolute measure of civilizational superiority, we would have to regard every conqueror as more advanced than everyone they conquered. Such a conclusion cannot withstand even the most basic reading of history.

War reveals the ability to use force under particular circumstances, but it cannot, on its own, determine the value of art, philosophy, law, or human experience.

The Modern West: When Knowledge Became Power

This brings us to the question that makes these historical paradoxes relevant to politics today: how did modern states manage to turn scientific knowledge into immense industrial and military power?

Much of the Western intellectual tradition drew on Greek philosophy. Europe later underwent sweeping transformations through the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. Yet these developments were not simply a shift from philosophical contemplation to the invention of weapons. They also transformed the relationship between knowledge, production, and the state.

Mathematics and engineering helped advance navigation, artillery, and fortification. Advances in materials science and chemistry opened the way to new industrial and military technologies. Railways, communications, and large-scale production then transformed states’ ability to transport armies, supply them, and mobilize their resources.

Power did not arise from inventions alone, but also from the institutions capable of financing, developing, and putting them to use. At different stages of modern history, military superiority was closely tied to a state’s ability to collect taxes, organize industry, manage its armies, and mobilize its human resources.

In the modern era, the links between universities, laboratories, industries, governments, and military institutions grew ever closer. In his farewell address in 1961, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the growing influence of what he called the military-industrial complex.

Yet we should not conclude that the West built its civilization through philosophy alone and then abandoned it in favor of weapons. Its rise was also shaped by trade, colonialism, competition among states, and the development of institutions, economies, and industries. It also drew on accumulated knowledge to which many civilizations had contributed, including Islamic and Chinese civilization.

The point is not to claim that the West discovered power, but to understand how some Western states learned to connect knowledge with productive capacity, military organization, and the institutions of the state.

As the modern world developed, science became more than a way of understanding the world. It became a means of changing it, controlling its resources, and competing for power within it.

This raises an ethical question no less important than the political one: when science becomes an instrument of destruction, has it fulfilled its civilizational purpose, or has it turned against the very human ends that knowledge is supposed to serve?

Civilization Is No Eternal Shield

Perhaps one of the greatest weaknesses of prosperous societies lies in the belief that their achievements place them beyond the reach of history.

But a theater cannot protect a city simply because it is beautiful, philosophy cannot prevent a siege simply because it is profound, and libraries cannot turn back armies simply because they are full of knowledge.

Civilization needs political institutions capable of making decisions, an economy that provides resources, an organized defense, social cohesion that does not depend on perpetual coercion, and leadership able to balance the use of force against the dangers of wars that exhaust society.

Yet power alone offers no eternal guarantee of survival.

Sparta, which defeated Athens, did not preserve its dominance forever. The Mongols, who brought Baghdad down, did not end Islamic civilization. And although Rome lost its Western Empire, its legal and political legacy continued to shape later ages.

Civilization is greater than the state and outlives the battle. A government may fall while its language and knowledge survive. An army may emerge victorious and then adopt the institutions of its defeated enemy. The balance of power may shift, while ideas continue their journey across borders and generations.

Civilization does not have to abandon its moral principles to protect itself, nor does it need to become a copy of its adversaries. What it needs is to recognize that knowledge requires institutions to protect it, that power requires reason to restrain it, and that a state that neglects its security may lose the ability to preserve its achievements.

A state that makes power its sole purpose may lose the very meaning that gives its existence value.

Who Protects the Mind from the Sword?

At its heart, history is not a story of the perpetual triumph of primitiveness over civilization. Rather, it reminds us that intellectual progress does not automatically translate into political or military superiority.

The sword may prevail when a state cannot protect its achievements. A great city may fall because of its leaders’ mistakes, divisions within its society, or an adversary’s superiority in a particular field.

But military victory does not make the victor more humane, just as defeat does not erase the value of the knowledge, art, and thought produced by the defeated.

A civilization that fails to build the capacity to protect its institutions may find itself unable to defend the very conditions on which its existence depends. A civilization that makes power its sole purpose may succeed in subjugating others, but it risks losing the purpose that justifies its power in the first place.

Perhaps the deepest paradox is not that the sword defeats the mind, but that human beings can acquire enough knowledge to understand the world and still fail to organize themselves well enough to protect what they have built within it.

The sword may defeat the mind when the mind cannot defend itself. But a sword that dispenses with reason cannot build a civilization; it can only postpone the moment of ruin.