Complexity, Collapse and Renewal:

Sometimes we seek solace in paintings and arts to figure out why some states can be so ferocious in causing chaos, I have found this depiction by British/American historian Niall Ferguson, worth pondering to comprehend the ongoing war in the Middle East. Here is my summation of his article:

No illustration better captures the life cycle of great powers than The Course of Empire, the celebrated five-painting series by Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School and a pioneer of nineteenth-century American landscape art. Through these imagined landscapes, Cole presents a powerful visual meditation on the rise and fall of empires.

Each painting depicts the mouth of a great river beneath a rocky outcrop at different stages of history. The Savage State shows a pristine wilderness where a few hunter-gatherers struggle for survival at a stormy dawn. In The Arcadian or Pastoral State, the land is cultivated, fields flourish, and a temple signals the emergence of ordered society. The grand Consummation of Empire portrays imperial splendor—marble architecture, thriving commerce, and confident citizens at the height of prosperity. This zenith soon gives way to Destruction, where invasion, fire, and chaos consume the city. Finally, Desolation reveals a silent landscape of ruined columns overgrown with ivy, nature reclaiming the remnants of empire.

Earlier Paul Kennedy (1987) another British historian wrote The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, where starting from 1500 to 2000, he traced the rise and fall of several European great powers. He developed linkages between the economic factors and military power and argued that as the states over-stretched their military power—‘imperial out stretch’, the decline occurred.

Today’s the world order is complex & intricately intertwined if not interdependent! the critical question is would resistance of the weak prevail or the Might will succeed or collapse under its own weight? More than Collapse & Chaos, who will be the architects of the New World Order; Lion King, Bear, Panda, any or all or who else? This calls for serious reflection