ENDLESS WARS: Roads to Rome, Redemption for the United States
Essential History Lessons from the US and Roman Republic, Echo a Warning.
The Roman Republic didn’t collapse in a single cataclysm, it eroded through a slow rot and decline. Economic stagnation, crime, corrupt elites, wars without end and a government turned on its citizens hollowed out its core strength. Providing a cautionary tale for future republics.
In the unfolding history of the United States, decades prior to the 250th year anniversary, the diligent observed an approaching abyss. The controversial 2020 election inspired a bold course correction, a realization by citizens of an abandonment of their responsibilities to the republic, which allowed an imperialist empire to seize total power. Can the nation be redeemed?
This is another addition to a series on the echoes of decline from both Republics, collecting lessons to ascend above Rome’s fate.
ENDLESS WARS
Peace was observed for only 50 to 80 years of the Roman Republic’s 482-year existence. An ancient writing called Art of War proclaims a warning, “When the army marches abroad, the treasury will be exhausted… Prolonged warfare drains the state.” Rome’s history affirms this truth.
Fueling a war machine requires expansion and consumption of external resources, and subjugation to sustain growth. Through conquest the Roman Republic grew from a small city-state on the Italian peninsula to a Mediterranean superpower.
Achieving unprecedented growth required warfare against Carthage, Greece and other Mediterranean nations to reap wealth, economic benefits from expansion, foreign slave labor and spoils of war. Yet the small landowning farmers, their soldiers, did not receive the rewards.
In its early years, Rome fought Etruscans, Latins, and Samnites to dominate Italy before clashing with Pyrrhus of Epirus and then Carthage in the Punic Wars, securing control of the western Mediterranean. Simultaneously, Rome waged wars in Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor (Mithridatic Wars), toppling Hellenistic kingdoms and extending its influence eastward. In Spain, the conquest of Hispania was brutal and prolonged, with wars against Iberian and Lusitanian resistance.
Later, Rome faced internal strife, including the slave uprisings of the Servile Wars, the Social War and devastating civil wars between rival generals like Sulla, Marius, Caesar, Pompey, and Augustus. Apart from brief pauses, the Republic was almost constantly engaged in war, shaping its legacy as a military powerhouse that paved the way to its decline.
The Price of Empire
Long absences for military campaigns prevented farmers from tending to their lands, resulting in the loss of property to debt. Ownership transferred and consolidated into the latifundia, large landowning estates of the wealthy elite. This inequality bred righteous indignation among the people and led to social unrest.
The internal battles in the last 100 years of the Roman Republic were called Social Wars, until the totalitarian control of an Empire eclipsed the chaos. Fifty major wars and countless smaller conflicts occurred in their 482 years. Populist movements led by the Gracchi brothers and Julius Caesar—rose up as reformers in response to corruption
No other nation spends more on war than the United States.
While the U.S. is a constitutional republic, it has functioned with imperialism like an empire. To preserve world dominance an astounding 750 military bases in 80 countries were constructed — as compared to Russia's 10 bases and China with only a handful—playing vulture capitalism, acquiring critical infrastructure of other nations. The contrast of strategy can be best described as the United States is playing the video game Modern Warfare, while China is playing Civilization.
Who will win with these alternative strategies?
A course correction began with the surprise 2016 election victory of Donald Trump, a leader who recognized the nation’s perilous trajectory and sought to halt its decline. He upended both Bush and Clinton political dynasties, becoming the voice of populist dissent. Upon being sworn in for his first term as President and Commander in Chief, he boldly declared as the elite watched:
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
He recognized the plight of the citizens' enduring empire. And sought Art of the Deal diplomacy through his presidency to avoid unnecessary death. A constitutional republic should represent those whose lives are on the line. Not spend humans like disposable pawns.
Since the end of World War 2 the U.S. has engaged in over 200 military interventions worldwide, notably in Vietnam, Korea, and the Middle East. Not for territorial expansion as occurred during the Roman Republic, rather exerting dominance to the benefit of military defense contractors, criminal CIA factions and multinational corporations.
The costs of military spending has been a heavy burden. Imagine what the trillions in U.S. debt could have achieved in less violent investments that would actually improve quality of life. President Trump illustrated this harsh reality in his first inauguration speech:
Washington flourished–but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
He spoke to the difficult realities experienced by the lower and middle class, many who watched their jobs exported in large part to China and other foreign lands.
Human Destruction
In the Roman Republic, war was a tax on the financial prosperity of the people, as citizen-soldiers lost ownership of their farms, then forced to move to city centers to survive. Veterans in the U.S. have historically returned home without proper health care and insufficient support transitioning back to civilian life. Destroying lives to construct empire.
In the U.S. Veteran Affairs mental health visits increased by 90% from Fiscal Year 2006 to 2019, a substantial rise. On top of the traumatic events from conflict, the shocking realization they are brute enforcers of multinational corporations, misled by falsified purposes for wars, yet confined to fight by a contract and oath. An irreconcilable pain to watching friends die for lies.
Psychological manipulation, unnecessary PTSD trauma cycles, all akin to burning the world to rule over the ashes. This is the U.S. War Machine.
Cash Grab
Citizens far from the battlefield recognize the racketeering occurring in the Department of War, mistakenly labeled as 'Defense.' Spending money to fight wars and allowing nations we call hostile foreign powers to profit from them. Holdings of U.S. Treasury debt by other nations rose to $8.503 trillion in August of 2019 including China with $1.07 trillion (and their holdings closer to $760 million in 2024).
U.S. war spending has shot up substantially since the 2001 War on Terror Campaign, racking up $335 billion spending budget. The 2022 total spent on war skyrocketed to $876 billion and then $916 billion in 2023. U.S. citizens forced to watch a captured government spend endless amounts of money.
Like salt in a wound, an additional $113 billion was sent to Ukraine to pay for a conflict started by War Inc. and Wall Street’s global mafia, the CIA. While neglecting aging infrastructure crumbling stateside.
The observations of unending spending became a provable government money laundering operation, brought to greater public attention early in President Trump’s second term. Citizen’s swept up in a viral social media moment together reviewed taxpayer funded agencies like USAID, giving grants and funding to endless networks, like spider webs of Non-Governmental Organizations, foundations and nonprofits. Covert methods paid for evolved forms of war. A world wide war propaganda network, and the people unknowingly funded it.
As public resentment towards war grew, it was changed to be psychological. And then extracted tax dollars to fight those wars too.
Terrorism defeated internationally required the invention of domestic war on terror. The U.S government targeted the supporters of President Trump, because of a shared desire to reduce and end foreign wars. The government went to war against its citizens, to continue funding wars.
The cash grabs were revealed so extreme, the American taxpayer was defrauded. A grand deception perpetrated by news propagandists and the political actors lying citizens into spending more.
Voices of Reform
Amongst the allure attributed to the corrupt, resistance emerged. Julian Assange became a public enemy of the national security state for publishing the secrets the war machine tried to keep. In 2007 Wikileaks released Collateral Murder, a disturbing video recording of a U.S. Apache helicopter gunning down two Reuters journalists and innocent bystanders, during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Casualties of imperialist war.
Doing the right thing by publishing this embarrassment to the U.S. superpower proves Assange is a different kind of journalist. In a world of mockingbird paid media pundits, repeating their provided pentagon talking points, Assange stood out publishing scandalous truth.
During a speech at a London anti-war protest in 2011, Assange cut deep to the heart of betrayal from those masquerading as the free press. He stated, “What is the average death count attributed to each journalist? When we understand that wars come about as a result of lies pedaled to the British public, and the American public, and the public all over Europe and other countries, then who are the war criminals? It is not just leaders, it is not just soldiers, it is journalists. Journalists are war criminals.”
There is blood on the hands of the U.S. news media, for the wars they enabled, when their role was meant to rebuke and dissent. Julian Assange cast a vision for achieving change, in saying, “If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.”
Redeeming the U.S. Republic can only be achieved by unrestrained truth.
Rome’s War Machine
In the waning Roman Republic era, Gaius Gracchus proved a tireless adversary of senatorial oligarchy, shining a light on the dirty secrets they keep. In the aftermath of the Third Punic War (against Carthage) and Fourth Macedonian War (in Greece), while the Republic was engaged in other minor skirmishes, Gracchus was elected in 124 BC to the position of Tribune, advocating for the rights of the plebeians.
He revealed the rot in Rome’s war agenda that shifted wealth from the poor to enrich powerful generals, grain hoarded while veterans starved, bloody conquests propagandized as “civilizing” missions. While others whispered, Gaius shouted, employing his position to publish the truth of the elite’s thievery.
In the speeches preserved in fragments by later historians like Plutarch and Appian, Gaius cut to the very core of Rome’s betrayal. The Senate had forsaken the Republic’s pledge of freedom, instead plundering public wealth. His words recorded and translated proclaim, “I see only you who seize all public things, who hold houses, villas, statues, paintings; who carry off everything that pertains to life!”
A rebuke of their greedy materialism.
The Roman elite turned against Gaius. His reforms threatened their wealth, their legions and their narrative of divine destiny. No one was able to buy him off, instead their bribes were disclosed public, he declared, “I myself, who speak about extortion, am even now offered great sums of money by kings!”
In 121 BC, the Senate declared Gaius a public enemy, saying he was guilty of sedition for daring to peel back the curtains concealing their schemes. They turned to violence, attempting to silence, Gaius was hunted down, his head severed by bounty hunters for daring to speak the truth.
Julian Assange and Gaius Gracchus, both public enemies by those willing to kill, jail and destroy to silence the truth of the forever war agenda.
Perspective Earned
For citizens of the United States, our lesson from the Romans is: wars lead to declining national stability. And the fate of Rome is assured without awareness and active citizen participation, truth tellers willing to publish against the elite.
In a Republic, citizens should have the ability to influence where resources go, oversight of spending and a way to stop endless deficit and debt spending. Yet corruption and self preservation has infested the United States.
Under the banner of America First, President Trump took lead for the dissenting voices opposed to the excessive war spending, loss of American lives for fascist agendas. America First policy was penned recognizing the damage to the nation's reputation, the harm done to our shared humanity around the world, and the betrayal our founding values of FREEDOM, the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
The first U.S. President George Washington warned of the dangers of engagement in foreign interests, being pulled into wars. Generations later, his guidance was ignored, and such events occurred.
A bold idea arose in February 2025 from the White House, 50% military spending reduction between the United States, Russia and China.
President Trump with knowledge of history's lessons demanded an end to the lingering 3 year Ukraine-Russian War, started decades prior for reckless reasons. He also took diplomatic leadership responsibility for Gaza, to stop the unending generational cycles of violence. As he stated at his CNN town hall, “I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying.”
A Future for All
Enter now into a world of shared humanity through upholding agreements and mutual respect to national sovereignty. Relinquish cravings for control in a unipolar world order, as we find balance in multilateral agreements.
The words of past Republican President Ronald Reagan contain a truth echoed across time, he remarks:
You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance." And this - this is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater's "peace through strength."
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
We'll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we'll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
A Fall of Rome cycle can be evaded putting an end to endless wars, redemption for the United States of America is unfolding.
What can We The People do to ensure we escape excessive war spending?
Are we applying the necessary intellectual pressure of accountability on those who represent us?
Do we have a plan for the decades of perpetual action required to safeguard the future?
We must study the past to shield ourselves from ignorant action, emerging as the authors, architects, and conquerors of these cycles.
This is a continuation of series of articles on Roads to Rome, Redemption for the United States. Subscribe to Broken Anthem to read more.