LONDINIUM

IN 410 AD, the Western Roman Emperor, Honorius, sent a letter to the cities of the empire’s colony, Britannia, telling them to look to their own the defences, that Rome could no longer protect them. President Donald Trump has essentially told America’s allies around the globe, and in particular those in Europe, including Britain, the very same thing. They are on their own, the United States will no longer protect them.

“There’s some dispute as to whether that letter was directed at Britannia or Brutii in Italy but the facts on the ground were the same,” says Dr Max Gladiator of Spartacus College in Naples. “Rome had pulled the last of its Legions out of Britannia in 408 AD, and the Romano-Britons, who in retaliation had thrown out Roman civil servants, were left to their own devices, faced now with raids and invasions from the Picts to north, the German tribes to the east and the Irish to the west. Decades later, when they begged for help from another emperor, all they received was silence. In the end they had to invite German mercenaries in to protect them. Of course, all that happened there was the Germans took over. That’s the Angles and the Saxons. The colony went from being Britannia to being England. Any Britons retreated to Wales. Where they were eventually conquered too.

“The western Roman Empire, short of soldiers and money and pressured from outside and inside, just could not hold itself together. As it weakened, it drew forces in to defend the centre, but all in vain. Italy became a German kingdom in the 470s. Only in the east did the empire survive, and for another thousand years. But in the west it disintegrated.

“Trump is only stating the obvious. America neither wants to nor can it police the world any longer. The Pax Americana, such as it was, appears to be drawing to a close. If the United States is lucky, she will survive, protected behind two great oceans, as she is. Her internal stability is another matter.

“But those who sheltered under her protection after World War Two need to understand that it was always Communism that made America so generous; and since Communism’s abject failure and quiet disintegration, the motive for American global defence has slowly disintegrated with it. Frankly it’s amazing America’s system continued on so long after the fall of the Soviet Union. But in the end, the United States was never defending Europe, it was defending itself against the threat of Communism.

“Honorius and Trump are joined over fifteen or so centuries by the same advice to people they will no longer defend: YOU’RE ON OUR OWN. GOOD LUCK. AND DON’T FUCK IT UP!”