Writing of the "Machiavellian" Renaissance princes and their advisers, not least Niccolo Machiavelli himself, H.G. Wells remarked in The Outline of History that these were all "scheming to outdo one another, to rob weaker contemporaries, to destroy rivals, so that they might for a brief interval swagger"--no more.
Reading that I am not sure Wells' assessment was altogether fair, not least in regard to Machiavelli, whom he characterizes as having presented his vision of a united Italy in The Prince as simply "a great opportunity for a prince" rather.
Still, there is no denying that the stupid desire of heads of government and the elites behind them and the courtiers of all these to swagger plays its part in international politics--a frighteningly, distressingly, large part, especially in this era in which self-satisfied vulgarian clowns delighting in their own offensiveness to others increasingly seem to hold the highest offices, as the world media indulges the absolute worst of their behavior; and that same media, among much, much else to its absolute discredit, increasingly treats the Unthinkable as the Very Much Thinkable (to such a degree that it lavishes Oscars on movies about it While Completely Missing the Point).
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