"Jerry Pournelle - Falkenberg 3 - Go Tell the Spartans" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pournelle Jerry)

There had been exceptions to that rule, the most notable being the United States of America, which, after
the "manifest destiny" period of imperial expansion, attempted to settle into peaceful isolation. That
repose was shattered by the latter half of the 20th century, when the United States was called upon to
change its very nature, first to meet the threat of National Socialism, then of Soviet Imperialism. Kahn
postulated in 1959 that in order to resist the Soviet Empire, the United States would be required to make
such fundamental transformations of its republican structure as virtually to become an empire itself; and
that having made the transformation, the end of the Cold War would not be sufficient to undo the
change. He was, of course, not alone in that prediction, which proved largely to be true. Kahn did not
live to see the CoDominium, but it would hardly have surprised him.

Of course no one predicted that the rapid development of faster-than-light space travel would rapidly
follow the formation of the CoDominium. However, once the Alderson Drive was perfected, few
disputed that there had to be some kind of universal government; and while few would, given free
choice, have chosen the CoDominium for that role, there was a surprising consensus that the
CoDominium was better than anarchy.

As the 21st century came to a close, it was obvious to most analysts that the CoDominium was doomed.
There was widespread speculation on what would replace it. Astute observers looked to the
CoDominium Fleet to provide the nucleus of stability around which a new order might be built, and they
were not disappointed. What was surprising, though, was the role played by the Dual Monarchy of
Sparta.

Sparta was not founded as an imperial power, and indeed its rulers explicitly rejected the notion of either
ambitions or responsibilities extending beyond their own planetary system; yet when the CoDominium
finally collapsed, no planetary nation was more important in building the new order.

As with any complex event, many factors were important in the transformation of Sparta from a nation
founded by university professors seeking to establish the good society to the nucleus of what is formally
called the Spartan Hegemony and which in all but name is the first interstellar empire; but analysts are
universally agreed that much of the change can be traced to the will and intent of one man, Lysander I,
Collins King of Sparta. It remains for us to examine how Lysander, originally very much in agreement
with the Spartan Founders that the best policy for Sparta would be an armed neutrality on the Swiss
model, came to embrace the necessity of empire.

тАФFrom the preface to From Utopia to Imperium: A History of Sparta from Alexander I to the Accession
of Lysander, by Caldwell C. Whitlock, Ph.D. (University of Sparta Press, 2120).

CHAPTER ONE
Crofton's Essays and Lectures in Military History
(2nd Edition)
Professor John Christian Falkenberg II:
Delivered at Sandhurst, August 22nd, 2087
In the last decades of the 20th century, many predicted that the battlefield of the future would be one of

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swift and annihilating violence, ruled by an elaborate technology. Instead, in one of history's many
illustrations of the Law of Unintended Consequences, the 21st century saw military technology enter an