Mar
29
No one in "international relations" in 1574 was buying futures on the Dutch Republic, and no poll at the time would have found William the Silent to be more popular than either Philip II or the Othmanli Sultan. And yet, within less than a century after the relief of Leyden by the Dutch fleet, the ever-unpopular, grasping, fat, Jew-tolerating, free-speaking soldiers and sailors of Orange had defeated the Spanish infantry and the British Navy and extended the reach of their tiny, sodden country to the Americas and Asia. The people who went long on the Middle East and traditional Europe (Spain, France, Italy) lost big. Historical parallels are as useless as CBO numbers in predicting what will actually happen, but they are a useful caution against accepting as certain what "everybody" - i.e. those with tenure - knows.
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