China on the rise, Russia making a comeback, thousands of refugees on the roads to change the face of continents... Every day when you open the newspaper you kind of think that you can make out the way the future is going to be... But a quick look at History shows how unpredictable the course of human history can be (and I won't even bother you about the fortuitous "discovery" of America).
1) Germany
As we all know, Germany is a country of solid, no-nonsense, tough as nail and intelligent warriors. OK, we have to kick them in the teeth real hard once a generation to put them into their place, but they always come back stronger as ever, united as ever and ready to conquer through other means (ex: the Euro).
Well, guess what? Germany only has that reputation since the end of the XIXth century. At the beginning of the XIXth century, what we call Germany is a loose confederation of a hundred states and statelets under the thumb of Austria, and then under the thumb of Napoleonic France. So much so that in War and Peace, Tolstoy effectively allows his characters to say :
‘Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody has beaten the Germans. They beat no one- except one another. He made his reputation fighting them.’
[German states before the French revolution-a real mess, isn't it?]
Seen that? You can dismiss it as fiction, but Tolstoy channeled the spirit of the time and a lot of people thought the same thing as his character at the time of Napoleon : Germany was just a no man's land filled with ridiculous dukes and counts where real powerhouses of Europe fought each other since time immemorial (just look at the Thirty Years War for example).
[The slow take over of Germany under Prussia]
Then, it's the domino effect: once Austria's influence is crushed by Napoleon, Napoleon himself is crushed by the Allies and Prussia has now its hands free to seize the opportunity, take over Germany, unite it under its banner and release its full potential. But it could never have been without Napoleon's influence, defeat and Prussian's militarism.
2) Byzantium
The Western Roman Empire fell in 453 and the Eastern Roman Empire, called retrospectively Byzantine Empire, fell a millenium later. But it well could have been averted, at least in the later case.
We all know that the decline of Byzantium is due to the surge of Islam from the Arabian peninsula. One after the other, large tracts of lands are lost: Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, all of that in a few decades!
The armies of Islam are suddenly besieging Constantinople, first in 674 and then in 717, and it seems nothing can stop them. However, the tide is slowly but surely delayed, appeased, turned back... Anatolia is won back and the frontier between Islam and Christianity more or less stands firm between the Taurus mountains and the Caucasus. The raids of the Arabs in Roman territory as less and less successful. Like two exhausted fighters, the Caliphate and the Empire still trade blows but the situation becomes more and more equal. None of them can finally defeat the other.
So much so that if the situation had remained such, it would not have been farfetched to imagine the Roman Empire successfully passing the Middle Age, entering Renaissance, and eventually accessing to our Modern Era somewhat intact (even if probably not with the same frontiers)...
Except that, once again, History suddenly throws a wildcard into the mix : the Turkics tribes from the steppes cross the Caucasus and threaten Anatolia, inflict a decisive defeat in Manzikert to the Byzantines in 1071 (even capturing the Emperor) and all the dynamic changes. The Turks now roam freely on the Anatolian plateau, the Greeks are pushed to the edges on the shores of Asia Minor and unable to protect the Holy Lands. The weakened Byzantines call for help from their Latins brothers, who have no better idea than to launch the first of an apocalyptic list of crusades which will succeed in nothing better than to cripple the Byzantines and offer the city of Constantine on a plate to the Ottoman Turks. Game over, Byzantium!
3) The Duchy of Burgundy
Burgundy is not only a wine, it's also a region in France. But Burgundy is not only a region in France (see first pic below). It was, for a century, a power state who was a big player on the European stage.
Nominally, the duchy of Burgundy was vassal to the kingdom of France. However, the king Jean II eventually gave it to one of his son, Philippe. Philippe is wise and cunning and marries his own two sons with heiresses of some lands in the futures Belgium and Holland. Suddenly, the Duchy of Burgundy doubles its size.
[The Palace of the Dukes of Bourgogne in Dijon is a testimony of the wealth of the near-independant Duchy]
And this where it becomes all important: France and England are still in the quagmire of the Hundred Years War. The son of Philippe, Jean Sans Peur (John the Fearless) sees how he can take advantage of the situation, by allying with France or England according to his own schemes and needs. Eventually, he goes too far and is assassinated. And it will be the task of his son, Philippe The Good, to practically achieve the de facto independance of what will be called "the Great Duchy of Occident" by switching alliances, encouraging art and industry in his land, acquiring the Duchy of Luxembourg also in the process.
However, what could have been a country suddenly disappears 10 years after Philippe the Good's death: his own son, the aptly named "Charles the Bold" (Charles le Temeraire) decides to unite once of the all the two parts of his "kingdom" by invading Lorraine, the last part of the puzzle between Burgundy proper and the Dutch lands (see the map above). He is defeated and killed and his sworn enemy, Louis XI of France, immediately invades and seizes Burgundy and the Picardy estates, while the Dutch states fall in the hands of the Habsburgs.
When you look at a map of France and Belgium and Netherlands today, spare a thought for the "other" country which could be drawn now from the North Sea right to Switzerland. Years and years of careful diplomacy and negatotiations, utterly ruined and dilapidated in a single battle.
Basically, it makes no sense to worry too much about the future. Any certainty is doomed to be crushed by the inherent unpredictability of the human affairs. Be it a social or a technological revolution, a new religion, or a sudden ecological disaster, there are a lot of ways for your frontiers to sudden pass their expiry dates.
Image credits:
It is easy to assume that the map we are born into is somehow natural. But the map of North America, the one I was born into, shows tremendous transformations over a 300 year period, with more to come as the seas reshape the coasts and the climate pushes populations around.
Yes, rising sea level will bring a lot of changes, pushing the shores limit inland, forcing people to move and challenging the conventional borders.