Perplexity – Here is a list of world conquerors who continually sought to expand their empires and territories:

  1. Genghis Khan – The founder of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history.
  2. Julius Caesar – Roman general and statesman who greatly expanded the Roman Republic’s territory through conquest.
  3. Napoleon Bonaparte – French military and political leader who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century.
  4. Cyrus the Great – Founder of the Achaemenid Empire, which became one of the largest empires of the ancient world.
  5. Attila the Hun – Ruler of the Hunnic Empire who invaded and plundered much of Europe.
  6. Charlemagne – King of the Franks who united much of Western Europe during the Early Middle Ages.
  7. Timur (Tamerlane) – Turko-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia.
  8. Hannibal Barca – Carthaginian general who led a successful campaign against Rome during the Second Punic War.
  9. Ashoka the Great – Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who expanded his empire to cover most of the Indian subcontinent.
  10. Qin Shi Huang – First emperor of a unified China, who greatly expanded the Qin state’s territory.

These conquerors, like Genghis Khan, were known for their military prowess, ambition, and relentless pursuit of territorial expansion. They left significant marks on world history through their conquests and the empires they built.

\\ 1. Genghis Khan is at the top of the list of world conquerors and was the founder of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history. His statue, seen above, is located near his birthplace in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. For more than 100 years, his conquests and later his family controlled a territorial empire of 23 million square kilometers. Vladimir Putin now controls much of that same property. When Putin first became an officer in 1975, he joined the KGB, and his country the USSR’s size according to Google, was at its greatest extent between 1946 and 1991 covering 22.4 million square kilometers. That doesn’t include the property they controlled over into Germany. When Putin was a young officer, his country was 97% as large as Genghis Khan’s. It must bother him that he can’t defeat a country like Ukraine, which was vastly smaller and non-military when he began his acquisitions of their property.

In 1991 the USSR more or less peacefully broke apart into many smaller states. It was on August 24, 1991, that Ukraine became an independent country. One of its prime pieces of real estate was the Crimea peninsula, which Putin secretly invaded and had a bloodless coup, which he then claimed as part of Russia. His February 24, 2022, invasion aimed at the capital of Ukraine stalled on the road to Kiev when the leading tanks were destroyed by a few hovering drones, dropping small grenades into their open hatches. The surrounding land was muddy, and the other tanks and equipment couldn’t get past these disabled ones. Most of the invading army was stuck on the road because of mud and a few drones. Their other invasions of eastern Ukraine were successful, but also stalled, and haven’t moved much in two years.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy both claim they are just trying to restore previously existing borders to their own countries. The battle as seen from a distance looks more like a contest for property and power between the West, led by the US and Europe, and the former USSR, now shrunk to Russia plus their sometimes ally, China.

My problem is Putin’s frequent threat of using atomic weapons. If a single one is used, it will break the seven-decade-long Mutually Assured Destruction Treaties (MAD) agreements not to use or even threaten to use atomic weapons. US policy has always been that one usage of atomic bombs will bring its total response with its thousands of deliverable bombs. My analysis, pursued with these recent blog posts, suggests that the only place that will be livable after such a World War is way south of the equator.