The ancient Silk Road’s path begins in what is now the industrial heartland of China. (These days, whether China is anyone’s friend is a reasonable question.) The route then winds its way through Beijing’s restive Muslim Xinjiang province, cuts though the fraught maze of former Soviet republics in Central Asia – Trashcanistan, Karjackistan, etc. – crosses very grumpy Iran, and makes its way to the EU (where all the countries are quarreling) by way of Turkey (which wants to join the EU so it can get in on the quarrel).
When we trace the globe’s ancient trade routes, it is unpleasant to see what contentious regions they traverse and what grievous political fault lines they follow. Even worse is to note that most of these antique grudges are still evident on modern maps. Among the oldest major trade routes is the link between “cradles of civilization” in Egypt and Mesopotamia. This runs northeast along the Mediterranean littoral from the Nile to the headwaters of the Euphrates. People have been fighting there forever. The Old Testament tells us about it. And that’s the combat record of just one small tribe. Full-scale warfare in the Levant began at least 4,000 years ago during the reign of Pharaoh Mentuhotep II and lasted until... the end of time is my best guess. It would take a very brave caravan to transport goods along this route today. I wouldn’t care to be the guy leading the camels past the IEDs of Sinai terrorists, through the Gaza kill zone, past trigger-happy Israeli checkpoints, across the chaos of Lebanon, into Syria where ISIS is no less murderous just because it’s “almost defeated,” only to wind up in Baghdad. What do I have that I could sell in Baghdad? (If you don’t count the weapons I’ve paid for with my U.S. tax dollars.) Things are not much friendlier along the “Silk Road,” which, starting in 200 B.C., linked China to Europe. (And may continue to do so with China’s “New Silk Road” or “Belt and Road Initiative” to span Eurasia with transportation infrastructure.)
Why are trade routes less like a pleasant shopping trip and more like something Virgil guided Dante through in the Inferno ?
The Grand Trunk Road, in use across the Indian subcontinent since the third century B.C., is no better. It goes from “the graveyard of empires” beyond the Khyber Pass to Afghanistan’s frenemy Pakistan to Afghanistan’s frenemy’s enemy India to India’s bullied stepchild Bangladesh. Why are trade routes less like a pleasant shopping trip and more like something Virgil guided Dante through in the Inferno ? Everyone along the way wants a piece of the action. Trade routes extend from one productive place to another productive place. But in between are any number of places that produce nothing but thieves. Or – as the thieves are called when they get sufficiently organized to impose tolls, imposts, and tariffs – governments. Unproductive and rapacious
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January 2019
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