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World domination (also called global domination, world conquest, global conquest, or cosmocracy) is a hypothetical power structure, either achieved or aspired to, in which a single political authority holds the power over all and/or virtually all the inhabitants of Earth. Various individuals or regimes have tried to achieve this goal throughout history, without ever attaining it. The theme has been often used in works of fiction, particularly in political fiction, as well as in conspiracy theories (which may posit that some person or group has already secretly achieved this goal), particularly those fearing the development of a "New World Order" involving a world government of a totalitarian nature.
Historically, world domination has been thought of in terms of a nation expanding its power to the point that all other nations are subservient to it. This may be achieved by direct military force or by establishing a hegemony. The latter is an indirect form of rule by the hegemon (leading state) over subordinate states. The hegemonic implied power includes the threat of force, protection, or economic benefits. Attempted hegemony has often inspired resistance attempting to preserve a multipolarbalance of power.
While various empires and hegemonies over the course of history have been able to expand and dominate large parts of the world, none have come close to conquering all the territory on Earth. However, these powers have had a global impact in cultural and economic terms that is still felt today. Some of the largest and more prominent empires include:
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican state of ancient Rome and is generally understood to refer to the period and territory ruled by the Romans following Octavian's assumption of sole rule under the Principate in 31 BC. It included territory in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
The Mongol Empire, which in the 13th century under Genghis Khan came to control the largest continuous land empire in the world, spanning from East Asia to the Middle East and Eastern Europe. It eventually fractured and ended with the fall of the Yuan dynasty, which was established by Kublai Khan. It reached its greatest extent in 1309, when it controlled the region through which the Silk Road trade route ran.
The Russian Empire, which controlled vast areas of Eurasia stretching from the Baltic region to Outer Manchuria, reaching its largest extent in 1895. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution in 1917, which saw Tsar Nicholas II abdicate. The cultural and economic unity of the Russian Empire allowed the rise of its successor state, the Soviet Union, a superpower whose military strength and ideology were major forces in global politics during the 20th century.
The British Empire, originating under Elizabeth I, was the largest empire in history. By 1921, the British Empire reached its height and dominated a quarter of the globe, controlling territory on each continent. The empire went through a long period of decline and decolonization following the end of the Second World War, which had brought it close to bankruptcy, until it ceased to be a dominant force in world affairs. English is still the official language in many countries, most of which were former British colonies, and is widely spoken as a second language around the world. The Industrial Revolution that took place in the United Kingdom from the 18th century was spread to the rest of the globe through the expansion of the British Empire, enabling the development of an industrialized global economy.
By the early 21st century, wars of territorial conquest were uncommon and the world's nations could attempt to resolve their differences through multilateral diplomacy under the auspices of global organizations like the United Nations and World Trade Organization. The world's superpowers and potential superpowers rarely attempt to exert global influence through the types of territorial empire-building seen in history, but the influence of historical empires is still important and the idea of world domination is still socially and culturally relevant.
The aspiration to rule "the four corners of the universe" was the hallmark of imperial ideologies worldwide and since the beginning of history.
Egypt
The Egyptian King was believed to rule "all under the sun." On Abydos Stelae, Thutmose I claimed: "I made the boundaries of Egypt as far as the sun encircles." The Story of Sinuke tells that the King has "subdued all that the sun encircles." The Hymn of Victory of Thutmose III and the Stelae of Amenophis II proclaimed that no one makes a boundary with the King and there is "no boundary for him towards all lands united, towards all lands together." Thutmose III was also acknowledged: "None presents himself before thy majesty. The circuit of the Great Circle is included in thy grasp."
Mesopotamia
The title of King of the Universe appeared in Ancient Mesopotamia as a title of great prestige claiming world domination, being used by powerful monarchs, starting with the Akkadian emperorSargon (2334–2284 BC) and it was used in a succession of later empires claiming symbolical descent from Sargon's Akkadian Empire. During the Early Dynastic Period in Mesopotamia (c. 2900–2350 BC), the rulers of the various city-states (the most prominent being Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Umma and Kish) in the region would often launch invasions into regions and cities far from their own, at most times with negligible consequences for themselves, in order to establish temporary and small empires to either gain or keep a superior position relative to the other city-states. Eventually this quest to be more prestigious and powerful than the other city-states resulted in a general ambition for universal rule. Since Mesopotamia was equated to correspond to the entire world and Sumerian cities had been built far and wide (cities the like of Susa, Mari and Assur were located near the perceived corners of the world) it seemed possible to reach the edges of the world (at this time thought to be the lower sea, the Persian gulf, and the upper sea, the Mediterranean).
The title šar kiššatim was perhaps most prominently used by the kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, more than a thousand years after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.
After taking Babylon and defeating the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Cyrus the Great proclaimed himself "king of Babylon, king of Sumer and Akkad, king of the four corners of the world" in the famous Cyrus Cylinder, an inscription deposited in the foundations of the Esagila temple dedicated to the chief Babylonian god, Marduk. Cyrus the Great's dominions composed the largest empire the world had ever seen to that point, spanning from the Mediterranean Sea and Hellespont in the west to the Indus River in the east and Iranian philosophy, literature and religion played dominant roles in world events for the next millennium, like the Cyrus Cylinder as the oldest-known declaration of human rights. Before Cyrus and his army crossed the river Araxes to battle with the Armenians, he installed his son Cambyses II as king in case he should not return from battle. However, once Cyrus had crossed the Aras River, he had a vision in which Darius had wings atop his shoulders and stood upon the confines of Europe and Asia (the known world). When Cyrus awoke from the dream, he inferred it as a great danger to the future security of the empire, as it meant that Darius would one day rule the whole world. However, his son Cambyses was the heir to the throne, not Darius, causing Cyrus to wonder if Darius was forming treasonable and ambitious designs. This led Cyrus to order Hystaspes to go back to Persis and watch over his son strictly, until Cyrus himself returned. In many cuneiform inscriptions, like Behistun Inscription, Darius the Great denote his achievements, he presents himself as a devout believer of Ahura Mazda, perhaps even convinced that he had a divine right to rule over the world, believing that because he lived righteously by Asha, Ahura Mazda supported him as a virtuous monarch and appointed him to rule the Achaemenid Empire and their global projection, while believing that each rebellion in his kingdom was the work of druj, the enemy of Asha, due to Dualist beliefs.
Alexander the Great
In the 4th century BCE, Alexander the Great notably expressed a desire to conquer the world, and a legend persists that after he completed his military conquest of the known ancient world, he "wept because he had no more worlds to conquer", as he was unaware of China farther to the east and had no way to know about civilizations in the Americas.
After the collapse of Macedonian Empire, the Seleucid Empire appeared with claims to world rule in their imperial ideology, as Antiochus I Soter claimed the ancient Mesopotamian title King of the Universe. However, it didn't reflect realistic Seleucid imperial ambitions at this point after the treaty of peace of Seleucus I Nicator with the Mauryans had set a limit to eastern expansion, and Antiochus ceding the lands west of Thrace to the Antigonids.
India
In the Indosphere, Bharata Chakravartin was the first chakravartin (universal emperor, ruler of rulers or possessor of chakra) of Avasarpini (present half time cycle as per Jain cosmology). In a Jain legend, Yasasvati Devi, senior-most queen of Rishabhanatha (first Jain tirthankara), saw four auspicious dreams one night. She saw the sun and the moon, the Mount Meru, the lake with swans, earth and the ocean. Rishabhanatha explained to her that these dreams meant that a chakravartin ruler will be born to them who will conquer the whole world. Then, Bharata, a Kshatriya from Ikshvaku dynasty, was born to them on the ninth day of the dark half of the month of Chaitra. He is said to have conquered all the six parts of the world, during his digvijaya (winning six divisions of earth in all directions), and to have engaged in a fight with Bahubali, his brother, to conquer the last remaining city. The ancient name of India was named "Bhāratavarsha" or "Bhārata" or "Bharata-bhumi" after him. In the Hindu text, Skanda Purana (chapter 37) it is stated that "Rishabhanatha was the son of Nabhiraja, and Rishabha had a son named Bharata, and after the name of this Bharata, this country is known as Bharata-varsha." After completing his world-conquest, he is said to have proceeded for his capital Ayodhyapuri with a huge army and the divine chakra-ratna (spinning, disk-like super weapon with serrated edges). Also, there's a legend of the Maharaj Vikramaditya's Empire, which spread across Middle East and East Asia (reaching even modern Indonesia) as a great Hindu world emperor (Chakravarti), probably inspiring the imperial pretensions of Chandragupta II and Skandagupta, as the term Vikramaditya is also used as a title by several Hindu monarchs. According to P.N. Oak and Stephen Knapp, king Vikrama’s empire extended up to Europe and whole Jambudweep (Asia). But, according to most historical texts, his kingdom was located in the present-day northern India and Pakistan, implying that the historic Vikramaditya only ruled on Bharat until River Indus as per Bhavishya Purana. So, there is no epigraphic evidence to suggest that his rule extended to Europe, Arabia, Central Asia or Southeast Asia (Sources of contemporary empires, like Parthians, Kushans, Chinese, Romans, Sassanids) don't mention an empire ruling from Arabia to Indonesia), and that part of his rule is considered to be legend rather than historical fact, lying in the fact that Indic religious conceptions of the Indian sub-continent as being "the world" (as how the term Jambudvipa is used broadly to the same), and how that translates into folk memories. However, the Mahabharata or Somadeva'sKathasaritasagara has pretensions of world ruling, as performing some mystic ritual and virtues would be a signal of becoming emperor of the whole world, as Dharma has a universal jurisdiction in all the cosmos. In which there was a time when King Yudhisthira ruled over "the world". As From Śuciratha will come the son named Vṛṣṭimān, and his son, Suṣeṇa, will be the emperor of the entire world. Also there are signs in Bāṇabhaṭṭa that will shall arise an emperor named Harsha, who will rule over all the continents like Harishchandra, who will conquer the world like Mandhatr. But, the world, in the time of Ramayana in the 12th millennium BCE and Mahabharata in the 5th millennium BCE was only India. Some pan-indian empires, like Maurya Empire, were seeking the world domination (first of the known ancient world by indian in the Akhand Bharat, and then enter in conflict with Seleucid Empire), as Ashoka the great was a devout Buddhist and wanted to establish it as a world religion. Also, the first references to a Chakravala Chakravartin (an emperor who rules over all four of the continents) appear in monuments from the time of the early Maurya Empire, in the 4th to 3rd century BCE, in reference to Chandragupta Maurya and his grandson Ashoka.
China
In the Sinosphere, one of the consequences of the Mandate of Heaven in Imperial China was the claim of the Emperor of China as Son of Heaven who ruled tianxia (meaning "all under heaven", closely associated with civilization and order in classical Chinese philosophy), which in English can be translated as "ruler of the whole world", being equivalent to the concept of a universal monarch. The title was interpreted literally only in China and Japan, whose monarchs were referred to as demigods, deities, or "living gods", chosen by the gods and goddesses of heaven. The theory, from Confucian bureaucracy, behind this was that the Chinese emperor acted as the autocrat of all under Heaven and held a mandate to rule over everyone else in the world; but only as long as he served the people well. If the quality of rule became questionable because of repeated natural disasters such as flood or famine, or for other reasons, then rebellion was justified. This important concept legitimized the dynastic cycle or the change of dynasties. The center of this world view was not exclusionary in nature, and outer groups, such as ethnic minorities and foreign people, who accepted the mandate of the Chinese Emperor (through annexation or being Tributary state of China) were themselves received and included into the Chinese tianxia (in which equates China as "everything under the sky"), as it presupposed "inclusion of all" and implied acceptance of the world's diversities, emphasizing harmonious reciprocal dependence and ruled by virtue as a means for lasting peace. Although in practice there would be areas of the known world which were not under the control of the Chinese monarch ("barbarians"), in Chinese political theory the rulers of those areas derived their power from the Chinese monarch (Sinocentrism). This principle was exemplified with Qin Shi Huang'sgoal to "unify all under Heaven", which was, in fact, representative of his desire to control and expand Chinese territory to act as an actual geographic entity, as consecuence of existing many of feudal states that had shared cultural and economic interests, so the concept of a great nation centered on the Yellow River Plain (the known world, both Han or Non-Han in Hua–Yi distinction) gradually expanded and the equivalence of tianxia with the Chinese nation evolved due to the feudal practice of conferring land. For the emperors of the central kingdom of China, the world can be roughly divided into two broad and simple categories: civilization and non-civilization, which means the people who have accepted the emperor's supremacy, the Heavenly virtue and its principle, and the people who have not accepted it; then, they recognized their country as the only true civilization in all respects, starting with their geography and including all the known world in a Celestial Empire. China's neighbors were obliged to pay their respects to the 'excellent' Chinese emperors within these boundaries on a regular basis. It can be said that this was the most important element of the East Asian order, which was implicit in the name of Celestial Empire in the past. In the 7th century during the Tang dynasty, some northern tribes of Turkic origin, after being made vassal (as consequence of Tang campaign against the Eastern Turks), referred to the Emperor Taizong as the "Khan of Heaven". Also The Chinese emperor exercised power over the surrounding dynasty under the name of Celestial Empire. Especially in the case of kings of ancient Korea, it was the subject of the Chinese emperor. The idea of the absolute authority of the Chinese emperor and the extension of tianxia by the assimilation of vassal states began to fade with the Opium Wars, as China was made to refer to Great Britain as a "sovereign nation", equal to itself, it to establish a foreign affairs bureau and accommodate to Westphalian sovereignty of Western nations' system of international affairs during New Imperialism.
Persia
In the Sasanian Empire, the use of the mythological Kayanian title of kay, first used by Yazdegerd II and reached its zenith under Peroz I, was due to a shift in the political perspective of the Sasanian Empire. Originally disposed towards the west against their rivals from the Byzantine Empire, this now changed to the east against Hephthalites. The war against the Hunnic tribes (Iranian Huns) may have awakened the mythical rivalry existing between the Iranian Kayanian rulers (mythical kings of the legendary Avestan dynasty) and their Turanian enemies, which is demonstrated in the Younger Avesta. Based on the legend of the Iranian hero-king Fereydun (Frēdōn in Middle Persian), who divided his kingdom between his three sons: his eldest son Salm received the empire of the west, "Rûm" (more generally meaning the Roman Empire, the Greco-Roman world, or just "the West"); the second eldest Tur received the empire of the east, Turān (all the lands north and east of the Amu Darya, as far as China); and the youngest, Iraj, received the heartland of the empire, Iran. So, the Sasanians Shahanshah may have believed themselves to be the heirs of the Fereydun and Iraj (reinforced because they were Ahura Mazda's worshippers), and so possibly considered both the Byzantine domains in west and the eastern domains of the Hephthalites as belonging to Iran, and therefore have been symbolically asserting their rights over these lands of both Hemispheres of Earth by assuming the title of kay.
Genghis Khan
In the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan genuinely believed that it was his destiny to conquer the world for his god, Tengri, having a mission of bringing the rest of the world under one sword. This was based in his shamanicbeliefs of the Great Blue Sky that spans the world, deriving his mandate for a world empire from this universal divinity, being close to unify Eurasia into a world empire under the shamanic umbrella. Also, Temujin took name "Genghis Khan", which means Universal Ruler, then, his sons and grandsons took up challenge of world conquest.
In the early 17th century, Sir Walter Raleigh proposed that world domination could be achieved through control of the oceans, writing that "whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself". In 1919, Halford Mackinder offered another influential theory for a route to world domination, writing:
While Mackinder's "Heartland Theory" initially received little attention outside geography, it later exercised some influence on the foreign policies of world powers seeking to obtain the control suggested by the theory. Impressed with the swift opening of World War II, Derwent Whittlesey wrote in 1942:
The swift march of conquest stunned or dazzled the onlookers ... The grandiose concept of the world domination became possible as a practical objective only with the rise of science and its application to mechanical invention. By these means the earth’s scattered land units and territories became accessible and complementary to each other, and for the first time the world state, so long a futile medieval ideal, became a goal that might conceivably be reached.
Yet before the entrance of the United States into this War and with Isolationism still intact, U.S. strategist Hanson W. Baldwin had projected that "omorrow air bases may be the highroad to power and domination ... Obviously it is only by air bases ... that power exercised in the sovereign skies above a nation can be stretched far beyond its shores ... Perhaps ... future acquisitions of air bases ... can carry the voice of America through the skies to the ends of the earth.
Writing in 1948, Hans Morgenthau stressed that the mechanical development of weapons, transportation, and communication makes "the conquest of the world technically possible, and they make it technically possible to keep the world in that conquered state." He argues that a lack of such infrastructure explains why great ancient empires, though vast, failed to complete the universal conquest of their world and perpetuate the conquest. "Today no technological obstacle stands in the way of a world-wide empire," as "modern technology makes it possible to extend the control of mind and action to every corner of the globe regardless of geography and season." Morgenthau continued on the technological progress:
It has also given total war that terrifying, world-embracing impetus which seems to be satisfied with nothing less than world dominion ... The machine age begets its own triumphs, each forward step calling forth two or more on the road of technological progress. It also begets its own victories, military and political; for with the ability to conquer the world and keep it conquered, it creates the will to conquer it.
However, it has often been said that with the full size and scope of the world known, "world domination is an impossible goal", and specifically that "no single nation however big and powerful can dominate a world" of well over a hundred interdependent nations and billions of people.
The above assumption is challenged by scholars of metric approach to history. Cesare Marchetti and Jesse H. Ausubel argued that the size of
empires corresponds to two weeks of travel from the capital to the rim using the fastest transportation system available. Airplane permits global empire because any place can be reached within less than two weeks, though for political reasons we may have to wait a couple more generations (from 2013) to see a global empire. Max Ostrovsky stressed that the implication is even more drastic in the progress of communication. The speed of communication in the Inca Empire, for example, was 20 km per hour (running man). Today, information moves with the speed of light. By most cautious extrapolations, he concluded, modern technology allows empire exceeding the size or population of Earth multiple times.
Some proponents of ideologies (communism, socialism, and Islamism) actively pursue the goal of establishing a form of government consistent with their political beliefs, or assert that the world is moving "naturally" towards the adoption of a particular form of government (or self), authoritarian or anti-authoritarian. These proposals are not concerned with a particular nation achieving world domination, but with all nations conforming to a particular social or economic model. A goal of world domination can be to establish a world government, a single common political authority for all of humanity. The period of the Cold War, in particular, is considered to be a period of intense ideological polarization, given the existence of two rival blocs—the capitalist West and the communist East—that each expressed the hope of seeing the triumph of their ideology over that of the enemy. The ultimate end of such a triumph would be that one ideology or the other would become the sole governing ideology in the world.
In certain religions, some adherents may also seek the conversion (peaceful or forced) of as many people as possible to their own religion, without restrictions of national or ethnic origin. This type of spiritual domination is usually seen as distinct from the temporal dominion, although there have been instances of efforts begun as holy wars devolving into the pursuit of wealth, resources, and territory. Some Christian groups teach that a false religion, led by false prophets who achieve world domination by inducing nearly universal worship of a false deity, is a prerequisite to end times described in the Book of Revelation. As one author put it, "f world domination is to be obtained, the masses of little people must be brought on board with religion".
In some instances, speakers have accused nations or ideological groups of seeking world domination, even where those entities have denied that this was their goal. For example, J. G. Ballard quoted Aldous Huxley as having said of the United States entering the First World War, "I dread the inevitable acceleration of American world domination which will be the result of it all ... Europe will no longer be Europe". In 2012, politician and critic of IslamGeert Wilders characterized Islam as "an ideology aiming for world domination rather than a religion", and in 2008 characterized the 2008 Israel–Gaza conflict as a proxy action by Islam against the West, contending that "he end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only ... the start of the final battle for world domination".
Superpower, a state with a leading position in the international system and the ability to influence events in its own interest by global projection of power.
Pines, Yuri & Biran, Michal & Rüpke, Jörg (2011) The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared, (New York: Cambridge University Press), p 4, https://books.google.com/books?id=eyoNEAAAQBAJ
Levin, Yigal (2002). "Nimrod the Mighty, King of Kish, King of Sumer and Akkad". Vetus Testamentum. 52 (3): 350–366. doi:10.1163/156853302760197494.
Kuhrt, Amélie (1995). "13". The Ancient Near East: c. 3000–330 BC. Routledge. p. 647. ISBN0-415-16763-9.
Neil MacGregor, "The whole world in our hands", in Art and Cultural Heritage: Law, Policy, and Practice ed. Barbara T. Hoffman. Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN0-521-85764-3
Abbott 2009, p. 14–15. sfn error: no target: CITEREFAbbott2009 (help)
Abbott 2009, p. 15–16. sfn error: no target: CITEREFAbbott2009 (help)
Boyce 1979, p. 54–55. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBoyce1979 (help)
Boyce 1979, p. 55. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBoyce1979 (help)
Shahbazi 1994, pp. 41–50. sfn error: no target: CITEREFShahbazi1994 (help)
Robert Plumer Ward, Illustrations of Human Life, Volume 1 (1837), p. 436: "Alexander wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. Had he been a serjeant of Alexander, instead of Alexander himself, he would not have wept".
Dull, Jack (1990). "The Evolution of Government in China". Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization. University of California Press. ISBN978-0-520-06441-6.
Sir Walter Raleigh, "A Discourse of the Invention of Ships, Anchors, Compass, &c.", The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, Kt. (1829, reprinted 1965), vol. 8, p. 325.
Sir Halford Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction (1919), p. 186.
Sloan, G.R. "Sir Halford Mackinder: The heartland theory then and now", in Gray C S and Sloan G.R., Geopolitics, Geography and Strategy. London: Frank Cass, pp. 15–38.
Derwent Whittlesey, German Strategy of World Conquest, (Essex: F. E. Robinson & Co, 1942), p 13.
Hanson W. Baldwin, United We Stand! Defense of the Western Hemisphere, (New York & London: Whittlesey House, 1941), p 189, 222.
The Atlantic Community Quarterly (1979), Volume 17, p. 287. At the time, the source specified that there were about 140 nations and about four billion people.
Marchetti, Cesare & Ausubel, Jesse H. (2013). "Quantitative dynamics of human empires," p 2, 49, https://phe.rockefeller.edu/docs/empires_booklet.pdf
Adapted from idem (2012). International Journal of Anthropology, vol 27 (1–2): p 1–62.
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