It is like trying to explain a point using somehting that everybody knows.
In this case case, the point that during the Roman ERepublic with a slight power-sharing produced less dark times that during the Empire is a valid point.
I mean.. it is basically like your point about the trasnformation of the west from little corner of the worl to world preeminence...it is very complex and complicated.. but m you can get soemthing useful about it by using your metaphor about maritime routes and geography as important to the militaristic impulse .. but at the end is also a big simplifications since religion, and symbolic changes (science as agood recreatonal sport for a sector of the society as an example, or economical structures) were also fundamental.
In a word.. I would not be that tough :)
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
But as you noticed I tried to intoduce geopolitical angle in analysis of common point of view - geography and desire of peripheral islandish or peninsular states first to survive then proceed to world domination using militarism as a useful tool.
Mr Chalmers Johnson is a known critic of American militarism which he sufficiently unmasked with all its secret prisons and personal armies, black budgets and dictatorial executive power.
But my point was to invite all of you to think about - whether militarism pursued by executives was caused by poor state of checks and balances or had other reasons to exist.
