• sab@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Furthermore,

      Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe; for they are disunited, ambitious and without discipline, unfaithful, valiant before friends, cowardly before enemies

      -- Machiavelli in the Prince

      Not to call out Putin’s Russia for being amateur hour, but the Prince is probably the first thing to read for an aspiring dictator.

    • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “When you play the game of thrones, you win, or you die. There is no middle ground.”