> >that's all well and good, but had rome not incorporated its conquered territories, it would either be unable to expand altogether, or it would have to genocide literally everyone in these territories. the former would have made rome is an irrelevant shithole never expanding beyond central italy. the latter would have turned the entire world against them. guess what, it's an irrelevant shithole now. there's a limit to incorporation. that limit is when what is being incorporated is a drag to the entire genetic pool. anticivilizational genes, ie people who never were able to build a civilization even with a thousand years of exposure to the wheel and alphabet, are an obvious drag. also, there is a limit to conquering earth. if a people don't have the heart for eradicating areas like the israelis do, then you'd have to look upward, to space.
United States