Political orders, even fragile, imperfect ones, are worth defending from those who would wreck them.
The Mediterranean has never hindered the flow of populations. On the contrary, throughout history it has served more as a highway than a barrier, allowing intense commercial interactions and political integration but also destabilizing movements of people and bold projections of power.
The 5th century AD is a case in point. Coming from the North, the Vandals crossed the straits of Gibraltar en masse, disrupting the life of the North African provinces (in a reversal of the historic threats coming north from North Africa, such as the Punic assaults in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC). Unrest, devastation, weakening of civil authority, and war were the result, ruining the wealthiest and until then safest part of the late Roman Empire.
In part the Vandal flood of North Africa was the outcome of petty infighting among Roman administrators and the fruit of just plain stupidity of the imperial …More