&#62; maybe one of you could show at least one example of a "competent" nation conquering disfunctional ones before building your complete world view on it.<p>Countries with a mix of a stable economy, advanced technology, and organized military regularly conquered their neighbors that didn't have those things. Countries with the tech/military but not the stable economy (USSR, for instance) could have a brief go at it, but inevitably came down upon themselves.<p>What sort of examples were you looking for? Nations with the combination advanced technology relative to their neighbors and a well organized military have done a lot of conquering throughout history, and those with stable economies held onto their new possessions. There's so many examples I wouldn't know where to start. Rome and all of its possessions would be a decent place, or one of the many functional or dysfunctional Russian Empires, or the Unification of Japan under the Oda, Toyotomi, and Tokugawa daimyos, or Manifest Destiny in the United States...<p>Those are just a few to come to mind with the economy/tech/military edges, but there's quite literally hundreds, from little tiny islands taking over other little tiny islands in Oceania to the various international powers/empires. Maybe the question is with the word competent? You do need a healthy economy, advanced technology, and stable military, which in turn requires some sort of decent courts, checks and balances on military rule, some science and production happening, and so on. Complicated question - could probably go on more if you clarified a bit.