Thinking about the current medieval setup. One thing is missing.
In Dark Ages 1.0, political dynasties continued for many generations, and competing dynasties warred for many generations. The worst wars were between families, not between nations.
In Dark Ages 2.0, our national dynasties are strictly ‘horizontal’. Before 1900 there were a couple of father-son pairs: Adams and Harrison. After 1900, we have some brothers (Kennedy), some cousins (Roosevelt), and some husband-wife pairs (Clinton) but no sons or daughters. I think one of the Kennedy daughters was in Congress briefly, but didn’t last.
At the state and city level we have LOTS of long-lasting vertical dynasties. Brown in Calif, Laxalt in Nevada, Docking in Kansas, Daley in Chicago come to mind easily.
Some of our current Hundred Year Wars have a personal flavor if not a family flavor. Our perpetual wars against Cuba and Persia are distinctly personal. Castro was supposed to be OUR revolutionary. CIA trained his army, then he flipped and defended his own people. Khomeini was also supposed to be OUR revolutionary, then flipped.
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Trying to parse out our Hundred Year War against Russia, ran into a new thought that might be valid. The war divides into two parts, with 1990-2000 as a vacation.
The latter part is definitely personal in the same way as Cuba and Persia. Yeltsin was OUR man, and he betrayed us by picking Putin, who turned out to be loyal to his own people.
The part from 1918 to 1989 was strategic and commercial in the same way as Coke vs Pepsi or Ford vs GM. We needed a big enemy to divert the blame for our own problems. Germany should have been the big enemy, but we’re genetically allied with Germany. Half of all Americans are part Kraut. Russia had no genetic ties, and is a natural economic competitor because of geography. They naturally export and import the same things we do, so we didn’t need them as a supplier or a market.
I’ve always been puzzled by our 1918 invasion and occupation of Siberia. We were apparently aiding the Mensheviks, which didn’t make a lot of sense. Why would one breed of Communist be better than another for our purposes?
New thought based on commercial competition: We recognized that Lenin and Stalin would turn Russia into an industrial power that would seriously compete with our industries. We wanted to prevent them from succeeding. Fortunately for Russia, we lost interest in the war, and Harding halted our imperialism.
Polistra's Mill 