What the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Means for Drones Today

You may have noticed a trend. We like writing articles where we draw ridiculous comparisons to things that are typically not associated with drones. Things like toilets, the Ford Model T, and bacon. And we like making outlandish references to the ancient Romans to support shameless promotions of the Modovolo Lift: “What the Fall of the Roman Republic, the Cost of Death, and Drone Operators have in common” and our personal favorite “Why the ancient Romans had better drones than we do.”

This is partly to prove to you we aren’t using AI to write these articles. (But we all know that the real reason is that these titles have a high level of click-bait-ness.) 

And this article is no exception. You’re welcome. 

So let’s go back to the waning days of the Roman Empire and to its impact on drones.

You may have already realized that we aren’t the first ones to talk about the fall of the Roman Empire. It was a particularly hot topic among the noble classes of 18th and 19th century Britain, Edward Gibbon being the leading figure with his magnum opus, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” 

And, based on that title, you may be surprised to learn that Mr. Gibbon was trying to figure out why the Roman Empire had….declined and then fell.  

Mr. Gibbon came to three overall conclusions regarding the “Decline” part. First, there were wild swings of inflation and deflation caused by the constant ebb and flow of Emperors constantly debasing the coinage, spending lavishly, and then there were massive economic hangovers that we would call Recessions and Depressions. Second and third, there was a vicious cycle of taxation and potent bureaucracy.  The Emperors needed that potent bureaucracy to enforce an ever expanding number of laws. And that required more and more money to fund for enforcement, which required more taxation, which required more bureaucracy to obtain the taxes, which required more taxation, etc.  

All of this meant, according to Mr. Gibbon, that, when the Germanic invasions started in the 4th century AD, the Romans ultimately couldn’t defend themselves, hence the “Fall” part of the “Decline and Fall.” 

But why was this such a hot topic with Brits back in the day? You would think it wouldn’t be a hot topic because the British Empire in the 18th century was then in its ascendancy. But, because the future is always a bit murky, the Brits didn’t know about the whole “ascendancy” thing at the time and in the 18th century the Brits particularly loved tariffs, import restrictions and potent bureaucracies. So from Mr. Gibbon’s view, Britain was following a similar path to the Romans: cycles of inflation, deflation, taxation, and bureaucracy - and, in consequence, leading to decline…and falling. 

You may be thinking: “Ah, this is the point in the article where there is finally a connection to drones.” Well, you’d be wrong. Well, temporarily wrong. There is one last point here to make. 

Ironically, the tariffs and import restrictions and bureaucracy did have a “decline and fall” aspect for the Brits at the time (even at their ascendency) - and that is the creation story of the USA itself. In short: Britain imposed many taxes (e.g., on teas which prompted the Boston Tea Party), imposed a litany of other laws and regulations on the hapless colonials, and then lost the Revolutionary War. Viola. The USA was born. 

Would this have happened without tariffs, import restrictions, and bureaucracy? We’ll never know, but we do know that the Brits did not intend to spark the revolution. Yet they most certainly did. 

So the lesson (finally) here is: tariffs, import restrictions, and bureaucracy have unintended consequences, like toppling an ancient empire or sparking a revolution. 

And we hear you ask again, “can we now get on to the connection with drones?” OK! Luckily, Juan Plaza has already written an excellent article on the impact of the new tariffs on the drone industry, so we’re not going to rehash that here. Instead, let’s dig into what are the intended versus what could be the unintended consequences. 

But first a disclaimer. This article is not pushing a political point and/or promoting and/or condoning a particular political party or personnage or other. We are focused on drones. 

Intended Consequences. Let’s start with what Trump is trying to achieve.  

Reshoring of Manufacturing. That’s surely a laudable goal. And, well, as a drone manufacturer, we certainly have a lot to gain on that front - so we have a vested self-interest and bias for sure. 

Reordering the Global Supply Chain. 

It’s too early to tell but it’s easy to see how Trump’s tariffs and import restrictions could accelerate an already massively acceleration of investment in manufacturing in the USA.

Electronic speed controllers. It’s not clear to us whether the tariffs and policy will be around long enough to matter. We’ve tested the same variants. Chinese version is better. 

BTW, you could argue the same of DJI vs. Modovolo. 

Unintended Consequences. 

Could this spark revolution in China? This seems unlikely. Death grip on power. 

Could this build another China? 

Could it spark deregulation in the USA? Most manufacturing is ending up in Florida and Texas. Will this force the nanny states of CA, IL, NY to finally do it? Note: we’re in Upstate NY. We love it here. 

DJI has a price advantage. Known that Chinese government is giving money to DJI. So does Modovolo. 

Ironically, part 2. USA imposed its own tariffs. Price of Tea from 

Another article. Tar. Copper. And the misfortunes of X noble. Restrictions ultimately leading to innovation. 

Not that long after the Napoleonic Wars the Brits made a very hard pivot starting in the early 19th century - away from import restrictions and tariffs and more to a free market. And among you economic history freaks many have argued that this pivot marked the domination of the Brits for the 19th century. 

The Brits had this interesting habit of developing very cool military tech and then 

But we’ve since sacked the writer of those articles and now have a fresh outlook on life. From now on, we’re only going to make productive articles. 

Just kidding. 

But we do think that Moneyball does have it right. Every industry needs a key metric that describes a successful operation. For baseball, it’s the “get-on-base” percentage.  For hotels, it’s revenue per available room (RevPAR). For airlines, it's revenue per available seat mile (RASM).  The list is endless. 

For drones, the “get-on-base” percentage is the “Cost Per (Flight) Minute” (the “CPM”).  We’ve talked about this before here and here.