The expansion of the range of the biological species occurs due to the innate instinct of all representatives of living life on the planet.
Animals strive to increase their habitat so that everyone has enough food, which requires more and more with the growth of livestock. Birds also, when breeding, face the problem of food, and the seeds of plants initially have natural adaptations so that they can be carried as far as possible by the wind or pulled apart by other living beings.
Using the example of an ordinary anthill, we can understand what expansion is. The word expansio in Latin means expansion and fully reflects the desire of all living things to capture as large a territory as possible. While the structure created by the insect workers is small, the area on which they produce edible and building materials is also relatively small. But from the very beginning, strangers are not welcome here, and if a representative of another tribe wanders over a conditional, but clearly defined and marked line, he will not be greeted.
Humanity, having divided into races, peoples and tribes, has behaved in a similar way since ancient times. Constantly fighting with neighbors, many ethnic groups did not forget about distant, unknown countries. What is human expansion, and how does it differ from animal and vegetable?
Natural Restrictions for Natural Expansion
Any natural expansion of the habitat of a biological species implies rational prerequisites and limited natural barriers. For example, tropical plants, despite the nature's desire to plant large spaces with similar specimens, cannot survive in a temperate climate, not to mention the polar latitudes. Polar bears or penguins will be hot in the equatorial climate. Features of soils, and therefore fauna, limits the movement of herbivores, and their livestock is regulated by predators. In the desert, the Arctic or the Antarctic, in turn, not all organisms can live.
What is expansion in human understanding?
Every student knows that America was discovered by the sailor Vespucci. But there is an opinion that long before him the Scandinavian Vikings visited this mainland, although the barrier was very dangerous and severe. Why did unknown adventurers risk their lives that they were looking across the ocean? Of course, they wanted great wealth. In their understanding, the symbol of a better life was wealth that may have possessed foreign tribes. There remained a mere trifle, to reach an unknown land and appropriate values. And if no one lives there, then the task is generally simplified to the limit.
What is military expansion?
Centuries passed, and white spots on maps disappeared. Even small patches of land, not to mention the vast territories, found their masters. But historical realities to this day haunt those who doubt the justice and finality of established borders. Countries with a huge population sometimes occupy a relatively small area, which is also not always rich in resources. Territorial expansion seems to be a logical way out of this impasse, and sooner or later some leader begins to inspire the idea of a possible expansion of borders accompanied by enslavement of the population of the occupied lands along the way. Voluntarily no one wants to share, so the war begins. For examples, you do not need to go far. The last two millennia, mankind has fought with greater or lesser intensity, the apogee of this process has become the twentieth century, and the hope that in the present century it will abandon this habit is very modest.
There was, however, a precedent. The leader of the PRC, Mao Zedong, once tried to persuade the Soviet leader IV Stalin to let a small part of the population of the Middle Kingdom into the undeveloped eastern regions of the USSR, twenty million. He refused, he reasonably felt that Siberia would also come in handy for two hundred million Soviet citizens. The military expansion, attempted by Chairman Mao in the late sixties, was also unsuccessful.
Non-military expansion
Another thing is expanding the sphere of economic interests. The methods of commercial expansion are old and do not differ in variety, but from this they do not become less effective. The main weapon is dumping, that is, the sale of exported goods at obviously low prices. The goal is the ruin of the industry of the country in whose territory a trade war takes place. After that, you can dictate your conditions, in general the same as after the military capture.
Summarizing the comparative observations of the biosphere, of which human civilization is a part, we can only state that the intelligent beings of our planet behave in much the same way as their “smaller brothers”, with only one difference: people have much less restrictions.