The late bronze age collapse comes to mind where only Egypt really survived, if you can call it that as they were never the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

The late bronze age collapse comes to mind where only Egypt really survived, if you can call it that as they were never the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse It is interesting in that for Greece, they basically had to rediscover writing the fall was so complete. Though its likely a confluence of things contributed. Also our relative isolation in the USA means its unlikely we'll see anything truly similar but it does show what can happen to interdependent nation states. Carthage is probably a more recent example we could key off of. But its still a ways off from suddenly as it took about 4 generations and a lot of mutual antagonism between Carthage and Rome. Rome also went a bit overboard in razing the city you could argue. Another to add to the list, though not for plunder specifically is Portugal with its earthquake in Lisbon effectively ended their global dominance.