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As the forum choice suggests, with a POD before 1900.

I just thought of something Jared Diamond said in one of his books. He argued that if it hadn't been for the expansion of the Russian and Chinese Empires, the spectre of a great "horde" like the old mongols forming in central Asia and invading would have floated like a damocles' sword over China and the European peninsula well into the 19th century, well into industrialization.

He was probably being hyperbolic, but I'm really amused imagining posh european gentlemen with top hats being chased through industrial districts by hollering mongols on horseback (or bicycles!). Again, probably not what Diamond had in mind.

Still, if for instance something had stopped Russian colonization of north- and central Asia, when is the latest point in history nomadic invaders, perhaps armed with guns, artillery, perhaps even primitive motorized vehicles, could have threatened (though not in any meaningful way "defeated") societies at the extreme east and west of eurasia?
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