Thread by @pmarca

Danegeld:

"It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
'Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.'..."

"...And that is called paying the Danegeld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Danegeld
You never get rid of the Dane."

-- Kipling

"Danegeld, a tax levied in Anglo-Saxon England to buy off Danish invaders in the reign of Ethelred II (978–1016)."

"Danegeld ('Danish tax', literally 'Dane yield' or tribute) was a tax raised to pay tribute to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged."

"Danegeld was characteristic of royal policy in both England and Francia during the ninth through eleventh centuries, collected both as tributary, to buy off the attackers, and as stipendiary, to pay the defensive forces."

"In 994 the Danes returned and laid siege to London. They were once more bought off, and the amount of silver paid impressed the Danes with the idea that it was more profitable to extort payments from the English than to take whatever booty they could plunder."

"The term 'Danegeld' has come to refer to a general warning and a criticism of any coercive payment, whether in money or kind."

"Ethelred paid the Vikings money to go away – not understanding that they were freelancers and that once word spread that the Anglo-Saxons were handing out cash that more Vikings would turn up to benefit from the bonanza."

"The human cost of refusing to pay is high. Sadly, however, the human cost of paying is even higher."

"No one should be surprised that by paying hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms to modern day pirates, we have gotten more of what we have paid for. History has taught us this time and time again. Yet every time, we have forgotten our hard-earned lesson."

"The slogan of the Second Barbary War was 'Millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute.' Stephen Decatur, who led the forces, said during the negotiations, 'If you insist upon receiving gunpowder as tribute, you must expect to receive [cannon] balls with it.'"

"We must learn from Decatur and understand that the reason why the pirates attack us is that by paying, we have made it lucrative to attack. Pirates are responsive to incentives."

"Since most countries stopped negotiating with airplane hijackers after Sept. 11, 2001, virtually no airplanes have been hijacked."

"It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation
For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say: ..."

"We never pay anyone Danegeld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

-- Kipling

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danegeld
britannica.com/topic/Danegeld
blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2011/08/danege…
thehistoryjar.com/2019/01/06/dan…