Perhaps the country over a long period of years was going to transplant, to secrete at its borders luxurious settlements, a lazy and violent military caste, counting on civilians for their daily bread but finally exacting it from them, like the armed desert nomads demanding tribute from the educated marginals. Species of prowlers along the confines, loafers of the apocalypse free of material cares on the edge of their friendly abyss, familiar only with the signs and portents, with no other intercourse than with several major catastrophic uncertainties, like in those watchtowers you see on the seashore.
Julien Gracq in Paul Virilio, Bunker Archaeology, 1975