Conquering Pride before it Conquers You

Reading through a brief history of the Renaissance and reviewing other periods in history, I've begun to draw a bit of a connection between societies. One of the main precursors to a strong nations' demise is their pride. Many Latter-Day Saints refer to pride in the Book of Mormon this way, showing how a civilization gets into a "pride cycle". A nation begins to become successful, they prosper, they become arrogant, and then due to either war or famine they are again humbled. This doesn't just happen in the Book of Mormon, but I was also able to see this same cycle when reading about nations throughout history. And it's also not limited just to civilizations, but can be seen in many corporations whose glory is based more on cutting edge technology.

In History:
It's always wise when you are attempting world glory to watch out for the underdog. When the Europeans took over India they initially entered Calcutta and approached the King with cloth, coral, sugar, oil, etc. Seeing this, the Indians "laughed at it, saying it was not a thing to offer a king, that the poorest merchant from Mecca, or from any other part of India gave more".

Below you can see a brief overview of the conquering of the Incas. (This is from the series: Guns, Germs, and Steel, which also views the inequality between nations).

When the conquistadors came into Peru they were far outnumbered, rode horses and wore, what seemed to the Incan people, to be pots on their heads. Viewing their inferiority, the Inca's believed that they would be easily conquered and they didn't even bother to protect themselves when they met with the Spaniards. Instead they came dancing and singing and they met almost instant death because of this oversight.

In our modern society we see this happen as well when companies that are on the cutting edge of technology begin to feel that they are invincible, stop following the newest trends, or ignore the under dogs. I'm not as familiar with this and can't think of any specific examples, but if anyone can, I'd love to have input.