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Notes -
Of course, all else being equal, a richer, more powerful society is going to defeat a poorer, less powerful society.
But there's more to decadence than just individual softness. Take the Roman Empire. In a way you can say that the root cause of its demise was infighting. By the year 200, they were so used to being top dog that they no longer took external threats seriously. After all, they hadn't needed to for a long time.
Civilization was not in immediate danger if generals started jockeying for power individually, at the cost of the empire as a whole, so they did. And they got away with it. That is a real position of strength for a society to be in, the 'good times' if there are any. It didn't end civilization all at once, but things got worse. Then they started bringing barbarians in as mercenaries. First as individuals serving in Roman auxiliary troops, but then also as whole tribes, keeping the tribal structure intact and creating competing political/ethnic power centers (foederati). And that too did not immediately end civilization, but things got worse.
By the time the Roman elite as a whole kind of woke up to the situation, due to the Gothic invasion, it was the late 300s and things had gotten quite bad. Only then did they try to do something, but it was far too late. The point of no return had passed.
We say the Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, when Odoacer ousted the emperor and formally took power. But Rome had already been sacked in 410 and 455 by Germanic tribes. The empire had been steadily shrinking and getting poorer for centuries by then; by 476 it was basically just Italy - and even that was questionable - and Odoacer's new kingdom held on to that territory. Before his coup, Odoacer already was leader of the foederati in Italy, who by that point basically were what was left of the military. He was already in charge in all but name. And the Roman Senate, which was still around, recognized him. Who, living in 476, would have really noticed much? For most of the people living inside what had been the Roman Empire at its height, by 476 the Romans had been long gone, perhaps for generations.
This didn't happen because individual Romans were taking too many hot baths while the Germans were washing themselves in the Danube in winter like real tough men. But it did happen because individual Romans thought they had (because for a while they did in fact have) the luxury of ignoring external threats while jockeying amongst themselves, and that is also decadence.
The real conquest was that of the Tough Barbarians by the Empire. They tried to emulate the society they had conquered, they set up as emperors themselves, not tribal chieftains. They were quite happy to inherit baths and togas (as they understood them) rather than pulling down the marble halls to live in mud huts like their forebears.
EDIT: Time for some Cavafy!
What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?
Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?
Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?
Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?
Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?
Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?
Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
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