This week is probably the closest we’ve ever gotten in my lifetime to the brink of nuclear-powered World War 3, yet people seem strangely indifferent to the developments. I share in this under-reaction. Shouldn’t we, I don’t know, have a stronger collective reaction?

Thus it is not clear whether the absence of wars involving the great powers is an enduring trend or something of an aberration. Some judge this trend as likely to last, arguing wars between countries have become less common because actual or potential costs have gone up, especially in those instances in which nuclear weapons could be introduced.

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It would be naïve to assume that any liberal democracy (or any society) can long survive with all of its conceptual foundations gutted. Either it will collapse into civil conflict, or those foundations will be replaced brick by brick by the New Faith, until it is transformed into an unrecognizable edifice that is neither liberal nor democratic.... See more