Fellow ACW readers, can you recall a time when the world
seemed more inflamed and disordered? Governed spaces are shrinking. Wild men
lay waste. The dogs of war have been unleashed and peaceful settlements seem
more distant than ever. “World Wars” and “splendid little wars” are historical
phenomena. The twenty-first century has given us a profusion of messy wars with
indeterminate endings. The biggest of the lot, in Afghanistan and Iraq, are
likely to produce unending sorrows, setting a template that has spread widely.
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