The writer John Steinbeck called war “a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal.” Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz characterised it as “the continuation of politics by other means.” The latest version is the triumph of hubris, ego and ignorance of history and culture.… Read the rest
Autumn this year isn’t exactly what the poet John Keats described as : “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,/Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun . . “. But it does, I think, provide a good metaphor for looking at the world in what one global affairs writer characterised as “the most dangerous period internationally since the end of the Cold War.”.… Read the rest