Literally the one undeniable success of the post-WW2 order was the lack of a global-scale hot war. Everything else is tainted by smaller scale conflicts and self-interest and economic inequality and picking winners and losers in a callous and awful way. But, you could always say it’s been 60, 70, and then 80 years with no world war 3. We didn’t nuke ourselves. We didn’t devastate our species’ potential to make the world better for more people. I guess on net there was even progress, statistically speaking, though that’s small comfort to those it bypassed and the benefits sure as shit were not distributed equitably.
That one thing, that lowest of bars – no global shooting war – is now at risk because a handful of men who are stupid or evil or both, surrounded by people orbiting around them on those axes of stupidity and evilness, have decided that too much is not enough.
Literally the one undeniable success of the post-WW2 order was the lack of a global-scale hot war. Everything else is tainted by smaller scale conflicts and self-interest and economic inequality and picking winners and losers in a callous and awful way. But, you could always say it’s been 60, 70, and then 80 years with no world war 3. We didn’t nuke ourselves. We didn’t devastate our species’ potential to make the world better for more people. I guess on net there was even progress, statistically speaking, though that’s small comfort to those it bypassed and the benefits sure as shit were not distributed equitably.
That one thing, that lowest of bars – no global shooting war – is now at risk because a handful of men who are stupid or evil or both, surrounded by people orbiting around them on those axes of stupidity and evilness, have decided that too much is not enough.