Counterinsurgency is not a cure-all. Local allegiances will always trump the might of the invader. Washington’s insistence that the troops turn Kabul into a functioning democracy will only erode the military's fighting spirit.
Western society tends to see disaster all around, from climate change to terrorism. But we live in a time of unbridled prosperity. Our age has nowhere near as great a measure of crisis as the age of total war.
Scholars of international relations have only recently begun to appreciate the power of religion. Their next step is to get religion right. No longer mysterious and magical, modernity has demystified the Higher Power.
