Anarchy and Its Result

Imbolc                                                                                    Valentine Moon

There’s a military build-up by NATO along the Russian front. The Chinese have just placed missile batteries in the Paracel Islands of the South China Sea and North Korea talks about hydrogen bombs. This is in addition, of course, to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Since anarchy is the mode of international governance, excepting the small ways in which the United Nations works, it’s not surprising that there are constantly flash points where one nation’s interests rub up against another’s. It’s also not surprising that wars break out, flare, then settle back down, much like inflammations in our body.

This particular constellation of geopolitical sabre rattling has me a bit unsettled. For those of us born in the immediate aftermath of WWII, Korea came next. A police action. Right. Then, the cold war with all its duck and cover drills, spy versus spy, satellites and constant international tension. Vietnam. Bosnia. Afghanistan. Iraq. Afghanistan again. Libya. These were hot wars.

Friend Mark Odegard said in a recent e-mail, “Not sure I like the Russian build up along the borders, nor the US build up, this could get to be a hot war, Putin and Trump what a pair.”

We baby-boomers have lived our entire lives in either the shadow of war or its grim reality. This long run of extreme military engagements started with the war to end all wars, WWI and has rolled on, more or less continuously, ever since. We do not know a world truly at peace, have not known such a world.

I write this because it’s easy to get up, go to work, go out to eat, have family holidays, go to a ballgame, read a book and not even recall that the world is such a violent place. That at this very moment bombs are dropping, people are getting shot. It’s important to remember, to stay informed. How else can we advocate sensible policy? How else can we see the dramatic danger in Ted Cruz’s carpet bombing or Trump’s easy assertion that he’ll “take care of ISIS.” This election matters so much, for so many reasons, but one reason is to retain a measured US military response.