The Return of History...

From the close of WWII to the fall of the Iron Curtain, the world was locked in a sort of geopolitical stasis. Even after the Soviet empire disintegrated, the "rules-based" order was more or less held in place by the Pax Americana for another decade or so.

Then Al Qaeda's attack on Manhattan sent the World's Policeman haring off into the desert for a couple decades looking for the perps, and just look what's happened to the globe since.

The history of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh was ended in the old manner of conflict resolution: siege, conquest, expulsion. After a 10-month blockade, Azerbaijan launched an attack on Sept. 19, claiming the enclave in a day and causing nearly the entire ethnic Armenian population to flee. Give war a chance, as the saying goes.

For Armenians, a classic relic ethnic minority whose Christianity and peculiar alphabet date to the epic struggles between the Romans and the Parthians, it was another genocide. For the Azerbaijanis, Turkic in language and historically Shia Muslim, a great triumph. Yet despite appearances, the conflict is not a Samuel Huntington-style clash of civilizations. Instead, in its emboldening of traditional regional powers like Turkey, scrambling for geopolitical spoils after the retreat of superpowers, it’s a harbinger of the coming world disorder.

Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine... it you want more territory or resources the way to get it now it is the old fashioned way: You take it by force. 

I don't know that Taiwan's half as nervous as it should be.

Anything by Kaplan's a worthwhile read, but I have The Coming Anarchy down off the shelf at the moment. I'd originally pulled it out to check something he'd written about the Sahel, actually, but events of the last couple weeks have me re-reading it now.

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