Oct, 28, 2024

“If you must wound someone, it is better to kill him.”

I’ve encountered some version of this missive throughout the course of my career. And like any good quote, this one’s precise origin is unimportant, but its meaning is instructive: If you need to hurt your enemy, hurt them so badly that they can’t or won’t seek revenge. An unfatal wound, conversely, is the worst course of action because it would fail to end the conflict and would almost certainly provoke a response, which could be immediate or delivered at a time most harmful to the original attacker.

Rather than a missive of malice, the quote argues that killing the enemy is both kinder and more effective than wounding them – kinder in that killing one enemy early on obviates the need for future, wider conflict. The original attacker wins, the loser dies, and resentments are forestalled.

I have been thinking of the condition of the world today, and it seems to me that this concept can explain at least some of its daily horrors.

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Oct. 21, 2024

What is a Superpower?

The end of the Cold War and the dismantling of what had been a bipolar world order raised the question of what exactly constitutes a superpower. The question has been bandied about even more over the past few years, given some people’s perception that U.S. global influence is weakening relative to the rest of the world’s. China, after all, is seeking to emerge as a major player, and Russia has clawed back from destitution to become more than merely a shadow of its former self.

Indeed, the term “superpower” has been used to describe Russia – occasionally in the context of its partnership with China. Whether or not either is a superpower in its own right, there is an assumption – and a particularly vexing one in the West – that together the two would be a decisive force in the world. But this is a flawed or at least premature assumption.

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