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It is no exaggeration, absurdly, to say that the world might end because two men have small penises. We trust institutions and the rational tendency towards self-preservation to keep the United States and North Korea (and everybody else) out of nuclear war — but I wonder. Institutions work until they don’t; civilizations survive until they fail. Global conflict is avoided until it isn’t. I wrote recently that I believe 2017 demonstrates parallels to 1914. I meant it and still mean it. A general European war was thought unthinkable by many in 1913; the previous century had brought relative peace, economic prosperity, and an increase in global trade. Just as many believed that economic powerhouses like Germany and Britain would not dare fight each other, a war between trade-partners like China and the United States is thought — assumed by liberal orthodoxy — to be unrealistic, at least for now, because of economic self-interest. But what I come back to — tragically — in my own thinking, is the historical observation that economic self-interest, reasonable self-preservation, has not always prevailed; is not a law, and perhaps not even a long-standing historical pattern. Militarism in 20th century Germany and Japan, militarism in the United States of today, and in North Korea — the irrational cult of Might — has motivated political action of great consequence. The death of the Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 was not just significant because it triggered a war between Austria and Serbia — it was significant because Franz Ferdinand was the major advocate for peace amongst the…
