August 31, 2020
Plagues Are Back. Will Wars Follow?
The suffering inflicted by Covid-19 fits a wider 21st-century pattern: the unexpected return of old pathologies previously thought vanquished by the march of progress, now suddenly back in virulently modern forms.
Until recently, outbreaks of infectious disease were a recurring scourge of civilization. Only in the past few decades did human beings imagine we had escaped this horror.
In geopolitics, as in biology, it turns out that mankind remains susceptible to new strains of old maladies.
Great-power competition, authoritarian alternatives to democracy—these too, not long ago, were presumed to have been safely consigned to the ash heap of history. Yet in geopolitics, as in biology, it turns out that mankind remains susceptible to new strains of old maladies.
Read the full article in The Wall Street Journal.
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