The Chinese have a curse; "May you live in interesting times." They mean that an age of excitement, of drama, might sound romantic and thrilling but is actually too dangerous to be worth it.
Well, we live in interesting times.
US power is in decline. It's creating a power vacuum and history tells us that's always a time of danger, as old powers struggle to hold on to dominance and new rivals emerge to challenge them. The rising powers now are China, which everyone knows, and I think Germany - dominant in the EU since reunification, set to become more so now Britain is leaving, and fast building a captive export market in eastern Europe. The EU dances to a German drum now, and already that's caused resentment in places like Greece and Italy. Again, potential for future conflict.
Bear in mind as well that the US Federal Reserve said recently it expects a recession to hit during 2017. A US economic crisis would quickly spread to the Eurozone, stagnant since the 2008 crash. Even a small blip could easily break the Italian banking system, which is massively indebted and weak. Break that and the single currency collapses.
These are only examples from a longer list. And yes, there are always such examples; and yes, someone will always be around to cry "Woe to thee, O Jerusalem." But I'm not prone to panic. As a youth in the 80's I didn't worry about nuclear war, because the Cold War enemies knew each other too well, they were known quantities. There was stability, and thus a good degree of safety. Now that stability is gone, and the survivors of the 20th Century's wars (hot and cold alike) are slipping slowly from their pedestals. What follows from that?
I do not know... but it will be interesting.
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