It is not my idea of fun to write about the parlous times that we seem to be living through. Contrary to previous posts in which I thought that the awfulness was largely a factor of the explosion of information sources, I do honestly think, upon relfection, that there is something to worry about.

As a child of the Cold War, the nuclear arms race, Mutually Assured Destruction and the constant background of a great power war breaking out (even by accident), I had some quiet confidence that things might get better. After all, the 1990's promised a new order of sorts and for a while, the Russians and Americans were getting along. China was rising but fairly quiet.

I cannot rate how serious one V. Putin is about the use of battlefield nuclear weapons, politely called tactical, as if it were a game of chess, nor can I measure the capacity for the West to overestimate or underestimate the threat. I cannot tell whether the Ukrainians will stop at nothing to regain all of their homeland (Crimea?) thus potentially triggering a cataclysmic Russian response.

That is only the half of it, for China will certainly be charting a pathway to regaining Taiwan, by peaceful or other means. Because Australia is tethered to the United States, any conflict in that arena is likely to drag us in. Our political class is simply too scared to defy Washington.

Then there is North Korea. Of all the threats I take this the least seriously, for the wierd and insular regime that governs certainly does not want a war in which it will lose, nuclear weapons or not. Belligerent posturing is its forte.