Seen on the intertubes
“This Syria mess reminds me of the July Crisis of 1914, with Obama playing the role of Austria-Hungary to Syria's Serbia. But this time, Russia found another solution...”
The thing about that is, the Great War in our history was the result of one particular (incredibly unlikely, when you look at the chain of events that led to one particular Austrian Archduke getting bumped off) spark landing on one particular pre-laid powder train that led to into a magazine that had been stuffed full of history in the past century+. But it was neither the only spark that was struck, nor the only powder train laid – there had been a number of near misses in the previous two decades.
The war plans of today are not great clanking gear-trains that must be engaged well in advance and cannot be shut down once engaged lest the object of your plans fails to mutually disengage. But the decision-making process is still initiated well away from the front lines, by people who think they have all the answers, but are missing a few key questions.
Living in interesting times is quite definitely a curse.
