If I were going to write summarizing the headlines in today's papers, it would be, "The sky is falling!"
The Washington Post tells me the Pentagon is going to do more spying, working more closely with the CIA. Now, that's encouraging. It also tells me that more Mexicans, for the first time in gererations, are leaving the US than are arriving. I wonder why that is? Then there's a story about how some Chinese companies are working with their government to turn a profit. Of course, we all knew China cared a lot about money.
I could go on but maybe that's enough.
When I grew up years and years ago the world was broadly divided into two camps: communists and the rest. Now there seem to be many camps. Newspapers don't say Soviet Union any more. The say Ukraine or Georgia or Russia or any one of the –Stans. And I think the newspapers don't say "free world" as often as they used to either.
There still is a European Union but financial troubles abound. The government of the Netherlands has just fallen because of them. So the free world, instead of being mighty, sometimes seems more like a large creature being nibbled to death by ducks.
Is this good or bad for all of us? Hard to know. But the threat has surely changed. We spent a couple of generations after World War II wondering whether the US and the USSR would blow each other up and quite possibly destroy the planet in the process. We have a different set of worries now. All those ducks may attack us.
Which world is more dangerous? Good question. I'm not a bit sure.
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