It's taken as gospel by most pundits today that we live in an increasingly dangerous, deadly and unstable world -- with Haiti's horrific earthquake serving as the latest, irrefutable data point. We are told that ours is a planet at perpetual war with itself, locked in a global conflict that is not only cast in civilizational terms, but superimposed over a landscape chock-full of never-ending combat and ever-rising death tolls. The end of the Cold War superpower rivalry, rather than pacifying the world, actually unlocked a Pandora's box of tribal hatreds. In retrospect, the Cold War has even taken on a nostalgic hue, reminding us of simpler, more manageable times.
This creed is a complete lie, unforgivably peddled by fear-mongering "experts" as a way to justify their mindless schemes -- typically, uncontrolled defense spending from the right, unmitigated trade protectionism from the left, and unthinkable isolationism from both. Worse, both extremes deny the essential gift imparted by America to the world these past seven decades: a globe-spanning networking phenomenon variously described as the postwar global architecture, the international liberal trade order, the "free world," the West, the global economy, and -- last but not least -- globalization. ...