Sublime

on a five-year plan if he’d asked them for one.93 Instead he improvised, edging forward where possible, falling back when necessary, always appearing to do something, never giving in to despair, and in everything remembering what Wilson forgot—that nothing would succeed without widespread continuing public support. “It is a terrible thing,” Rooseve

Thus it is not clear whether the absence of wars involving the great powers is an enduring trend or something of an aberration. Some judge this trend as likely to last, arguing wars between countries have become less common because actual or potential costs have gone up, especially in those instances in which nuclear weapons could be introduced. Ot

“No other human activity is so continuously or universally bound up with chance,” Clausewitz writes of war in On War. It’s a “paradoxical trinity,” composed of the passions that cause combatants to risk their lives, the skill of their commanders, and the coherence of the political objectives for which the war is being fought. Only the last is fully

For Octavian never modeled himself on Alexander.47 The Macedonian learned limits only through failures. His troops had to tell him, just short of the Himalayas, that they could go no further. Octavian saw constraints while seeking successes, and on those few occasions when he did lose sight of them, quickly self-corrected. Strategy, therefore, came

An open world is a more prosperous world, but it is also a world in which both individuals and businesses must be better protected against critical risks. In the thalassocratic paradigm, instead of folding in on themselves, countries must continue to defend free trade but with its complement: a Great Safety Net 2.0 that is in sync with today’s econ

Joaquin Aguirre