JDG said:
This strikes me as classic "generational arrogance" - the old saw that *our generation* dealt with threats much more sensibly than the young'uns out there.
I like to delude myself that I'm in the same generation as you, so it's not generational arrogance on my part. Since I became an official adult in 1992, the major crises have the wars in the Balkans, the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan, the terrorist attacks of 11/9, and the continued proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons (you may add to this list as you wish; certainly some natural disasters belong on there too). The responses to all of these seem to me to be inadequate to disastrous. And in any case, it would be crazy to claim that they were my generation's responses rather than my parents' generation's responses.
But my point was that while there might have been some unfortunate responses to superpower confrontation between the Soviet empire and NATO, the threat then was much more serious than what we face now. Even the worst case scenario for the war against the terrorists or rogue states is not going to include the general collapse of human civilisation.
Rich, who was 2^5 years old on Monday. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
