Are you one of those gifted diviners
of the future? If so, then compare your vision with that of the
"experts." Out now is the Joint Staff's assessment of what we will
face until 2035: contested norms and persistent disorder. As you read it, look
at the assessments of the way we face contested norms through the lens of
history and international relations theory, from about the mid-1800s through
the mid-1990s. Consider also the idea of persistent disorder from an historical
perspective of punctuated periods of pervasive disorder: late 1700s, mid-1800s,
1910s, 1930s and 40s, and the 1960s. Now ask yourself this question. Does a
diviner more clearly see looking forward or backward?
