Large parts of the northern hemisphere continue to struggle with the legacies of the great European empires – Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman – that collapsed in WWI’s wake, or whose decline, like that of the British Empire, was initiated by the war and sealed by its even bloodier sequel a generation later. The resulting fracture zones – in the Balkans and the Middle East, for example – are the source of some of today’s gravest risks to regional and even world peace.
北半球的大部分地区仍在欧洲大帝国——哈布斯堡、沙俄和奥斯曼——因为一战而崩溃所造成的后果中挣扎，更有一些帝国——如大英帝国——因为一战而衰落，并且因为二十多年后的另一场更加血腥的战争而板上钉钉。由此所造成的分裂区——如巴尔干半岛和中东——成为当今地区乃至世界和平的最大风险源。