- Historic Sites History’s Largest Lessons A historian of the
ancient world believes that in every era humankind has reacted
to the demands of waging war in surprisingly similar ways, and
that to protect our national interests today Americans must
understand the choices soldiers and statesmen made hundreds and
even thousands of years ago February/march 1997 | Volume 48,
Issue 1 I have no answer to that paradox, yet nobody could have
predicted the success of the Chinese economy to date. National
characteristics make a difference; they survive in all sorts of
strange circumstances and may make China richer than any other
society ruled by a similar regime. And the wealth necessary for
China to be scarily strong is almost within its reach now. China
will not need maximum economic efficiency to be a real problem.
What about the Islamic world? I think imminent conflict with the
United States has been oversold. History suggests that the
prerequisite for a conflict with Islamic civilization is the
political unificati