Quote Originally Posted by Ron Humphrey View Post
State's due to their interdependency in Physical/Economic and Social arenas will of necessity always try to tiptoe in order to avoid miss-steps

But once someones foot gets stepped on- All bets are off
My first thought is from one of my primary sources of pulp philosophy, Bablylon 5...

"...if you take too many hits, stumble a lot, you start to look at your feet all the time, thinking that this will prevent further stumbles. But, by looking at your feet all the time, you don't see things coming and end up stumbling even more..."

I think this is where we are at the moment not just looking down at our feet but totally fixated on the now problems of AFG and the takfir jihadists and possibly forgetting that there are other kids on the block who may pick a fight in other ways...maybe Germany will again seek to promote the 'U' in EU, possibly Putin might take the Red Army to France for the summer holidays, or China will decide that Russia doesn't really need Siberia...