It is not often that I find myself in wary agreement with Paul Krugman. But in today's column he gives voice to which have afflicted me for sometime. The title The Great Illusion harks back to a book published shortly after W.W.I. which mocked the prewar notion that war has become obsolete. Recent events prove, Krugman muses that just as the first wave of globalization was accompanied by"decades of war, revolution, political instability, depression" so may the second. He is right to note that shared democratic values will protect Western Europe from much of the trouble but the rest of the world is unlikely to be as lucky.

I have long expected Asia to be the epicenter of the next round of trouble and even pointed to disturbing signs to that effect (see, here and here . Of course, they are optimist observers like Daniel Twining hope that Asian democracies would be as successful in containing China as NATO has been in containing the USSR.

When the current fighting between Russia and Gerogia is added to the already volatile mix Mideast Islamists belligerency especially those thriving officially in Iran and unofficially in Pakistan, it is difficult not to be concerned.