facing tomorrow

MoveOn’s favorite traitor, General David Petraeus—known in the military as the author of the contemporary counterinsurgency methods and also of the seemingly effective application of that strategy in Iraq in recent months—has been called back to Washington to help select our country’s future generals:

The Army has summoned the top U.S. commander in Iraq back to Washington to preside over a board that will pick some of the next generation of Army leaders, an unusual decision that officials say represents a vote of confidence in Gen. David H. Petraeus’s conduct of the war, as well as the Army counterinsurgency doctrine he helped rewrite.

Lots of positive feedback here.

Our revulsion of war notwithstanding—and nobody should underplay how much everybody hates war, fear of war, war hysteria, and war-mongering—retooling the military couldn’t be more important. Henry the K for one is seeing a rare tectonic shift in international relations:

He also emphasized some profound changes in today’s geopolitical environment. He pointed out that the world we have known for 300 years now — the “Westphalian” international system that arose after Europe’s wars of religion and is based on the nation-state — is “collapsing.” This may be a much more profound shift than the move from dynastic to national motivations following the 1814-15 Congress of Vienna (about which Mr. Kissinger has written) and a more serious challenge to international stability than that posed by states such as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. The nation-state is weakening in Europe, he observed, and has met with mixed success in other parts of the world. “Only in Russia, the United States and Asia can it be found in its classic form.”

Meanwhile, across the Middle East and southern Asia, although nationalism remains a powerful force, many cast themselves as a part of a greater Islamic community defined in opposition to the West. In Mr. Kissinger’s view, a single formula will no longer adequately describe this international system.