An assassination in Serbia. Chemical weapons. Turkish unrest. Russia in the economic pits. Shifting alliances between the Great Powers. Tribal warfare in the Middle East, South Asia, the Indian subcontinent.

I know, in my mind, that the situation today is very different. But as I think about current events, and of the complexity of interactions which led up to the start of World War I, I can’t help but hear Santayana‘s words of doom echoing in my head.