Sit down, strap in, and hang on.

[rrneck]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4681

From an article by Niall Ferguson in Foreign Policy:

For more than a decade, I pondered the question of why the 20th century was characterized by so much brutal upheaval. I pored over primary and secondary literature. I wrote more than 800 pages on the subject. And ultimately I concluded, in The War of the World, that three factors made the location and timing of lethal organized violence more or less predictable in the last century. The first factor was ethnic disintegration: Violence was worst in areas of mounting ethnic tension. The second factor was economic volatility: The greater the magnitude of economic shocks, the more likely conflict was. And the third factor was empires in decline: When structures of imperial rule crumbled, battles for political power were most bloody.

In at least one of the world’s regions—the greater Middle East—two of these three factors have been present for some time: Ethnic conflict has been rife there for decades, and following the difficulties and disappointments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States already seems likely to begin winding down its quasi-imperial presence in the region. It likely still will.

Now the third variable, economic volatility, has returned with a vengeance. U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s “Great Moderation”—the supposed decline of economic volatility that he hailed in a 2004 lecture—has been obliterated by a financial chain reaction, beginning in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, spreading through the banking system, reaching into the “shadow” system of credit based on securitization, and now triggering collapses in asset prices and economic activity around the world.

My dad, a veteran of WWII and Korea, said years ago that, "when people get hungry, they fight. Nobody had much of nothin' then, and they damn near killed each other over what little they did have." Our identity is tied to our economic viability, and the underpinnings of the human experience have been reduced to little more than the source of a revenue stream. I wonder; while others in the world begin to kill each other because they are genuinely desperate, will our culture begin to unwind because we can't have IPods and eight thousand pound cars with fourteen cup holders?

[DCKit]

1. Same as it ever was... but it bears repeating.

Those who fail to learn from history, and all that.

The arrogance of the * maladministration - that they could accomplish what no other nation, even empires, could accomplish in the M.E. and Afghanistan, in particular - is just stunning in the breadth of it's willful ignorance and hubris.

Add the issues cited in the OP and add in the elements of a culture alien to the American way of thinking and it's a recipe for failure - if you're lucky.

[Wildewolfe]

2. There are additional added factors to be worried about though too

The historical truth about history repeating itself I think is absolutely accurate. But now with the ability to project force globaly be it economic, military or diplomatic, the mixing pot and variables that setup the conficts just got a lot bigger.

If you look throughout history you can track down a defining moment pretty much for each conflict and mostly those are pretty localized. Now things are so obfuscated that the true defining moment may not be the obvious one. Globalization at it's worst.

[rrneck]

3. The assination of

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria might be a useful guide. Did anyone anticipate what 1918 Europe would look like when he was shot in 1914? It might be that the multi polar world that will result in the decline of American imperielism will bring about a similar result.