The Collapse of Global Restraint: Power Politics, Moral Failure, and the Return of Existential War
I. A World Losing Its Nerve There are moments in history when catastrophe announces itself not through sudden violence, but through language. Before bombs fall, before borders burn, societies reveal their trajectory in the words their leaders choose - and in the ideas their publics are taught to accept as normal. We are living through such a moment. What defines the current geopolitical era is not merely the accumulation of crises, but the evaporation of restraint. Strategic caution, legal norms, and moral taboos - painfully constructed after the ruins of the twentieth century - are no longer treated as guardrails. They are increasingly framed as obstacles. What once required secrecy is now discussed openly. What once demanded justification is now assumed. What once provoked horror is now debated as policy. This is not a story about a single war, a single country, or a single ideology. It is the story of a system losing its memory. The post–World War II order was built on a shared ...