In reality, equilibrium is only an observation over a large scale of time, but at any specific time period, things are more like a pendulum, swinging from one end of the spectrum to the next. Looking at the world today, and the violent conflicts that seem to escalate in scale, it would appear that the world has forgotten the horrors of war – the incredible devastation of the two World Wars that obliterated most of Europe – and the resulting need for international unity and harmony. As the old Chinese saying goes “after a long time together, it ought to separate, after a long time divided, it ought to come together”. In many ways, if we look at the history of the world, that is exactly how things play out. The world gets smaller, then it divides and feels farther apart. The Macedonian Empire disintegrated into separate polities, only to reunite again under the Romans. The Mongolian tribes were brought together into the largest empire ever seen only to fall apart. In some ways, faced with …