‘Make war, not peace’ seems to be the maxim of the age

After decades of decline, armed conflict is very much back on the agenda in world affairs. It may be a while before we the globe takes a more peaceful turn, writes John Andrews

ONLY the dead have seen the end of war.

The philosopher George Santayana’s dictum seems particularly appropriate nowadays, with the Arab world, from Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Libya, a cauldron of violence; Afghanistan locked in combat with the Taliban; swaths of central Africa cursed by bloody competition — often along ethnic/religious lines — for mineral resources. Even Europe’s tranquility is at risk — witness the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.