Don't Listen to the Hawkish Doomsayers

Listening to hawkish fearmongers is the best way to hasten the calamities that they pretend to guard against.

Walter Russell Mead makes some sweeping claims without much evidence:

The world is less stable today than in February 2022, the enemies of the order hammer away, the institutional foundations of the order look increasingly shaky, and Western leaders don’t yet seem to grasp the immensity of the task before them.

There are some places where there is more instability today than there was twenty-one months ago, but is “the world” as a whole less stable than it was? In what way? As measured by what? That seems like something that could be measured and proven or disproven, but Mead doesn’t really offer proof to back up what he says. As usual, he makes bold, unfounded assertions and hopes no one will notice that he is talking through his hat.