Abroad, the forces of tribalism and nationalism were building, like tremors before an earthquake. As autocrats were threatened in the Arab world, they responded with escalating violence and sectarianism. Globalization had pushed up against people’s sense of their own unique identity. In Russia, Vladimir Putin was planning his own return to the presidency, watching warily as popular movements upended Mubarak and Gaddafi. In Europe, the undertow of the financial crisis had spread an economic malaise that was beginning to eat away at public confidence in the European Union. Conflict, a changing
...more