The Old Order collapses, finally

There has been something both conclusive and convulsive —and yet sustaining—about the crisis in Ukraine that has caused people to believe we have now entered a new chapter in international relations. As other commentators have noted, the old order has collapsed. By that they mean the period erstwhile labeled the Post Cold War.

This is a stunning formulation because it means at face value that all the blood and tragedy in Afghanistan and Iraq were not enough to signal a new phase in history, while the past few months in Ukraine were. But how can that be? The answer is that historical periods evolve very gradually—over the years, during a decade of fighting in the Middle East, say—whereas our recognition of these changes may happen only later, in an instant, as when Russia annexed Crimea.