I was asked to speak at a 4th of July Flag Raising Ceremony yesterday and as I was preparing my remarks I reflected on our past wars. This may sound a bit ignorant coming for a World Geography teacher and a Military Officer, but the reality hit me in the face that from the end of WWII through the the 1970s all of our large scale wars were fought in East and SouthEast Asia. Since then, all of our large scale military conflicts have been in Central and Southwest Asia (AKA the Middle East). We have had some small scale military activities in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa since WWII, but the big stuff has happened in Asia. This brings me to my "List Post". It appears that not much has changed in our world today, the top 4 areas on my list are in Asia.
1. Middle East (Syria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel): Political Instability, Nuclear Aspirations, Terrorism
2. Afghanistan/Pakistan: Political Instability, Nuclear Proliferation, Terrorism
3. China: Spying, Cyber Attacks, Political Oppression
4. North Korea: Nuclear Proliferation, Human Right Violations, Political Oppression
5. Mexico, Columbia: Drug&Human Trafficking, Political Instability
(Site has been updated to include links to sites that provide information on each area and their current and past circumstances.)
Jeremy, I'm interested in the fact that it seems all of the hotspots that you selected were military ones. At this point in time, I'd suspect that the PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain) are likely just as important geopolitically because the US economy is so fragile and these countries have the potential to upset the modest recovery that is underway.
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