We have become accustomed to referring to postwar periods: the post-Second World War era, the post-Vietnam era, the post-Cold War era. But we have potentially entered a new and dangerous prewar era of intense superpower jockeying in which bloc politics returns to the fore.
Charlie Kirk has been martyred. In a way, this death is quintessentially American; he will now join the ranks of Lincoln and Martin Luther King, among others. The assassin, by inserting himself into history and cutting short Kirk’s life, has likely made him a more powerful and enduring figure.
Recent military spending announcements by European leaders indicate they intend to consolidate the continent as the 21st century’s third global power alongside the United States and China.