Why is it not the same for Asian societies like India and Pakistan or North and South Korea?
What the West has been able to do is one of the most remarkable achievements in human history, one that we take for granted. This is not a cynical answer, but [these Asian countries] haven’t fought the great wars yet. Europe had to go through centuries of warfare and the pain of World War I where hundreds of thousands of brilliant young minds were wasted in the trenches. You had to go through that searing experience to realize the futility of war. Tragically, many Asian societies haven’t gone through that yet. And I hope that they don’t have to go through that. But the good news is another remarkable achievement that few people comment on: The guns have been silent in East Asia for quite a while. That again is no small achievement. This is a result of what I call the tidal wave of common sense that has swept through the region. And it helps that the biggest, most powerful country in the region has decided that the only way to succeed is through economic development and not through acqu
