The late peace researcher, William Eckhardt, made a particularly good point when he noted, ‘We can learn a lot about war through the study of civilization. We can learn a lot about civilization through the study of war’. The Cold War had just come to an end, and with it the future of civilization looked that little bit brighter; mutually assured destruction had been averted and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists saw fit to move the Doomsday Clock backwards from 10 minutes to midnight to 17 minutes to midnight.

By Operation_Crossroads_Baker_(wide).jpg: United States Department of Defense (either the U.S. Army or the U.S. Navy)derivative work: Victorrocha (Operation_Crossroads_Baker_(wide).jpg) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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