If there is one book that I would recommend to my readers in these confusing and tumultuous times in global affairs — a rule-based order has run its course without a new one in place — it is Robert D Kaplan's Waste Land. Kaplan is a geopolitical realist who reads history and literature to contextualise the present and suggest how the future may unfold in geopolitical terms. He proposes that the existing international environment closely replicates the times of the Weimar Republic of the intervening years between the two Great Wars culminating in Hitler's rise. He calls it a consequence of the times we lived in. He includes global trends like the Communist revolution in Russia in 1917, a response to the muddled global climate when the League of Nations had all but lost its relevance. My focus though is on an environment of impunity that disorder and a chaotic present has become. When no one controls a bully, he only tears apart what has been whole for decades. In the absence of a rule-based order, world's insurance against such unpredictability stands badly exposed. We too live in such times.

Israel chose to attack Qatar when ostensibly peace was being worked out under a US-sponsored plan to end genocide in Gaza. Netanyahu attempted to eliminate Hamas' interlocutors and political leadership engaged in the negotiations. Hamas was there on US invitation and assurance of their safety by the Qataris. If ever there was a betrayal of trust in international commitment this was the last nail in its coffin. The moment is similar in context to the rise of Hitler and dissolution of the Weimar. It leaves the possibility that the likes of........

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