[ochoseis]

I don't think you can argue that the western ego isn't bruised and battered in recent times. There have been a lot of false starts in the past 20 years where we were hopeful western ideas would take hold in places where they haven't:

- Fall of the USSR, and what appears to be its rise again

- Arab spring turning into unstable nation states, instead of nice representative democracies

- Iraq

- Afghanistan (time will tell)

Then again, this article ignores the swelling middle class in a lot of southeast Asia. And also, conflict exists everywhere and is often a defining characteristic for nations. For example, the author didn't seem to have a true grasp of American history. The most important war we've ever fought was with ourselves, turning us from a loose collection of states into a single nation-state. Why is it surprising that other countries are going through that on their own watch?