Today, the Middle East remains at war. Israel broke the fragile ceasefire with Hamas, and Gaza remains coated with battlefield dust and humanitarian toil. US President Donald Trump’s boast to end wars with his “Day One” is a yet-to-be-realised fantasy.
1973, the year after I was born, saw epochal shifts that heavily defined the following half-century. These shifts have provided lessons for this year and beyond.
That year, after nearly two decades of quagmire, the US signed the Paris Peace Accords, ending its untenable and unpopular involvement in Vietnam. The world was seemingly set for some peace until the Yom Kippur War broke out in October. The Arab oil embargo, which followed in response to US support of Israel, triggered the oil shocks of the 1970s. A series of economic downturns into the 1980s sputtered the post-World War Two economic boom, and stagflation was painfully felt.
