When did Cold War II begin? Future historians will say it was in 2019.

There is no denying that America’s chronic fiscal problems are political rather than economic in nature.

Nestled amid the green Crimean hills, lapped by the Black Sea’s languid waves, Yalta’s battle-scarred appearance in February 1945 prompted Winston Churchill to call it “the Riviera of Hades.” It still has the faint aura of a seaside resort for secret policemen.

We yearn for turning points. Just as economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions, so journalists have surely reported nine out of the last five revolutions. Every election is hailed as epoch-making. Every president is expected to have a new foreign policy “doctrine.” A minor redesign of a cellular phone is hailed by the devotees of the Apple cult as a “paradigm shift.”