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The Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 disaster is a poignant reminder of the randomness of fortune and misfortune. But it also serves as a prelude to an emerging security environment marked by irregular warfare, proliferated high-end technology and complex economic and energy dependencies that will complicate decision-making among allied nations and confound coherent approaches to grand strategy.
Indeed, the tragedy has underscored the challenges of a new era in which the line between state and nonstate actors is increasingly blurred. From Syria to Iraq, Gaza to Ukraine, nonstate militias and separatists wage shadow wars using sophisticated technologies that were formerly the monopoly of states.
Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan and nongovernmental think tank in Washington, D.C.
Kelley Sayler is a Research Associate at the Center for a New American Security.
Image: Kos93, CC
