The tide of war is not receding, it’s advancing:

…we face a global war waged by a well-established alliance of Iranian and Syrian Islamists, Russian and Chinese crony plutocrats, and Latin American radical leftists who share a love of totalitarian control of their own people and a hatred of America. We have failed to design a strategy to win this war, and indeed it often seems as if our leaders share the world view of our enemies. Obama thought he could make deals with all of them, apparently believing this would come about when they realized he shared their conviction that most of the world’s problems are America’s fault. Indeed, when push comes to shove in their own countries, his instinctive response, as Fouad Ajami recently wrote regarding Syria, is to favor the success of the anti-American tyrants.

Also, why Western elites don’t understand the world, and why their foreign policies fail.