The world stage in 2022 is showing us once again that human nature doesn't change

 "We are entering a world that is becoming more unstable, and the potential for significant international conflict is increasing, not decreasing."

- Joint Chiefs chair General Mark Milley

"It is obvious that the key institution of the world to combat aggression and ensure peace cannot work effectively."

- Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky

"Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required."

- Winston Churchill

A lot of keystrokes have been expended in recent weeks on the near-certainty that the 77 years of relative global stability we enjoyed from 1945 until 2022 were a hiccup. Events of late only reinforce that view.

There is, of course, the dressing down that Zelensky gave the UN General Assembly yesterday, in which he provided gruesome details of what Russian soldiers have been doing to his country's civilians. He then asked why the hell the UN should even exist:

The Ukrainian leader then criticized the body, asking representatives point blank: "Where is the security that the Security Council needs to guarantee? It is not there, though there is a Security Council."

Zelensky added: "It is obvious that the key institution of the world designed to combat aggression and ensure peace cannot work effectively.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you of Article 1, Chapter 1 of the UN Charter. What is the purpose of our organization? Its purpose is to maintain and make sure that peace is adhered to. And now the UN charter is violated literally starting with Article 1. And so what is the point of all other Articles?" he asked.

 Mark Milley appeared before the House Armed Services Committee and spoke bluntly of a new era in which the world will be less stable. In terms of threats, he mainly spoke of Russia and China, and understandably so.

But anyone interested in trying to stave off a really dark future had better, as the saying goes, be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

We - that is, the US, the West in general, along with stability-seeking Pacific Rim nations - have known for a long time that the North Korea problem was not going to go away by itself. 

We've tried an Agreed Framework, Six-Way Talks, summits and "beautiful letters," but the threat has not abated.

The Kim family is so damn touchy that any remark from anyone suggesting that prudent measures are called for in the face of the threat sparks even more explicit expressions of threat:

On Sunday, Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, issued blistering rhetoric directed at Suh and threats toward Seoul.

“The senseless and scum-like guy dare mention a ‘preemptive strike’ at a nuclear weapons state,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. “South Korea may face a serious threat owing to the reckless remarks made by its defense minister.”

“South Korea should discipline itself if it wants to stave off disaster,” she said. 

Kim Yo Jong, a senior official in the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, is in charge of relations with Seoul and Washington. South Korea’s spy service says she is the North’s No. 2 official behind her brother. 

Pak Jong Chon, a secretary in the Workers’ Party’s central committee, separately warned that “any slight misjudgment and ill statement rattling the other party under the present situation” may trigger “a dangerous conflict and a full-blown war.”

The first-strike option is not new:

Seoul has long maintained such a preemptive attack strategy to cope with North Korea’s growing missile and nuclear threats, but it was highly unusual for a senior Seoul official under the Moon administration to publicly discuss it.

Well, maybe it was about time.

The incoming South Korean administration seems to understand that serious readiness is critical at this time:

Advisers to South Korea's president-elect sought redeployment of U.S. strategic assets, such as nuclear bombers and submarines, to the Korean peninsula during talks held on a visit to Washington, one of the advisers said on Wednesday.

The team of foreign policy and security aides to incoming president Yoon Suk-yeol met U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan as Yoon seeks a more constant security presence to deter threats from North Korea as it steps up weapons tests.

"Deploying the strategic assets is an important element of reinforcing the extended deterrence, and the issue naturally came up during the discussions," Park Jin, a four-term lawmaker who led the delegation, told reporters.

Are the above-mentioned collection of the world's stability-seeking nations able to muster the requisite seriousness to deal with the moment? The Biden administration's zeal for reviving a JCPOA-type of agreement with Iran, which well may include Russia as a signatory, would indicate otherwise.

Likewise, the imposition of sanctions on Russia and the seizure of oligarchs' yachts has not stopped the Russians from ripping out Ukrainians' tongues, raping mothers in front of their children, yanking people huddled in shelters out for torture and execution and shelling of government buildings, schools and hospitals. 

What is to be done? Obviously, pretty much anyone reading this is not in a position to pick up a gun, to jar the UN back to its senses, or otherwise dramatically move the needle.

But we can acknowledge that, per Milley, we are in a new era. We can maneuver through our daily lives in such a way that we aren't surprised when we encounter hard things. 

 We can stop prattling about our species having evolved beyond the innate depravity the has made itself abundantly clear throughout history. 

Our little reprieve is over.