Paradoxically, the few eras of peace were times when men of war had high influence. The Pax Romana was enforced by Caesar's Legions. The Pax Brittanica was enforced by the Royal Navy and His Majesty's Forces.

...with what we spent in Iraq we could build nuclear power plants and space solar power satellites and tell the Arabs to drink their oil.

You no longer have much in the way of knowing what to do in a big, epic novel about the future, because nobody knows what the hell is going to happen.

Of course most people underestimate the warrior characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman peoples anyway. It takes a heap of piety to keep a Viking from wanting to go sack a city.

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

Unrestricted laissez faire capitalism allocates resources in a most efficient way to satisfy human wants without regard to the rationality or morality of those desires.

The arrogance of some of those who are so damned sure they are right is just astounding. Scientific witch hunts are often the worst kind, and have been since the secular authorities stopped enforcing the local bishop's decrees of anathema.