It’s hard to find anybody then who realized that the fifty-year-old bipolar world structure—for all the risks and dangers it represented—had kept the lid on myriad and terrible demons . . . demons that made the ones Gorbachev had let loose almost seem harmless as spaniels.

Since conflict in the first and second world heartlands had been unacceptable, the superpower competition had mostly played out in the third world peripheries, where the norm among governing regimes was illegitimacy, instability, and corruption. No problem, these regimes could be propped up, bought off, or provided with military backing by one or the other superpower, in exchange for their support. Thus the world’s balance was maintained . . . though at the price of denying better lives to third world peoples. No matter. They didn’t have much to live for anyway.

But the long-suppressed demons of ethnic and national competitions and ancient seething hatreds and blood feuds remained alive. Once the lid was removed and the demons released, nobody was prepared to deal with them.

The Balkans exploded. The Horn of Africa. The Middle East. Iraq. West Africa. Rwanda. Zaire-Congo. Afghanistan. The Philippines. Colombia . . . And this is only a partial list.

THE CAPSTONE course is designed to give new brigadier generals and admirals35 a heads-up on major strategic and national security policy. It lasts a relatively short six weeks. Part of the time is spent in study and seminars. Part of the time is spent with very senior leadership in Washington. And part of the time is spent in travel, talking with CINCs and other combatant commanders.

Zinni’s Capstone class trip, in March, took him and a handful of his Capstone colleagues to Europe—to Naples, where there’s a NATO and U.S. naval command; to Brussels and NATO headquarters in Belgium; to Germany and to EUCOM headquarters in Stuttgart; to Army headquarters in Heidelberg; to Air Force headquarters at Ramstein; and to Berlin. Their briefings at these commands all indicated that the impending collapse of the Soviet Union was about to unleash tremendous changes—changes that U.S. forces in Europe were having difficulty understanding or accepting. The rapidly unfolding events in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were occurring so fast that U.S. and NATO leaders could neither grasp their implications nor make studied adjustments to them.

During their visit to Berlin, the Capstone team’s escort, a feisty second lieutenant from the U.S. Berlin Brigade, suggested an excursion through the recently abandoned Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin. At that time, this was a bold idea. The famous security barrier that controlled access between East and West Berlin had ceased operation, there no longer being a reason for it. But its absence had left a rules vacuum. Nobody knew what regulations—if any—governed travel between the two parts of the no-longer-divided city. The new flag officers’ only guidance: They had to wear their uniforms.

“Is it okay to go across?” the Capstone team asked.