This extended disaster in peacetime - at least, a peacetime relative to the total war period of the 20th century world wars - resembles less the massive grinding collision of multiple great powers, and more the cascading shutdown of a single body failing. We can talk about the virus, in some cases as a spectacular event in itself, and in other cases as a trigger to others such as the long derailing train that is the supply chain crisis.
There are still parts of the world - one could say the edges of the periphery - in which people are accustomed to the rhythmic retributive cycles of violence which indeed have been going on for quite some time, very old forms of violence, like the grinding together of ancient tectonic plates of difference in motion (thanks to Gary Brecher for that image).
In the imperial core, save for some truly desolate and desperate quarters where violence like this can occur sporadically on a more localized level, or else where the violence is professionalized and sanitized as some sort of form of maintenance, it takes larger-scale, impersonal processes that can be hand-waved and gaslighted away as they cull through steady corrosion, like the spread of the virus, hunger, exposure, opioid, extreme poverty and stress, and so on.
We do seem to be moving back into an era of more conventional warfare. But the modern doctor can keep the patient alive for quite a while.
