WORLD NEWS: "Japan Braces for Protracted Stretch of Deflation: Tokyo Forecasts Two Years of Declining Consumer Prices; U.S., EU and China Also Feel Effects of Lower Food and Energy Costs," by Yuka Hayashi, Wall Street Journal, 1 May 2009.

WORLD NEWS: "U.K. Pulls Out of Iraq as Cuts Curb International Missions," by Alistair MacDonald and Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal, 1 May 2009.

What they put up with for economic growth in Japan is kind of stunning. I guess you just get used to it after almost a couple of decades. Japan is retiring as a great power.

And by the look of it, the Brits aren't that far behind when it comes to military affairs.

So when you check the accompanying chart, and see that China has 1.4m in uniform, India 1.1, the U.S. at 500k and Russia at 300k, you get a clear sense of whom we're going to inevitably turn to for bodies in an age of frontier integration.