WORLD: "The Afghan Age Divide: A rising generation wants a bigger voice in shaping its nation," by Aryn Baker, Time, 14 August 2009.

Nice piece. More than 70% of Afghanistan is under 30.

While today's young Afghans have experienced the ravages of war, they have also witnessed--as refugees or through TV and the Internet--an alternative: governments accountable to the public.

Connectivity is a dangerous, destabilizing thing, creatively destructive in the worst way. The rap on me (Barnett thinks connectivity creates peace instantly) has always missed the point about it being the Pentagon's new map: connectivity is revolution. It will almost always get scarier and more unstable before it settles down, and no, containment is a chimera. There is no containing globalization, our international liberal trade order unleashed upon the planet. There is only mitigation.

The revolution is largely generational (young v. old) and gender-based (women against men). It offends custom on almost every level possible.