We too are on the cusp of a great change. We are also grappling with genetic changes in ourselves and our food and advances in medical science. Yet we also have the old diseases coming back, completely resistant to antibiotics. TB is spreading across Europe rising alarmingly in the UK right now, a country that has actually stopped innoculating teenagers - the most at risk group. There is Bubonic plague in Zambia.
Aids is everywhere and decimating the young of Africa.
A consequence of this is the all too avoidable stand-off between the USA and China over the spy plane and the US aircrew. Well you get the President you pay for and the USA is paying all right. This is a 19th century political landscape, not the 21st. It can so help our world security to look at the world in this narrow petty way and a risky strategy. Perhaps there really is nostalgia for the cold war.