This could be the start of something big

David Bosco, senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine, had some unsettling thoughts that he shared with us yesterday in the Contra Costa Times.

It was late June in Sarajevo when Gavrilo Princip shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. After emptying his revolver, the young Serb nationalist jumped into the shallow river that runs through the city and was quickly seized. But the events he set in motion could not be so easily restrained. Two months later, Europe was at war.

The understanding that small but violent acts can spark global conflagration is etched into the world's consciousness.

The reverberations from Princip's shots in the summer of 1914 ultimately took the lives of more than 10 million people, shattered four empires and dragged more than two dozen countries into war.

This hot summer, as the world watches the violence in the Middle East, the awareness of peace's fragility is particularly acute.

ContraCostaTimes.com | 07/30/2006 | Could this be prelude to WWIII?: History has shown small acts can spark global strife