I'm sure if most of you do a little prying into your family history, and that of your friends, you'll find they've all been affected by war and genocide. A distant great-great-uncle died somewhere in the trenches of WW1. My grandparents grew up in the blitz, my grandfather has regaled me with numerous stories about collecting shrapnel from bombs. My best friend is of Ukranian descent, with her grandparents first surviving the mass famine induced by the Soviet Union in the Ukraine, and then being deported to Germany for use as slave labour by Nazis. Another of my good friends is of Vietnamese descent, and is here for obvious reasons.

Basically, we are the among the first generations in Western countries to have grown up without being directly affected by war and genocide. We have been brought up safe and secure, not having to worry about where the next meal will come from, or when that bomb with your name on it will fall from the sky. But surely, this can't last forever, can it?

How long will it be before once again we relive the struggles of our grandparents, how long until war once again touches the West? How would recent generations, having been brought up in relative safety, cope with the next big war? Would they be able to cope?

You look around you in the news, and you see all these things. Oil shortages, food shortages, strife in far off countries. How long will it be before it's not on the news, but in our lives?