"[In Pakistan,] blasphemy is misused to settle personal disputes... to claim that religion has been defamed.... [T]hose who use spurious motives to accuse and stir hatred are not prosecuted, while innocent people who comment on social media end up being indicted and sentenced to death. In Pakistan, blasphemy has become a pretext for lynchings and extrajudicial killings. Islamic extremists have weaponised the... legislation [on blasphemy] to strike against religious minorities without legal due process Blasphemy accusations have become a quick way to exact appalling revenge and settling scores." — asianews.it., January 14, 2023, Pakistan.

"I want to burn Christianity .... I swear to Allah we will cause chaos and kill the non-believers.... Whoever is not happy, a bullet in their head, I don't want a single person alive who would oppose Sharia." — Tarek Namouz, 42, barbershop owner and recipient of COVID money, accused of sending £25,000 to Islamic State fighters in Syria, Express, January 5, 2023 and Daily Mail, November 22, 2022, United Kingdom.

The highest court of appeals [in Egypt] closed the door on the possibility of justice for Soad Thabet, a now 76-year-old Christian grandmother who was stripped naked and publicly abused by a group of Muslim men nearly seven years ago. According to one report: "Not only will the men who assaulted Thabet not be held accountable, but Thabet is facing litigation that could see her have to compensate the three men who assaulted her." Earlier... some 300 Muslim men... stripped her naked, and then beat and spat on her and dragged her through the streets by her hair—to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of "Allahu Akbar." Her "crime" was that her son had been accused of being romantically involved with a Muslim woman. Several Christian homes in the village were also looted and torched, in keeping with Islamic law, or sharia, which prescribes the collective punishment of non-Muslim "infidels." — Mada34.appspot.com, January 16, 2023, Egypt.

It is, perhaps, more interesting to study the unintended consequences of this tragic saga. One such consequence is to bring war back into international conversation as a here-and-now reality.

The idea that war could somehow be scripted out of the human story as were incest or slavery is exposed for what it is: a dangerous fantasy. This has led to musings about flashbacks to military doctrines that many believed or hoped had faded away.

Today, however, some form of return to the draft system is publicly debated in several capitals. Defense spending that had been considered as a luxurious conceit is now regarded as vital for national security and independence.

In 2022, however, more than 40 nations increased their defence budgets while embarking on massive programs to renew their arsenals and develop more advanced weapons systems.

The most significant unintended consequence of the Ukraine tragedy may be the derailing of the so-called globalization process. Two decades ago, all the talk was about comparative advantage and delocalization. Today people talk of re-localization and rebuilding "our own industry".

Well, spring isn't far away and Putin may have his offensive. But the question remains: then what?