Aside from the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, one more war is peacefully taking place almost at the same time. This war, the civil war, is much more dreadful and merciless and it has got multiple effects on the world's equilibrium. Political and military analysts perceived such wars as strictly local, initially. But now they may turn into a global threat to enflame communities situated thousand and thousand kilometers away from their native country and this way activate extremist elements to be implied in future missions motivated by religious fanaticism. Is this likely? Yes, it is, for neither the politicians nor the soldiers would learn one of the great lessons taught by the activity of UN structures in the latest decades, failures that have almost paralyzed these structures now. The lesson is that it is extremely easy and honorable to wage war to generic entities: famine, ague, illiteracy and violence. But it is much more difficult to identify, build and keep active the necessary armies and weapons. The same argument goes for the global war against terrorism, that started enthusiastically by an honest rebellion against the September 11 tragedy. The target was global, but extremely diffuse. They tried to place a name and a picture in the center of the target: Saddam Hussein. A primitive and cruel dictator, the owner of a family wealth network and of a family network meant to fix political adversaries fast. But the other arguments, the great US and British accusations on weapons of mass destructions, proved to be completely false. Therefore everyone returned to the initial discussion and stayed there. After all, it was acceptable, since it identified targets, did away with them and then diminished tension in the conflict area. And what did we see? No proper strategy and no forces trained to counter terrorism and the urban guerrillas. So, just like during the Vietnam nightmare, the Americans have now suggested the only solution is a massive increase of the classical military presence. So far it has not affected significantly the offensive potential of insurgent forces, it has made the civil population's intolerance dramatic. After all, in these five years of war, it has allowed for the informal, but lethal making of a Talibanistan controlling large parts of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, with support from many neighbor states. It is a region that hasn't reached the boiling point yet, but it is about to. When this occurs, how far will the transfer of the conflict to other areas, Europe, for instance, be? The response capacity of the UN and NATO forces has recently been tested: when asked to settle a purely local conflict of small intensity such as the Mitrovitza one, they decided withdrawal. But what will they do if a civil war bursts out? No one knows, for no one wouldn't really consider such a possibility. The autonomy claims of the Magyars in Romania are now being released to the public opinion. The NATO leaders are learning about them, as they are delivered as an overt message, not at all ambiguous. It is not about a civil war, or not in the explicit discourse. But what is beyond it? What can there be, since we are thinking about the historical tragedies that have ceaselessly fueled the region in the latest centuries? Kosovo is the precedent to open the explosion, no matter the way it will be invoked and used, either by the ones in Talibanistan or by those who take this for a great opportunity for historical revenge. Among others, it is also what some are longing for, calling it "the revenge for losing Transylvania".

Cristian UNTEANU