Jonah Goldberg, the man who thinks and writes more like I do than any man alive--damn him--has written a funny but thought-provoking column on the increasing irrelevance of the nation-state and why future wars may well be conducted by--no foolin'--James Bond-style villains. Or less-comical variations on Dr. Evil, if you will.

It's funny, but he's right. Take away the campy parts of the statement, and consider: who were the villains in all the James Bond movies? It was rarely "the Russians" or whatever. More often, it was some powerful, wealthy international organization. This used to seem fanciful, even silly, but what exactly are groups like Hamas, anyway? Aside from the fact that he doesn't have an undersea lair or a giant Richard Kiel with metal teeth, is bin Laden all that different from Curd J¸rgens in The Spy Who Loved Me? Some consider the nation-state a dying institution, and while I'm not at all convinced that this is true in the West, the view is not without its merits. What it portends for the future is certainly interesting to contemplate.