New Delhi, March 6 -- There are three wars on right now. Maybe four. By the time you read this, more might have broken out. Allegiances are being declared, dictators are backing dictators, human rights are being trampled on by oppressive regimes. Yet even this bleak state of affairs has begun to sound business-as-usual. Maybe it is, in fact, always wartime, but in order to cope, we try to forget that. Ignoring war has become our line of defence. We shake our heads and scroll past it.

Moving on is harder for the young people in uniform, much as they'd also like to make reels to trending audio and laugh at memes. The rah-rah jingoistic cheerleading and political grandstanding does not help a soldier in a foxhole. How many foxholes? How man...