Nigeria, March 16 -- Africa does not have a dog in the fight going on in the Middle East. "Operation Epic Fury" is a war between a tag team of a lion and a polar bear on the one hand and a honey badger and its army of unseen Tasmanian devils on the other. What we have learnt so far is that the rules of warfare are being re-written before our very eyes. We have also seen that the world is more interconnected and nations more interdependent than the superpowers are prepared to admit.

Whichever way the hostilities end, the point has been made that one can only predict the beginning of a war; the variables that determine its duration and outcome are legion. Moreover, we have seen that asymmetry has two sides - in relation to armaments (where...