India, May 24 -- It is now the era of Cold War 2.0 between the US and China, but will the two sides avoid a direct kinetic conflict as their predecessors did during Cold War 1.0?

Benvenuta means welcome in Italian, among the most melodious of languages in the world. It is being applied to what is getting termed the New World Disorder. Italians too are amongst the most charming of people in the world. Of course, when they want to be. For there is an unforgiving side to the Italian psyche as well, of which a grisly example was provided by the way the deposed and defeated dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, together with his lady friend of many years, Claretta Petacci, met his end.

After it became clear that Italy had lost the 1939-45 Wor...