Reconstruction of Napoleonic battles, December 3, 2022 Photo by LUKAS KABON / ANADOLU AGENCY / ANADOLU VIA AFP For Napoleon's soldiers, Vilnius was a city where they hoped to rest before fleeing the Russian Empire, but it became a cemetery. According to some estimates, about 20,000 people found their last refuge in the city. To this day, mass graves of imperial soldiers who died from cold, hunger and disease are found in Vilnius.

Since the time of Xenophon, war has been the work of professional mercenaries rather than a common affair. European revolutions, technological progress and the rise of nation states transformed it into a civil institution. However, after World War II, humanity began to gradually return to its roots, getting rid of massive conscript armies.

View from Hangandaegyo Bridge, sunset behind the 63 SQUARE skyscraper on Yeouido Island in Seoul Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP South Korea is an economic miracle taken to the extreme. The country, which in half a century has gone from poverty and ruins to the status of a technological superpower, is today choking on its own success.