The late Barbara Tuchman, an American historian and the author of some fine books on the Great War, has written that while the human race has made great progress in many fields of endeavour - science, medicine, the arts - since the siege of Troy to the present day, it has made no discernible progress whatsoever in the field of government. She adds that nations will frequently adopt policies which are not only dangerous to their national well-being, but which are seen and known to be dangerous even before they are undertaken.