'WE tell ourselves stories in order to live. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images,' said author and New Journalism trailblazer Joan Didion who died last year. She should have added that nations do the same thing, especially nations led by leaders with ambitions of grandiosity and territorial conquests. For these nations and their predictably autocratic leaders, the stories they weave are built on territories lost but are to be regained through force and duplicity. Or, territories...