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Tolkien must have seen it happening - perhaps that's why he chose to focus on CoH rather than Beren & Luthien & The Fall of Gondolin. Both those tales offer a sense of hope to the reader - Gondolin may fall, but Tuor & Idril escape with Earendel.
Actually, the 'War on Terror' was in my mind too as I read CoH. While evil is clearly present in Morgoth & Glaurung, good is not so clearly present. There is confusion, selfishness, pride & hopelessness on the 'good' side. For all its 'mythological' setting & characters CoH seems to me one of the most insightful comments on where we are right now. There are a lot of novels around which attempt to explore the state of our world at the beginning of the 21st century, but CoH, it seems to me, is perhaps one of the profoundest.
Which is not to claim it as an 'allegory' - clearly it cannot be, given when it was written - but as far as 'applicability' goes, its not far to seek...
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