ABSTRACT
The new international security environment 2YHU WKH SDVW ÀIWHHQ \HDUV WKH ZRUOG KDV ZLWQHVVHG UDGLFDO FKDQJHV LQ WKH international security environment. Before then, a bipolar world was dominated by two diametrically opposed ideologies, each championed by a superpower operating within a tightly knit military defensive alliance. Paradoxically, although each side of the confrontation had the means with which to destroy the world with nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, the world as a whole enjoyed a degree of nervous stability. States more or less, whether aligned or non-aligned, could anticipate world developments with a degree of certainty. Many people today look back on those more or less predictable days with a certain amount of nostalgia for, since the break-up of one of the superpower alliances and, indeed, the collapse of the superpower itself, the world has become less stable and the future more uncertain and unpredictable.
