Into the new millennium: the twenty-first century

It is strange that at about the time of a new century the world moves in a different direction, not exactly in 1901 or 2001 but close to it. New directions were charted in 1789, 1914 and then twice in the last century, in 1945 and the mid1990s. As the twenty-first century unfolds, the threat of great global wars over ideological and power conflicts has passed and with it the danger of a nuclear holocaust. Conflicts have not suddenly disappeared – far from it, but they are contained and unlike 1914 or 1945 are not spreading globally between the most powerful nations.