Introduction

In 1991, immediately after the liberation of Kuwait from a belligerent Iraq, a triumphant President George Bush announced the emergence of a “New World Order.” But Bush’s declaration was more political than consensual; there was no agreement in academic and policy circles about the world order, and most scholars seemed reluctant to endorse Bush’s declaration. After the end of the Cold War, “disorder,” instead of “order,” became the key word when describing international affairs. For Samuel Huntington, it was a “Clash of Civilizations”; for Zbigniew Brzezinski, it was “a new geopolitical game on the global chessboard”; for Robert Kaplan, it was “The Coming Anarchy.” More than a decade has now passed since Bush’s declaration, and extensive transformations to the international political landscape have occurred: the rise of China, the economic revival of Russia, the expansion and consolidation of the European Union, the emergence of an ‘Asian Community’, accelerated globalization, the information revolution, and the intensification of “global terrorism.”