ABSTRACT
IN A PROPHETIC ARTICLE written back in 1993, Owen Harries sug-gested that the concept of the West as it existed during the Cold War did not reflect a natural or enduring community of interests but was rather the product of a common, overarching Soviet threat and could not be expected to endure for long past the Cold War’s close.1 This Cold War West was conceived of in civilizational terms as a group of countries sharing common institutions and values, which saw the world in similar ways and would readily seek collective action. Such a political unit did not exist in the interwar period or indeed during any other historical period prior to the onset of the Cold War. Although institutions and habits persist out of inertia, it was only a matter of time, according to Harries, before the international system reverted to something resembling nineteenth-century Europe, with the countries of the former West entering into a series of shifting alliances.
