ABSTRACT
Added to these shortcomings of the international system is the rapidity with which change occurs in the world. There has been a fundamental transformation in the bases of power from Western Europe to the United States and the Soviet Union in this century. A number of nations have become independent from colonial empires. Another rearrangement has occurred with the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union. The distribution of power is continually fluctuating from one group of states to another, a process that in all probability will continue to take place in the future. Finally, the ongoing changes in technology, not least in the field of weapons, will continue to have an impact on nations.
