ABSTRACT
Contemporary Western diplomacy is facing a perfect storm. For the past few hundred years, high-level statecraft has focused mainly on balancing power in an ever-changing world. From the age of European empires through to the end of the Cold War, the statistical indicators of national power—armies, navies, missiles, warheads, economies, populations, and territories—were carefully calculated, codified, and notionally balanced in an attempt to secure stability. Alliances and treaties were forged to express or extend these balances. When inevitable imbalances arose, negotiations re-opened. If the negotiations failed, wars usually ensued. And so were fashioned efforts to craft security and world order.
