ABSTRACT
In the mid-1990s we are seeing a grand global transformation. Some observers of international relations seem to believe that the course of such a historic change, identified with the end of the Cold War, is irreversible. Others contend that the doctrinal and geopolitical shape of the world in the twenty-first century could “spiral out of control, generating massive political disorder and philosophical confusion” (Brzezinski 1989, 1993; Kennedy 1993, ix–xv). While the evolution of the post–Cold War order is not by any means complete, a general consensus seems to exist in today’s academic community: the prevailing view is that future historians will identify the remaining years of the twentieth century as a period of transformation that separates an era of economic interdependence from the preceding era of ideological struggle and political alliance.
