ABSTRACT
The demise of the Soviet Union as an ideological Other undermined the entire basis of Cold War ideological geopolitics. Particularly in the United States, the protective cocoon and organizing framework that the Cold War provided to political and intellectual life has shrivelled. In its place has come an extreme ontological insecurity, a widespread sense of uncertainty about how to organize world politics in its absence. In some quarters there is even a nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ when East was East and West was West and never the twain should meet. The US perception of increased insecurity was significantly heightened by the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC – the first major military assaults on the US mainland since the British army burned the White House during the war of 1812. Though the long-term effects as yet remain unclear, a number of plausible geopolitical scenarios are under construction. This chapter is devoted to describing these.
