The American Interest blog has a post by Francis Fukuyama about the rise of a weak state world. From the post:
[The 20th Century] world was dominated by strong, centralized states, and international politics was the story about the interaction of these strong, centralized states—Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, and the like. What is different about today’s international world is that it is dominated not by strong states, but by weak and sometimes failing states where the usual instruments of power, in particular, hard military power, don’t work that well.
Following the end of the Cold War it seems harder to predict the role of superpowers in the world. Will China, India, Russia or the EU gain superpower status along with America? Will the role of the superpower change and weak states (collectively) define world affairs as much as any lone superpower? Are superpowers as relevant as they used to be or are superpowers a thing of the past?
Tags: America, China, Francis Fukuyama, politics, society, superpower
