Introduction

The collapse of the Soviet Union has demolished the international political order of the past half-century and set in motion a global transformation whose long-term consequences are impossible to foretell. In the absence of a general war, one of the two geopolitical pillars of the international system has disintegrated into a host of new states. This upheaval, which has few if any parallels in twentieth-century history, has not only posed perplexing security dilemmas for the emerging post-Soviet governments but has also called into question the security policies of most of the world’s major states. No longer is the international system dominated by two superpowers methodically pursuing goals and interests rooted in long-standing state structures and national traditions. A global system characterized by a large degree of stability—whatever its moral consequences—has dissolved into a fluid network of international alignments determined more often by shifting domestic political and economic tides than by larger geopolitical calculations.