Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
process of integration into that order. As such, the end of the Cold War was not the beginning
of a new world order but the last gasp in the completion of an old one.
The end of the Cold War began as a consolidation of the American-led postwar order,
but deeper and more profound shifts—not immediately apparent—were also set into motion.
The globalization of the world economy and the growing market orientation of the develop-
ing world were forces of change. A so-called Washington consensus emerged that emphas-
ized policies of market expansion and deregulation. The nature of the security problem in
the global system also changed. The threat to international order was no longer great-power
war, as it had been for centuries, but violence and instability emerging from weak, failed,
and hostile states residing on the periphery of the system. September 11, 2001, dramatically
marked this shift. At the same time, America itself emerged preeminent—or unipolar—after
the Cold War, and by the end of the 1990s, its power and position in the global system were
the defining feature of world politics. A world of competing great powers—manifest as either
Cold War bipolarity or a competitive multipolar system of earlier eras—gave way to a sys-
tem dominated by a single state.
The restructuring of international relations after the Cold War is a tale of two orders. Dur-
ing the Cold War, these two orders coexisted. One was the Cold War bipolar order. The other
was the American-led liberal hegemonic order that existed inside the larger bipolar global
system. When the Cold War ended, the inside order became the outside order, that is, the lo-
gic was extended to the larger global system. In one sense, this can be seen as the triumph of
an American-style liberal international order. The collapse of the Soviet bloc was a collapse
of the last great challenger to this order—and in the two decades since the end of the Cold
War, no rival logics of order have yet appeared. But in another sense, the end of the Cold
War can be seen as a sort of slow-motion crisis of authority and governance of this liberal he-
gemonic order. During the Cold War, the United States asserted its authority and established
rule through leadership in bipolar balancing and management of a liberal order organized
around strategic bargains, institutions, and the provision of public goods. That order survived
the end of the Cold War but the character of rule—tied as it has been to America's hegemon-
ic position—has been thrown into doubt and dispute.
This chapter makes four arguments. First, the end of the Cold War was a conservative
world-historical event, a story of the triumph, continuity, and consolidation of the American-
led postwar order. In hindsight, it is clear that the United States and its democratic allies had
in fact created a deeply rooted, dynamic, and historically unique political order in the shad-
ow of the Cold War. This inside order expanded and deepened during the 1990s and into the
new century. Its watchwords were globalization, integration, democratization, and the expan-
sion of liberal international order. NAFTA, APEC, and the WTO were elements of this ex-
pansion and deepening process. The expansion of NATO and the reaffirmation of America's
alliances in East Asia also amounted to a consolidation of the American-led postwar liberal
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