Back to Bipolarity?

Hans Binnendijk

1999年1月 · National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies

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A decade after the Berlin Wall was torn down and a new international system was born, the nature of that new system is not yet clear. It is a fluid and complex system that remains in evolution. But an evolution toward what? The past can tell us something about what might happen in the future if historical patterns can be discerned and applied to today's world. History shows that the fluidity in today's world has precedents in the early stages of each of the past five international systems. Each of those previous systems had a life cycle: there was a tendency for fluidity and multipolarity to turn into rigidity and bipolarity, with that bipolarity in turn resulting in large scale conflict (or a Cold War) and the demise of the existing international system. Most of the past systems developed before or during the Industrial Age. There are signs that history may be repeated in the Information Age-and it may be moving into a more bipolar and more dangerous stage.