The next landscape of world politics

"The next landscape of world politics is just beginning to be visible through the lingering twilight of the unipolar world. It is being shaped by four powerful historical processes. The first, and currently dominant, is what has been called the end of the Vasco da Gama era. The second is the end of unchallenged US paramountcy in the society of states: that is the end of the unipolar world. The third is a redistribution of power not only between states but within states. The fourth, and in time probably most momentous of all, is environmental change. But that last process is already gathering a whole library of studies for itself, so I shall not consider it here, save as it affects the other three.The changes already being effected by the combination of just those four factors seem to me nothing less than a shift in the tectonic plates that underlie the everyday world of contemporary international politics. But, as Yogi Berra once said, 'Prophecy is difficult, especially about the future'; so all the arguments which follow in this essay are quite tentative."--Provided by publisher.