Author Description

The end of the Cold War era has not brought greater security to the world community. Although the likelihood of a global strategic nuclear war has been reduced significantly, we have already witnessed the impact of other challenges to international peace. As the Gulf War of 1991 demonstrated, regional conflicts can expand, adopting the methods and means of the earlier superpower confrontation. Recent events in the Horn of Africa, the Balkans, and Southeast Asia have revealed the continuing power of historic ethnic, religious, and national rivalries and the seeming inability of the international community to find effective solutions. At the same time, modern weapons and communications technologies, demographic changes and environmental degradation, vast disparities in wealth, and the globalization of both economic activity and Western culture pose enormous challenges. Are the international institutions with which we have lived since the end of the Second World War equipped to handle these problems? Written by international authorities in a wide range of disciplines, the essays in this text examine what is known, what must be determined, and what might be done with respect to these profound and urgent issues.