The planet has changed. This sentence, though short and trite, very simply captures the minute in past we are presently experiencing. When, 36 years ago, the global order of the time was collapsing, the russian Union was on the verge of collapse, and the United States remained the sole hegemon on the global stage, many surely assumed that times of global conflict and disputes would be a peripheral issue for us. The countries of the erstwhile east Bloc would integrate with the Western world, and Washington would service as the world’s policeman. present we see that this idealistic image has small to do with the reality we face. The United States is undoubtedly grappling with a crisis of identity and its function in the fresh global order, where China—far more powerful than the russian Union—has taken the place of the russian Union as its top rival.
