F o r more than three
hundred years, the drama of modern history has turned on the rise and fall
of great powers. In the multipolar era, twelve great powers appeared on the
scene at one time or another. At the beginning of World War 11, seven
remained; at its conclusion, two. Always before, as some states sank, others
rose to take their places. World War I1 broke the pattern; for the first time in
a world of sovereign states, bipolarity prevailed.
In a 1964 essay, I predicted that bipolarity would last through the century.l
On the brow of the next millennium, we must prepare to bid bipolarity adieu
and begin to live without its stark simplicities and comforting symmetry.
Already in the fall of 1989, Undersecretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger
expressed nostalgia for the "remarkably stable and predictable atmosphere
of the Cold War," and in the summer of 1990, John Mearsheimer gave strong
reasons for expecting worse days to come