TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS will be dominated by dozens of states exercising military, economic, diplomatic and cultural power. This is not your father's world, dominated by the U.S., Europe and Japan. Nor is it a world dominated by two superpowers, as it was during the Cold War, or by one, as it was for a moment in the 1990s. Power will be found in many hands in many places-diffuse, diverse, not concentrated, power. The primary threat to peace and prosperity in this new era is not a push for dominance by any great power. Today's great powers are not all that great. Russia still has a mostly one-dimensional economy heavily dependent on oil, gas and minerals and is hobbled by corruption and a shrinking population. China is constrained by its enormous and aging population, large social needs and a top-heavy political system that is far less dynamic than the economy. India, too, is burdened by its numbers and poverty, along with inadequate infrastructure and often sclerotic government. Europe punches far below its weight, given its parochialism, its culture and the unresolved tensions between the pull of nationalism and the commitment to building a collective union. Japan is constrained by an aging society, an anachronistic political process and the burden of its history. Brazil and several other countries are on the verge of becoming a global force but are not quite there.
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