Introduction
The dramatic rise of China and India among others has set the stage for a fundamental rethinking of world politics in an age of the waning dominance of US power as a force for remaking the world in its own image. While Pax Americana is not yet teetering on the edge of collapse, the consensus opinion is that the relative decline of the United States is probably irreversible and its unipolar moment will soon give way to something new. A “return to multi-polarity” is one way of describing this shift. It tells us that several great powers will emerge to challenge US primacy. That is all. The more important question is: What sort of global order will emerge on the other side of the transition from unipolarity to multipolarity? Will it be one of peace and plenty or conflict and scarcity? On this issue, experts are divided into two camps, pessimists and optimists.
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