We are living in contentious era of probes and provocations without the ideological crispness of the Cold War. There will be a new wave of dominance seeking in various regions of the world, and clashes over the control of natural resources, especially oil. Changes will be required because of population and economic dynamics, and the resultant political dynamics – there are nations with population growth and limited resources; others with population decline and enormous resources; nations with growing economic and military power but little geopolitical influence, and others with declining economic and military power but substantial geopolitical influence.

The great challenge, therefore, is how to manage international relations so that peace is maintained among continual pressures toward conflict; and this requires a method of altering the status quo, because failure to do so simply causes pressures to build until there are explosions into conflict. The international system (e.g., the UN) today is designed to maintain the status quo and so engenders conflict; it is not a means of resolution.

America should follow a middle course in which we neither try to dominate the world via military supremacy and a utopian effort to spread our systems of politics and economics everywhere, nor look for safety in a falsely idealistic multilateralism. Our middle course involves Strategic Independence and modesty in reach and action.

ADJUSTING TO MAJOR CHANGES IN THE WORLD

“ … Governments have an interest in preserving the current international order and thus play by the rules.