The world is experiencing a watershed phase in the second decade of the 21st century, marked by a geopolitical and economic power shift from the West to Euro-Asian powers. The present period exposes various geopolitical and geostrategic challenges, which prove more difficult to tackle than those in the 20th century. These challenges take the form of political confrontation, internal and internationally-political armed conflicts, conflict over raw-material resources in civil war torn countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and also in newly explored strategic regions like the Arctic. The world’s rapidly-expanding population is facing cyclical fluctuations of food prices as the result of climate changes, economic conflicts, the rise of religious fundamentalism, and also fragmentation of the political map of the world.
This latter aspect brings along not only the rise of secessionist movements, violating territorial integrity as the core principle of the international community, but also a redefinition of one of the key characteristics of a sovereign state, namely international recognition. Kosovo, South Ossetia and South Sudan are showcase examples of this emerging trend.
Will be the 21st century defined by rivalries between national (super) powers, and not by the supremacy of collective universitas or overlapping sovereignties, replacing sovereign states as expected by the New Middle Age theorists? Which will be the dominant power in a multipolar world – the rapidly-weakening United States, on the one hand, or an ever more confident China, aspiring to regain the status of the world’s strongest economy? This volume provides expert insights and answers from American, Europan, Asian and African specialists.
