The interwar issue is of high importance. Is the master strategic narrative of the
1990s and 2000s primarily to be regarded: (1) as a time-out from great power conflict,
pending the return of that cyclical phenomenon; (2) as witnessing the emergence of
a new strategic context wherein interstate warfare, particularly of the greater variety,
is obsolescent and even obsolete; or (3) as the period when a radically asymmetrical
kind of threat, religiously motivated terrorism and insurgency, came to take centre-
stage as the leading force in global conflict? There is some merit in each of these
perspectives.
The early 1990s were in some ways historically exceptional, while in others they were
all too familiar. With respect to the exceptional and unfamiliar, there was no precedent
in the past two centuries for a single state to be so dominant after a great conflict that it
was unchallenged, and indeed unchallengeable, at least in the military–strategic dimen-
sion of power. This was, and thus far has remained, the American condition. In 1815,
1919 and 1945, no great power was so mighty as to be beyond discipline by other powers.
Even if war had destroyed previous balances of power, new ones appeared in their
aftermath. In fact, new balances emerged as vital contributors to the terms of the post-
war settlements. Although France was unchallengeable on land in Europe in the 1920s,
its overall strategic standing was balanced by Britain. But in 1989–91, as the Soviet
imperium, then the Soviet Empire, then even the Soviet Union itself, melted down, the
United States was left as the only superpower.
It has been a recurring phenomenon that in the aftermath of each great struggle,
efforts are made to institutionalize a new approach to international security. Liberal
optimists proclaim that the world has changed, is changing or may well change radically
for the better. Alas, to date, they have always been disappointed. (This matter is discussed
in Chapter 19.) Perhaps because of the unusual way in which the Cold War ended, the
post-war (here labelled interwar) period was not launched with the historically usual
institutional innovations.
Consider the circumstances of 1989–91. Quite suddenly, between 1987 and 1989, the
Cold War ended. It faded away virtually to nothing, except for residual suspicions.
Unquestionably, the Soviet Union had lost and was set on an eccentric path of uncon-
trollable reform and change. It was, however, still in the field as a functioning polity. It
had a central government and it remained heavily armed in all categories. In those
circumstances, understandably, there was no peace treaty; nor was there even some rough
facsimile of such. Abruptly, after nearly forty-five years of Soviet–American, East–West
Cold War, the principal organizing axis of global security was no more. This posed a
challenge, provided an opportunity, but above all set a puzzle. How would security be
managed and policed in the post-Cold War world? Perhaps more to the point, which
security problems would be in need of management and policing?
A unipolar world
The 1990s should have been a decade of American self-confidence. It might even have
been a decade of innovation in norm promotion and institution-building. America had
responded with imagination and energy to the challenge it perceived from Moscow in
the late 1940s. So, one could argue, in the early 1990s it needed to rise to the unique
opportunity offered by the demise of the Soviet Union. It had to direct and manage the
After the Cold War: an interwar decade 221