The Real World Order

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the resulting demise of Cold War bipolar politics pose a provocative question for observers of the international scene: If there is a new world order, what are its defining features and what do its current tendencies portend for the future? In The Real World Order: Zones of Peace/Zones of Turmoil, Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky argue that no prior attempt to describe the post-Cold War world order has succeeded because none has divided the apparent disarray into its two parts: zones of peace and democracy, in which they discern a new basis for international relations, and zones of turmoil and development, where the future will be like the past, at least for a while. Singer and Wildavaky integrate political, military, cultural, and economic factors into a coherent vision of how the world works today and what it is becoming. The result is an analysis that is neither liberal nor conservative, hawk nor dove, isolationist nor interventionist, but cuts across the usual stereotypes to sketch the main outlines of a comprehensive world order and provide a realistic basis upon which all parties may debate policy. By taking the perspective of a century or two, rather than focusing on a snapshot of today or a view of a few years, and by comparing the next century with this one, during which over 40 million people were killed in wars and over 100 million by their own governments, Singer and Wildavsky approach their subject with a disconcerting optimism and find in contemporary prospects a hopeful model for progress toward global peace and prosperity. The Real World Order will set the terms for further reflection and debate, and it poses primary questions for the future: How will the stable, prosperous societies in the zones of peace protect their democracy, how will they deal with conflict that does not threaten national survival, and what responsibility will they have to mitigate the horrors of war and poverty in the zones of turmoil during the next century?