A New Security Landscape: The End of the Post-Cold War Era

Against a backdrop of fundamental shifts in the relationships between the United States and its European and Asian allies, the terrorist attacks of September 2001 have forced a fundamental re-appraisal of global security issues. In this article, Professor Fran¸ois Heisbourg, chairman of the council of the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, examines various facets of the current global security situation, including increasing pressures and tensions in the Middle East, the danger of a reversal of fortunes for non-proliferation initiatives, and the rise of hyper-terrorism. He then examines the implications of these new security challenges for individual nations--notably the blurring of the distinction between internal and external security--and for existing international alliances, and proceeds to discuss the way in which nations' responses to these new realities will shape international relations in the years to come.