Peaceful Change: The Post–Cold War Evolution
This chapter traces the evolution of thinking about peaceful change at the systemic (or global) and regional levels during the post–Cold War era. Unipolarity, US liberal hegemony, and the acceleration of economic globalization were just some of the independent variables that scholars argued might facilitate such peaceful change. Each has yielded unintended consequences, including, but not limited to, the overreach of the United States during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and its subsequent retreat from global leadership, the emergence of China as a peer competitor, Russia’s efforts to undermine the United States and its allies through hybrid interference, and the uneven impact of globalization on the security strategies of different types of states across several regions. In sum, the effects on peaceful change at the systemic and regional levels are decidedly mixed.