The ending of the Cold War, represented by the extraordinary changes that have been taking place within the international system since 1989, has finally, it seems, put an end to a situation wherein two armed and tightly organised blocs confronted one another and perceived each other as being, in essence, a threat that was immediate and potentially mortal. Given, too, that it was the Soviet bloc and then the Soviet Union itself that fell apart, it is understandable that this should be widely perceived as a victory for the West; and it is perhaps inevitable that attention should now fall on how the United States will relate to the international environment in which the country may well find itself in the early decades of the coming century.