Editor's Foreword
In December 1988, Soviet Prime Minister Mikail Gorbachev beat George H.W. Bush to the punch. While many Americans credit their forty-first president for his shrewd post-Cold War coinage, “a new world order,” it was Gorbachev whose prophetic vision laid the groundwork for the residual decade of the twentieth century and beyond.
In his December 7, 1988 speech to the UN, Gorbachev proposed, “Further global progress is now possible only through a quest for universal consensus in the movements towards a new world order.” The “new world order” Gorbachev likely envisioned was one of collaborative geopolitics between East and West. Yet throughout the 1990s, Gorbachev’s projection eventually saw the ruin of the Soviet system, a shouldering in of American unipolarity, and what seemed like democracy’s finest, infallible hour.
Alas, America’s assurance of her unchallenged hegemony crashed with the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. George W. Bush, now heir to the democratic crusade, ushered into the twenty-first century a different struggle not the cold war jockey for hegemonic supremacy, but rather a very hot “War on Terrorism.” If a loose confederation of self-empowered radicals can bring the great American nation to her knees, the decade of her uncontested global dominance might be dwindling and centuries of international warfare might change its rules it would be the same game with different players organizations instead of nations led by individuals rather than allegiances. The new world order of the twenty-first century is not one of American hegemony, but one making room for emerging world powers.
This issue of the Stanford Journal of International Relations probes developing political, technological, economic, and religious world players. In her article, Gloria Koo challenges the shifting Cold War dynamic between China and North Korea and the implications their relationship pose on nuclear proliferation. Ahmad Siddiqi offers a portrait of Iranian president Syed Muhammad Khatami and examines the implementation of his reformist visions in the future of Iran.
Sarala Nagala, meanwhile, focuses on India’s potential “superpower” stature as a technology hub and the locus of an increasingly relevant outsourcing phenomenon. Sofiane Khatib treats the ethnically-charged Algerian civil conflicts from 1991 through 1999 in light of internal and external “spoilers,” or impediments to peace proceedings. Finally, Jennifer Haskell expounds this issue of racial politics, questioning Malaysia’s fertility as a soil for democracy building.
Further, in this issue we feature Hoover Institution research fellow Lyman Miller and Professor David Holloway.
Professor Miller’s article proposes what a global “superpower” should encompass, measuring China’s economy, military, politics, and global cultural diffusion to this yardstick. In an interview, Professor Holloway addresses a range of international security issues, from the potential of an emergent “new Cold War” to the threat of a nuclear Iran.
We also feature three new components of the journal: a “How To Learn More” section, a world leaders’ profile segment, and a global centerspread. Appearing at the end of each piece, the “How To Learn More” box suggests to our readers further research tributaries for the article topic. The two latter sections appear in the center of the journal and highlight emerging geographical hotspots and global figures germane to the contemporary current of international affairs.
As Lyman Miller aptly articulates, the stakes defining new global superpowers are high largely due to the extraordinary footprints the U.S. has impressed into the sand of the twentieth century. And while few of the countries we include in this issue are, at this point, global hegemons, they nonetheless might ride the twenty-first century tide alarmingly close to America’s twentieth century traces.