| Summary/Abstract |
IN 1992, FRANCIS FUKUYAMA brought "the good news" of the end of history: Liberal democracy had won, putting an end to the "history of conflicts" between states. Classical bipolarity had become a thing of the past. The Cold War ended in the "complete triumph" of the West (Western interpretation) to be replaced with tectonic shifts in the system of international relations. Politicians and experts spoke about the Soviet Union's disintegration as the end of history of ideological conflicts and a logical death of geopolitics, a product of the imperfect balance of power of the New Times that developed into the bipolarity of the Cold War to arrive at the consolidated, stable and manageable unipolar world - the "new world order." In this context, "the end of history" looks logical. Liberal norms and institutes as well as problems of economic development have moved into the place previously occupied by geopolitics and political realism concerned with the balance of power, problems of security and structural factors. Diplomats discarded the no longer needed security issues to concentrate at trade and climate change; the United States tempted by the idea of the end of geopolitics appreciated the possibility to minimize the maintenance costs of the world order and enjoy the advantages of globalization and open world markers. The Europeans, likewise, profited from the new unipolar world order. They used the chance to expand to the East and spread their soft power and influence on a global scale.
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