| Summary/Abstract |
WITHOUT EXCEPTION, the tectonic shifts now taking place in the infrastructures of today's world under the conditions of globalization and the information and telecommunications revolution are together leading toward a radical change in the place, role, and influence of nations and peoples in the system of international relations. It is therefore natural to expect a gradual rethinking of the traditionally understood categories of world order, hegemony, dominance and submission, the places and roles of small nations, the character of the configuration of geopolitical forces, and so on. Of special relevance are the status of and outlook for the superpowers, and the phenomenon of superpower status itself. As is well known, against the backdrop of the triumph of the West and the United States, there was originally the conviction that a so-called unipolar world order had arrived, at the summit of which Uncle Sam was enthroned in splendid isolation.
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