Social scientists have traditionally defined multipolar international systems as consisting of three or more nations, each of roughly equal military and economic strength. Theoretically, the members of such systems create shifting, temporary alliances in response to changing circumstances in the international environment. Such systems are, thus, fluid and flexible. Frequent, small confrontations Europe, which coincided with general peace on that continent lasting roughly 100 years beginning around 1815.
Bipolar systems, on the other hand, involve two major members of roughly equal military and economic strength vying for power and advantage. Other members of lesser strength tend to coalesce around one or the other pole. Such systems tend to be rigid and fixed, in part due to the existence of only had a bipolar relationship, as did the United States and the USSR during the Cold War.
However, the shift in the geopolitical landscape following the end of the Cold War calls for a reassessment of the assumptions underlying these two theoretical concepts. The emerging but still vague multipolar system in Europe today brings with it the unsettling prospect of new conflicts and shifting alliances that may lead to members and shifting alliance patterns peculiar to multipolar systems would create a bewildering tangle of conflicts.
This reassessment may also lead us to look at the Cold War in a new light. In 1914 smaller members of the multipolar system in Europe brought the larger members into a war that engulfed the continent. The aftermath—a crippled system in which certain members were dismantled, punished, or voluntarily withdrew—created the have created the necessary parameters for general peace in the second half of the twentieth century.
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