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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 06/05
Explaining Rivalry Termination in Contemporary Eastern Eurasia with Evolutionary Expectancy Theory
William R. Thopmson
Abstract
The demise of the Cold War caught many, if not all, observers and participants alike by surprise. For much of the time between the end of World War II and the late 1980s/early 1990s, the one thing that could be assumed would remain unvarying in many respects was the East-West structural cleavage in world politics. Not only was this cleavage paramount, it also seemed to permeate throughout the world and influence politics in all parts of the system. So much so that for many observers every competition appeared, rightly or wrongly, as if it were a proxy struggle for the US-Soviet rivalry. Then, all of a sudden, the central cleavage was no more. In the process, many analysts and decision-makers had lost their conceptual anchor in deciphering how the world worked. The "world still worked," but a basic key to unlocking the secrets of how it worked had disappeared for good.
Part 1 (PDF, 17 pages, 793.6 KB)
Part 2 (PDF, 13 pages, 859.4 KB)
