In the national interest: The United States’ great balancing act

The redistribution of global power has produced a situation in which the US is no longer the sole hegemon, writes Zbigniew Brzezinski

WITH Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, the disintegration of Iraq’s and Syria’s borders, and increasing Chinese assertiveness in the South and East China Seas, the post-Cold War era appears to have ended in 2014. Is that true?

The post-Cold War era was not really an era, but rather a gradual transition from a bilateral Cold War to a more complex international order that still involves, in the final analysis, two world powers. In brief, the decisive axis of the new order increasingly involves the US and China.