erequisite for the liberation of Palestine--the unification of Muslims (especially in Africa), the spread of Arab-Muslim influence, and the promotion of the principles of...Qadhafi's Green Book (Spiegel 354)
The U.S. also faces threats to its position as global leader from the increasing economic power of the Pacific Rim and the unified European community, as well as a politically violent Middle East. The current international system begins with the U.S. as remaining superpower and is developing according to how the U.S. confronts these threats.
The bipolar system of the cold war era grew out of the denouement of World War II. The Axis powers had been defeated and the U.S. and the Soviet Union were left to pick up the spoils. They did so with the knowledge that they were the only two countries with large numbers of hydrogen bombs, and the literal capacity to destroy the world as it stands. Gradually, as countries such as East Germany began to align themselves with either one or the other superpower, the U.S. and Soviet Union began to define themselves in opposition to one another. The high-water mark of the conflict between superpowers might have been the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the two countries were brought to the brink of nuclear war through the establishment of a missile site on Cuba by the U.S.S.R.
During the cold war, countries sought protection from one of the two powers, and drama of capitalism versus communism played itself out, not in the visible arena of direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation, but in areas such as Afghanistan and El Salvador. Gradually, tensions soon dissipated:
Quite a number of Asian and African nations, as well as a few European ones, stayed nonaligned...[and] the weakening of alliance ties, the recovery and growth of China...the rise of OPEC and the declining economic dominance of the U.S. somewhat softened the initial U.S.-Soviet confrontation (Russett, Starr 102)
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