Epilogue: The Balance of Power in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Much has obviously changed since the 1930s. The Second World War destroyed the old mutipolar system and a new bipolar structure emerged in its wake. Nuclear weapons that were barely imagined when the war began were detonated in action during the last days of fighting and their proliferation, in absolute numbers of total weapons in the world and in the destructive power of those weapons has grown almost beyond measure. The number of states possessing nuclear weapons is likewise on the rise.