The 1990s signify more than the passing of another decade. They mark the end not just of the turbulent twentieth century but of a millennium, in the latter part of which a truly global society has emerged. The almost daily changes--unimaginable a few short years ago--occurring in the communist bloc guarantee that the 1990s will be different from the 1980s. Marxist ideology has proven itself a dinosaur ill-adapted to an emerging world of high technology and rapid global interaction.
The challenge is not just to the communist world, however. The pace of technological development and the growth of economic interdependence are pressing toward a physically integrated world that is transcending the boundaries of nation-states, ideological blocs, and their associated institutions. As the old Cold War certainties are thrown into question, new dangers emerge; the challenge before us is to find the principles that can guide us toward a cooperative global society and generate forms and institutions appropriate to it.
THE WORLD & I has invited scholars and experts from eight different fields to consider what changes the 1990s may bring and the challenges to be faced in dealing with them.
Carl F.H. Henry, a noted Protestant theologian, sees the twentieth century moving to its close amid philosophical confusion over the nature of man and the values that should guide human society. He considers that in the twenty-first century, religion is likely to "bid again for centrality."
Norman A. Bailey, senior director of international economic affairs in the Reagan White House, foresees a technology-driven boom opening the next century. In the 1990s, however, the world will have to weather a severe recession--how well we cope with trade conflicts, protectionist urges, and impediments to the free flow of capital could determine how serious it will be.
Abel G. Aganbegyan of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and one of President Gorbachev's leading economic advisers, charts a course for the transformation of the Soviet economy and acknowledges the difficulties experienced on the perestroika path thus far.
In "A World Order for the 1990s," Morton A. Kaplan of the University of Chicago proposes steps for ending the division of Europe, from which a democratic world order could emerge to replace the two blocs that have dominated the postwar period. While the thaw in the Cold war decreases the risk of nuclear war, global warming and other environmental problems pose new threats--to resources and hence to security--that can be dealt with only by cooperative international action. Carol W. Rendall of the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute examines this issue.
Bengt-Arne Vedin of the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology describes information technology, biotechnology, and new materials, such as superplastic metals, as the "change masters" of the 1990s, with the first of these providing the communications that are making globalization a reality. Wimal Dissanayake of the East-West Center in Hawaii considers the cultural impact of mass communication and reminds us that it is human interaction that gives technology its significance.
In the final essay,
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