The document discusses differing perspectives on the future of international relations following the end of the Cold War. It summarizes views that are optimistic, pessimistic, or uncertain. Key points include: Robert Kagan argues great powers like China and Russia will resist democracy and the US will seek to maintain dominance; Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry believe autocracies will integrate into the liberal international system to avoid conflict; J. Martin Rochester sees both cooperative and competitive trends coexisting in a complex system. Overall, the future will likely involve continued integration of autocracies alongside efforts by powers like the US, China and Russia to maintain their status.

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The Future of International Relations
With the end of the Cold War and Francis Fukuyama’s belief in the “end of History”, the
future of international relations has been a question that most political scientists are trying to
figure out. So far, there has been a combination of both pessimistic paradigms, optimistic
paradigms, and paradigms where some political scientists just don’t know because they see the
fate of world politics as too complex of an issue. For example in Robert Kagan’s book, The
Return of History and The End of Dream, he looks at the future of world politics in a pessimistic
way. He puts a lot of emphasis on the rise of authoritarian governments with a focus on China,
Russia, and how the U.S. will seek to maintain its dominant power position in the world. The
critic of Kagan’s book is a response by Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry in their article
titled The Myth of the Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail where they argue
that Autocratic regimes are not an alternative to Democracy in the capitalist system, and how
Western states should continue to integrate autocratic states in the liberal international system.
Finally as a grey area argument in J. Martin Rochester’s book Fundamental Principles of
International Relations, he talks about how there are paradoxical trends at work that make
versions of several world models relevant, which lead to a more mature anarchy. Ultimately, the
future of world politics will see the integration of autocratic regimes into the liberal international
system by Western regimes. However, the future will be similar to the past in term of these
autocratic regimes such as China and Russia trying to maintain their great power status with a
return to resisting democracy as well as seeing the U.S. trying to maintain their power position.
In an interdependent world economy and dealing with complex issues such
environmental concerns and the new atrocities of war, there has to be an integration of autocratic
regimes into the international system by Western regimes. In Rochester’s textbook, chapter ten

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titled “The Future of International Relations” he begins by discussing how the world is moving
towards a more mature anarchy. He believes that intergovernmental organizations will help the
world confront these problems, but in way the IGO’s and these problems will help form new
relations between autocratic and Western regimes. For example, he states “It is possible that
IGOs will be the key that allows nation-states to retain their sovereignty as they function in a
global political space in which human transactions and concerns increasingly transcend national
borders” (Rochester 322). Because climate control, preventing terrorist organizations from using
chemical weapons, and controlling the global internet organizations have been formed to handle
these situations. Organizations such as the United Nations have created conferences where
nation-states can address these issues. Conferences such as the Earth summit, Framework
Convention on Climate Change, and the Kyoto Protocol have sought to handle these issues and
create a form of cooperation between autocratic regimes and Western regimes. Even though
these organizations and conventions have been created over the years, it seems as if this trend
will continue in the future considering that according to Deudeny and Ikenberry’s argument, it
would be wise to integrate and accommodate autocratic regimes.
With the integration and accommodation of autocratic regimes, this will not stifle the
world economy, and this will ensure that unnecessary conflict will somewhat be avoidable
between Autocracies and Western regimes. Within the section of the authors paper titled,
“AUTOCRATS ABROAD”, they talk about the how if these autocratic regimes are neglected
then this further creates unnecessary conflict and competition among nation-states. They state,
“It is in combination with these factors that the regime divergence between autocracies and
democracies will become increasingly dangerous” (Deudney 88). Deudney comes to the
conclusion that most people that see world politics in a pessimistic way are only trying to view

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the world as one big competition. He believes that these autocratic revivalists emphasize too
much on this competition but fail to realize that in the twenty-first century the path of war as a
path to conflict resolution and great power expansion has become obsolete (Deudney 88).
Autocracies know that the modern atrocities of war and nuclear conflict are ultimately suicide to
their nation and their power position in the world. Democracies know this as well. As a result in
Deudney’s argument, Autocracies and Western powers agree to integration and accommodate in
Intergovernmental Organizations.
With Autocracies such as China and Russia being members in the United Nations
security-council, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, this creates a pathway of
continuous integration. Deudney states, “The pathway to modernity for rising states is not
outside and against the status quo but rather inside and through the flexible and accommodating
institutions of the liberal international order” (Deudney 90). If states want to continuously share
in this interdependent world economy, educational programs abroad, and work abroad programs
in order to enhance their state, nations will have to continuously abide by the status quo of
inevitable integration in order to avoid alienation, which would lead to further conflict between
Autocracies and Western regimes. Just because certain regimes are Autocratic, they cannot be
left out because this creates further problems and instability in world politics. Although future
politics will see more integration and accommodation of Autocracies and Western regimes, the
future will be similar to the past.
The future will be similar to the past in regards to how Autocratic regimes such as China
and Russia maintaining their great-power status with a return to resisting democracy. In Kagan’s
book, he captures this view in a precise way. He argues how Autocracies want self-preservation
but since democracies and Autocracies have two different modes of thinking, this becomes a

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problem for both regimes to cooperate and reach a consensus. He states, “The presumption over
the past decade has been that when Chinese and Russian leaders stopped believing in
communism, they stopped believing in anything. They had become pragmatists, without
ideology or belief, simply pursuing their own and their nation’s interests” (Kagan 58). This is the
ultimate goal for Autocracies so they establish their nations and bring order and stability to
prosper and secure their regimes through prosperity. As a result of this belief, the foreign policy
of autocrats are affected. Kagan furthers this argument by stating, “Today the autocrats pursue
foreign policies aimed at making the world safe, if not for all autocracies, then at least for their
own” (Kagan 61). With the establishment of NATO and other Western allied forces, these
Western organizations are seen as aggressive, so autocracies see these organizations as threats.
Therefore, autocracies have to work a certain way that perpetuates their assertiveness against
democratic demands and protect their regime in the process. Also considering that these
autocracies are a minority in the world, this further expands upon the fact that they have to exert
their great-power image to the rest of the world. Considering that these two nations hold vital
resources and have respectable economies, this drives autocracies to expand their military and
form alliances against the majority nations that see them as evil autocracies. As a result of this
image, China and Russia continue to support other dictatorships across the world in African,
Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to counterbalance democratic efforts to force these
countries to change through military coups, which furthers paranoia by Autocrats and lack of
cooperation. Ultimately, this would not lead to war but it wouldn’t lead to cooperation which is
essential to international relations.
In regards to the U.S. and the future of international relations, they will try to maintain
their power position as a supranational power. In his first section regarding the United States

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titled “THE AMBITIOUS SUPERPOWER”, he talks about a few foreign policy issues that have
arrived in the past regarding the U.S. and the rest of the world. He begins by discussing how
even though the Cold War was over, the U.S. was reluctant to pull back from its extended global
involvement in the world. He actually talked about how the U.S. pressed forward expanding their
influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The United States remained a military superpower
with their advanced technologies that ultimately made them better than the rest of the world.
According to Kagan, “Between 1989 and 2001, the United States intervened with force in
foreign lands more frequently than any other time in its history…This expansive, even
aggressive global policy was consistent with American foreign policy tradition” (Kagan 50).
Aggressive foreign policy is common within the United States approach to the world. They
utilize this aggressive strategy to enforce regime changes or to get a nation to cooperate. Through
this utilization of aggression, Kagan observes that this aggression cause the U.S. to bypass
organizations such as the United Nations and their own allies sometimes. Kagan comes to the
conclusion that there is a reason behind the United States’ method of aggressive foreign policy.
He states, “Since World War II, when, as Americans see it, the United States rushed into the
breach to save the world from self-destruction, a guiding principle of American foreign policy
has been that no one else can quite be trusted to keep the world safe for democratic principles –
not America’s enemies, certainly, but not its allies, either” (Kagan 51). The United States
believes that they are a special case. Therefore, the U.S. believes that it has the obligation to
protect the world and ensure its safety from tyrannical state actors throughout the world. Kagan
comes to the conclusion that American hegemony can be a problem.
Towards the end of his book in the section titled “THE VICES AND VIRTUES OF
AMERICAN HEGEMONY” he discusses the good and bad of U.S. global hegemony in the

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future. Even though global opinion polls do show that people want American dominance in
global politics to diminish “American predominance is unlikely to fade anytime soon, largely
because much of the world does not want it to” (Kagan 86). While countries such as Russia and
China make arms alliances and alliance institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization, there are growing fears in that region of the world due to Russia and China’s effort
to balance the United States. Therefore, the United States increases and maintains relations with
countries such as India and Japan. Along with the United States political efforts to expand their
power globally, they also have the public opinions support. The public doesn’t always agree with
the government’s decisions but they have no choice but to comply because most Americans can’t
see the world being handled by any other nation in the world. Therefore, the United States will
remain on top. Kagan states, “So long as the United States remains at the center of the
international economy, the predominant military power, and the leading apostle of the world’s
most popular political philosophy; so long as the American public continues to support American
predominance, as it has consistently for six decades; and so long as potential challengers inspire
more fear than sympathy among their neighbors, the structure of the international system should
remain as it has been, with one superpower and several great powers” (Kagan 92). This is the
reason why U.S. will maintain their superpower status in the future of international relations.
Because there is no other force that can rival the United States in global politics, and the fear of
regional aggressors such as Iran, China and Russia, the United States will always be a leading
factor in deterring these great powers from escalating the world into unnecessary conflict. Also,
the U.S. will remove any regime they see unfit within global politics. The United States
aggression will not lead to war with great powers such as Russia and China but instead, the U.S.

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will engage in small skirmishes to keep their global dominance and stabilize international
politics.
Overall by analyzing Kagan, Deudney and Ikenberry, and Rochester argument in
determining the future of international relations, the future of world politics will continue to see
the forceful integration of autocratic regimes into the liberal international regimes by Western
regimes. However, the future will be the similar to the past in term of autocratic regimes such as
China and Russia trying to maintain their great power status with a return to resisting democracy
as well as seeing the U.S. trying to maintain their power position. It is hard to have an optimistic
view of the future of world politics because of all the situations that people are witnessing today
in terms of global terrorism, Russian-Ukraine crisis, and economic warfare between the United
States and China. It is also hard to have a solely pessimistic view of world politics considering
that nations to come together and discuss issues such as global terrorism, climate control, and the
use of chemical warfare. The issue is ultimately complex, which the future result could occur
with a multitude of answers, but it is important to acknowledge both the pessimistic paradox and
the optimistic paradox. Ultimately, states have the capabilities to lead international relations
towards cooperation but at the end of the day, it is the state’s decision to choose whether to
comply or disobey other nations.