The World

The concept of sovereignty had three basic dimensions. First, countries should accept the borders of other countries and not use force in an attempt to change them. Second, countries should not interfere in events inside other countries. Third, governments should have a free hand to do as they please within their own borders. These three notions ma

The region is also the source of just under half of the world’s known natural gas reserves, with three countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Iran) that rank among the world’s top four.

China followed a fundamentally different path but with no less extraordinary results. It has been some seventy years since China’s Communists gained control, and in that time the country’s annual economic output has grown from under $100 million to more than $13 trillion. Under Mao Zedong, China was an economic basket case, having experienced the w

by the middle of the nineteenth century, Western Europe accounted for roughly one-third of global economic output, eclipsing China and India and maintaining a substantial lead over the United States.

The United States and the Soviet Union were allies in the all-out struggle against Germany and Japan in World War II.

Nationalism in its most basic form has to do with populations in a particular area coming to see themselves as sharing a distinct identity, the result of a common history, language, religion, ethnicity, and/or set of political beliefs. Nationalism often gains momentum when people are ruled by those they consider outsiders. Frustrated with their sta

Another global challenge that largely remains unmet as the post–Cold War era unfolds involves cyberspace. Virtually all domains (including the oceans and outer space) are to a degree regulated. What sets cyberspace apart is that it is largely unregulated at the same time that it is so central to the functioning of modern societies, economies, gover

Most of these decisions are based on grounds of family reunification. Once one person legally migrates to the United States, he or she can sponsor family members to also move there. The United States permits no more than 7 percent of immigrants each year to come from any single country, which puts a cap on large “sending” countries like India, Chin

South Asia consists of eight countries that constitute roughly 25 percent of the world’s population, under 4 percent of its landmass, and approximately 4 percent of its economy. The region includes India, the world’s most populous democracy, which will soon overtake China as the world’s most populous country. South Asia’s overall population and its

In the end, it took the Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, to bring the United States into the war. Given the alliance among Japan, Germany, and Italy, the U.S. declaration of war on…

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