The resignation of the last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, in December 1991 launched an era of dramatic change in world politics. The fifteen years since the end of the Cold War have seen a major increase in globalization, as technical “revolutions” in information and communications systems have made world politics far more transparent and increased the effects of changes in any one region on other parts of the world. They have also exposed a nascent global system peppered with fragile, failing, and failed states, and in which large areas have been ravaged by years of violence, contestation, and uneven development.