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The article discusses a forum concerning a revolution in international relation theory. The current state of the argument that the great powers have put warfare behind them in their interactions with one another is explored. The theoretical implication of the obsolescence-of-major-war argument was also discussed.

The fall of the Berlin Wall inspired speculation about why the Cold War came to such an abrupt and shocking end, why no school of thought anticipated its demise, and what the event meant for international relations theory ( ). A set of articles simultaneously emerged purporting to identify the most salient aspects of the new system—structural and otherwise—and to anticipate the direction in which it was heading. This essay begins a reexamination of some of those predictions, using the evidence that has accumulated over the decade and a half since the collapse of bipolarity to evaluate how early visions of the post-Cold War international system have matched the events that followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]