ABSTRACT
When does a new world order emerge? It is often when the old system has collapsed either through being overthrown by a rising military Power, therefore by the use of force, or has simply collapsed from internal or external pressures. We tend to identify these turning points by the name of a treaty or set of negotiations with particular dates, but in reality they result from processes of change, such as Westphalia in 1648, Utrecht in 1713, Vienna in 1815, Versailles in 1919, or new post-Second World War order which emerged between 1945–1951 and lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War followed by the reunification of Germany in 1991.
