Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century

The flow of wealth and power from West to East is the defining trend of our age u shaping the lives of people all over the world, the fate of nations and the great questions of war and peace. As the global balance of power politically and economically shifts towards the Asian nations we are moving into a new stage and unpredictable phase in world history. America and the West can already be seen to be taking an increasingly recessive role in global affairs, and world leaders from Russia to the Middle East to the East China Sea and Africa are feeling their way into a new era, looking to fill the power vacuum as arbiter of the world's finances, judiciaries and warfare. Fuelling territorial disputes across the globe, if this vacuum remains unfilled, we face instability and potential global warfare as the competing factions generate new tensions and threaten armed conflict between aspirational nations on a scale that we have not seen for decades. While China now boasts the largest global economy and looks set to dominate the stage politically and economically in the decades to come, it is not yet in a position to assume the role of global superpower that America has played in rece