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Abstract

This contribution raises the question of the significance of 2003 as the possible end of a historical period. Does it mark the end of the period ushered in by the 11th of September? Or the real end of the post Cold War era? Or the end indeed of that part of the post-1945 world masked by the confrontation between the East and the West (the establishment of the system based on the United Nations, the emergence of the Trans-Atlantic partnership, the pursuit of the de-colonization, etc.)? It also examines whether the behaviour of the United States in 2003 is part of a longer History, or whether we are not witnessing a sort of revolution in its foreign policy.

Pierre Grosser is a professor of History at the Institut d’études politiques (IEP) of Paris.