with one defining set of characteristics. It is not. Most of the world's popu-
lation resides in--and the overwhelming percentage of that population's
growth occurs in--the incredible diversity of places we call the Second
Tier. Furthermore, most of the world's poverty, misery, instability, and
violence are also found there.

In terms of national security, the developing world is likely to remain an
area of great concern throughout the rest of this century and the beginning
of the twenty-first century. This is partly because most of the threat to
international peace will occur in the Second Tier, thereby providing oppor-
tunities for military involvement. The opportunity to do so, of course, has
been present ever since the developing world began to decolonize in the
1940s. During the Cold War era, superpower competition occasionally
brought the United States into Third World arenas (for example, in Viet-
nam, Grenada, and the Dominican Republic). In the post-Cold War world,
however, other interests and events will draw the United States toward the
sounds of distant thunder. It is our purpose here to determine what those
interests and occasions are likely to be.

In order to understand why the old Third World will dominate the pattern
of post-Cold War violence, it is first necessary to look briefly at the end of
the Cold War and its effects on both the general international system and its
structure, which I will describe as a world of tiers. This description will
allow us to characterize the pattern of post-Cold War violence in the Sec-
ond Tier and describe how it relates to relations between the tiers.

After World War II, international politics was dominated by the political
and military confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union,
known generally as the Cold War. Before World War II, the international
system had been dominated by the major European powers--Great Britain,
France, Germany (especially after the rise of Nazism in the early 1930s),
Italy, and to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union. Outside Europe, Imperial
Japan was a major force in Asia, and the United States was isolated from a
Europe whose power politics it found distasteful. Most Third World coun-
tries were either under colonial rule (for example, much of Africa, the
Middle East, and Asia) or isolated from the international mainstream (such
as Latin America).

World War II changed the international order significantly. The major
European powers, whether winners or losers, were no longer able or willing
to reconstruct and operate the international system. Britain and France, on
the winning side, were physically and economically reduced to regional

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