Post-Cold War world order

I call our contemporary era "post-Cold War" for our convenience. We lack an appropriate label for our age. The post-Cold War era has witnessed several grand developments:

• The surge of globalization,
• The endurance of U.S. unipolarity,
• The rise of China, and in the foreseeable future, of India as well,
• The emergence of Jihadism.

To understand the post-Cold War world order, we need to answer the major questions:

• Why is the United States faced not with balancing efforts from the other great powers but with terrorist attacks from networks based in the Middle East?
• Can China rise to the position of world hegemon (and replace the United States)?
• Can globalization alter the nature (and outcome) of power competition?

To answer these questions, we need to develop theoretical thoughts about:

• Motivation and mobilization
• Group motivation
• The interplay of power (constraints and resources) and ideas (historical exprience)