Two significant post-war years

Abstract

The International Institute for Strategic Studies in its Strategic Survey for 1971 draws a careful comparison between last year and 1947, as, historically, perhaps the two most significant years since the war. Posterity must provide judgment, but the interim reflection is intriguing because their similarity lies in their dissimilarity. In both, the world, having been shaken round like a kaleidoscope finally emerged with a discernibly new pattern. In 1947 what appeared was the shape of the cold war with the Soviet Union and the United States thrown into relief. In 1971 the old order, in Asia at least, dramatically changed, as China and Japan, two non-white nations, advanced more clearly into the scene.