In hindsight, the sorry state of international security today can be ascribed to the lack of experience. Previously, new international systems emerged as a result of major wars; their conclusion also gave a start to the development of new international institutions. The end of the Cold War was peaceful, however, and, it seems, no one seriously thought about the need to adapt Cold War institutions to the new environment and those few who thought about it did not get a hearing. Yet, old institutions cannot survive in a new system without proper adjustment. Today, we are reaping the results of that oversight. It might be too late to salvage the remains, although it is worth trying. At the very least, it is worth an effort to try to build new regimes and institutions because otherwise the world could descend into security chaos, which would be dangerous for all states, big and small.

Dr. Polina Sinovets is a Fulbright Scholar at the Middlebury Institute International Studies at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, DC. She is the head of the Odessa Center for Nonproliferation and an associate professor at the Department of International Relations, Odessa National I.I. Mechnikov National University.