ethnic or religious conflict. Meanwhile, the UN has intervened, on humanitarian grounds, in Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. What is the future of the supposedly sovereign nation-state and of the modern inter- national system that emerged three-and-one-half centuries ago? Are national loyalties giving way to others-allegiances to ethnic groups, to reli- gions, to civilizations?

"The multiplication of different types of ac- tors, loyalties, and conflicts," Pierre Hassner, d...