Like most years in the 50-year history of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), 2008 saw events that could have significant consequences for international relations and global balances of power. These included the election of Barack Obama as US president; the brief war in Georgia, which caused the West to look at Russia with more watchful eyes; and a cataclysmic crisis in the world's financial markets that seemed to threaten globalisation and even capitalism, and to herald a period of greater economic austerity.

Even as these events occurred, the security issues and...