Last week marked the collision of the "New World Order" with reality. Toward the end of the week, reality was winning. Proclaimed by George Bush after the collapse of communism, the New World Order was neither an empty phrase nor a hidden conspiracy. It represented a radical vision of what the world had become, now that U.S.-Soviet confrontation had ceased to define the international system, and it was a vision widely shared by much of the world's elite. According to this vision, fundamental political disagreements between nations had disappeared. Rather than being ideologically divided, all major nations now agreed on fundamental core principles. Reasonable people everywhere accepted the proposition that economic growth and prosperity were interests that transcended all others. That being the case, it was essential to maintain international stability in order to facilitate that prosperity.