The legacy of the past decade and a half is painful and largely negative. It is clear that the weakened West now faces some pretty tough international-relations and security problems, all of which have been building for a long time. These problems fall into three separate categories, with a fourth as a general, contributory addendum. The one thing that unites them is the weak state of the West in responding, largely because of its economic troubles, along with the political divisions and stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off feelings that those economic troubles have created.
