Dhaka, Dec. 6 -- What is the state of the nation-states of the world today? Are we about to observe the end of a liberal world order? If so, what are the most critical threats we face in the contemporary world?

By 'a liberal world order' one probably means the post-World war11 US led system, lasting well into the cold War, whereby pluralist or democratic values were said to be buttressed by institutions that ensured a 'rule of law' and 'market-oriented capitalism' with the individual in the driver's seat. But it wasn't world-wide or universal, but mainly confined to the West, though it seemed the West wanted to create the rest of the world in its own image.

The other protagonist was the Soviet-led Socialist States, mostly in the East, w...