11:38 AM :: Stephen (contact)

Back in the U.S.S.R.: While reading for my tutorial in international relations, I came across the following quote, written in 1979:

The death rate among states is remarkably low. Few states die; many firms do. Who is likely to be around 100 years from now--the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Egypt, Thailand, and Uganda? Or Ford, IBM, Shell, Unilever, and Massey-Ferguson? I would bet on the states, perhaps even on Uganda. (Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 95).

It consistently amazes me that 12 years before the Soviet Union's collapse, the analyst community was convinced it would still exist a century later. And it looks like IBM's doing pretty well thus far...