The limits and the meaning of the controversy between "realists" who invoke facts and "cosmopolitans" who invoke norms, regarding the prospects of the international order after September 11, 2001, are examined. Against the idea of a retrieval by the USA of multilateralism, or its opposite, the idea of the USA as the center of a true worldwide imperial order, a "transition scenario" is proposed, marked by inter- and intra-state disturbances, notwithstanding the real possibility of a more balanced configuration in the future.
International order; multilateralism; unilateralism