Single-power groups could redraw world borders in 1919 but not today.

Evidence

In 1919 Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau together virtually controlled the world. Sitting in Paris, they determined what countries would exist and which would not, what new countries would be created, what their boundaries would be and who would rule them, and how the Middle East and other parts of the world would be divided up among the victorious powers. They also decided on military intervention in Russia and economic concessions to be extracted from China. A hundred years later, no small group of statesmen will be able to exercise comparable power; to the extent that any group does it will not consist of three Westerners but leaders of the core states of the world’s seven or eight major civilizations. The successors to Reagan, Thatcher, Mitterrand, and Kohl will be rivaled by those of Deng Xiaoping, Nakasone, Indira Gandhi, Yeltsin, Khomeini, and Suharto. The age of Western dominance will be over. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 249

Categorization

• SHARE: Good for a person into great-power history: three men in one room redrew the post-WWI world’s borders and decided military intervention in Russia in the same sitting.
• CANDY: Three men in Paris effectively decided which countries would exist for a century — a compact, striking fact for elevator conversation.