It's been a while but the students were generally more optimistic than our teacher. He said war and conflict are part of human nature so it would continue in some form. I remember that we looked around the globe to see who might emerge as a new rival to the US. The USSR was not dead so there was some thought about China replacing the Soviet Union as a new communist leader or a new Sino-Soviet alliance. The teacher mentioned the possibility of more regional conflicts. I think a lot of us naively thought that the rest of the world would just "convert to democracy" as if it was that easy. No one mentioned Islamic fundamentalism. I had no understanding of Islam and did not think of religious conflict as a potential issue. At that time, I had thought about going into the military and that no longer seemed an option. I didn't think it would be necessary anymore. The world seemed to be divided into two camps for my entire life so it was hard to think in different terms.