A reduced United States presence was not the only major phenomenon in the post-Cold War Period. There have been a number of rising international trends that required Thailand to rethink its traditional foreign policy, which, hitherto, was primarily concerned with the state and the quest to protect its national sovereignty. The new world order is the world of multipolarity, a world with several balancing centres of power driven by the force of globalization in Southeast Asia the mushrooming of new regional and multilateral platforms has gradually eroded the traditional concept of state sovereignty. A corollary to this development is the diversification of actors like non-governmental Organisations and multinational conglomerates, as well as increasingly important non-traditional issues and challenges such as environmental protection, humanitarian disaster relief, terrorism, and epidemics.