To predict the future in Asia, one needs a theory of international politics that explains how rising great powers are likely to act and how the other states in the system will react to them. We must rely on theory because many aspects of the future are unknown; we have few facts about the future. Thomas Hobbes put the point well: “The present only has a being in nature; things past have a being in the memory only, but things to come have no being at all.” Thus, we must use theories to predict what is likely to transpire in world politics.