Mao Zedong once famously called for the Chinese to "let a hundred flowers bloom." Soon, however, he was recoiling from what he saw as a chaos of competing ideas. Today, the world seems to be entering a period when, if not a hundred, at least a dozen varieties of weltpolitik are being pursued by great and emerging powers alike. Reconciling these competing strategic visions of the world, in particular of global crisis, will make international diplomacy more complicated than ever.

Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is spending her 65th birthday Saturday under house arrest as activists hold protests around the globe and world leaders call for the junta to free her. The military regime has kept the Nobel Laureate in detention for almost 15 years and she has been barred from running in upcoming elections that critics have denounced as a sham aimed at entrenching the generals' power.