In many states, including those in the developed world, regional movements exist promoting substantial autonomy or secession. State governments have in considerable measure lost the ability to control the flow of money in and out of their country and are having increasing difficulty controlling the flows of ideas, technology, goods, and people. State borders, in short, have become increasingly permeable. All these developments have led many to see the gradual end of the hard, “billiard ball” state, which purportedly has been the norm since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648,[12] and the emergence of a varied, complex, multi-layered international order more closely resembling that of medieval times