[hackinthebochs]

>The world in the 21st century is not one in which individual sovereign countries are beholden to the dictates of great powers and where therefore a simplified framework for understanding global politics that only considers great powers is useful.

What reason is there to think this is true? What I see is the appearance of a post-realpolitik world in the wake of an utterly dominant U.S. hegemony. Realpolitik is still in effect; it's just sufficiently hidden behind the stability of a U.S. centric world order and the ongoing Nash equilibrium of the current borders in most of Europe that some people can convince themselves the world has fundamentally changed. It's hard to distinguish between a post-realpolitik world and Nash equilibrium. On the surface they look identical.

[psychphysic]

There is none.

The invasion of ukraine snapped a lot of people who weren't paying attention awake. And they believe we're in a novel situation.

It's just another cold war style proxy war, this is Kissinger's wheelhouse.