The Return of Geopolitics and imperial conflict : understanding the new world disorder

1 Introduction: Unwanted Guests  1

2 A Brief Note About Geopolitics and Empires  21

Part I The Eastern Chessboard

3 The Bear and the Oyabun  33

Size Matters 33

Cosa Nostryova 36

Rise of the Oyabun 38

Volodya's Ecosystem 42

Forward to the Past 48

Small Means, Big Ambitions 52

4 In the Crossfire of Empires 59

When the Eagle Pokes the Bear With a Gold Trident 59

The Making of a Next-Door Vietnam on Steroids 67

Unintended Consequences: Putin the Atlanticist and Nation Builder 70

Romancing the Bomb 77

Dangerous Precedents 84

Lost and Found: Opportunities 88

The Mother of all Pivots 90

The Worse Side of Bad 93

A Bear Reborn 99

Changing Winds and Faltering Resolve 101

Back to Square One 110

Part II The Asia-Pacific Chessboard

5 The Walls of Zhongnanhai  121

Cold Shower and Opportunities 121

Sons of Heaven 125

The Emperor and His Clothes 129

The Great Leapfrogging Forward 133

Celestial Empire 137

Zhongguo Uber Alles 144

Bad Memories 146

Treasure Island 149

The Old Map and the Sea 157

Virus versus Lenin 164

Every Achilles has a Heel 166

6 The Ultimate Game of Go  183

The Great Expectations 183

Unshackling the Dragon 186

Nothing Short of Reshaping the World 191

The Busiest of All Bees 195

Games They Play 198

Bye-bye Greenback, Hello Tech 202

Geopolitics on a Chip: a Technocene Singularity 208

Sun Tzu's Afternoon Nap 215

Redlines 219

Brave New World 221

7 Dragon Versus Eagle  233

Pushback 233

The Delhi News 245

The Curse of Geography 252

What Friends Are For 257

When Push Comes to Shove 266

The Hail Mary Option 274

Part III The Western Chessboard

8 Rome on the Potomac  283

Born with a Golden Spoon 283

Bogeyman Politics 289

The 6th Side of the Pentagon 291

Machiavelli Redux 294

The Lion of Al-Lat 296

Blue-Eyed Hong-Weibing 299

Eagle or Dodo-Bird? 308

The Trump Card—Part II 312

9 A Distinguished Old Lady  321

The Prize 321

Empire 3.0 324

Facing a New Music 326

Energy Fault Lines 328

Genius or Village Idiot? 335

Missing the Next Big Things 338

Part IV The Turkish, South Caucasus and Middle Eastern

Chessboards

10 From the Mediterranean to the Caspian 351

The Return of the Bosphorus Maverick 351

When the Cat's Away... 358

11 From the River to the Sea 365

Strangers in their Own Land 365

Where All the Roads Lead to 369

The Fate of the Best Laid-out Plans 377

911, Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima 386

Part V Beyond the Grand Chessboard

12 Musings from Proxima Centauri 399

When Too Little may not be Good Enough 399

Bye-Bye Flat World, Hello Steep Mountains 402

From De-globalization to Re-geopoliticization 409

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 412

13 Conclusion 421