One random thought rolling through my aging mind: This whole Russia-the-great thing that Putin is attempting strikes me as a transition from the bipolar world of post WWII (US - USSR) to the new bipolar world of the 21st century (US - PRC.)

The apparently poorly executed attempt to take over Ukraine has now exposed Russia as not a great military machine.

As I’ve noted before, right now this war is an advertisement for the value of having nuclear weapons.

If Russia didn’t have a nuclear force, we (the US) would have ended this thing by now.

Anyway, if it turns out that Putin fails to conquer Ukraine then that is the end of Russia being thought of as a great power. It will be a 2nd rate nation that just happens to have a few nukes.

This will not go unnoticed among the 100+ nations who are not tightly wound into the US sphere of influence.

China has already been more important financially and trade-wise for many nations, compared to Russia. That’s been true now for 30 years.

If Putin exposes Russia as a paper tiger (with nukes), any other nation will not have a good reason to think they can rely on Russia to counter any US influence.

Hence the value of China as the military counter-balance to the US goes up.

I wonder if new military agreements will spring up between China and some other nations because of this war.

Not nations on China’s border with long animosity towards Chinese domination, but nations in Africa and South America.