What counts is what is convenient to you, apparently. That is why multipolarity is a royal mess without strict rules, everyone thinks they can do whatever they want. Read some history.

It also means that russia can't unilaterally claim all of Ukraine, other countries can say no...it works for everyone. Welcome to the multipolar world too, russia.

And let me repeat: if the only thing other countries can do to stop anyone's actions is war and countries just ignore borders, then it will be an extremely unstable system, like in the 17th century. Bipolar is more stable, like in the cold war. Unipolar is relatively stable, but there is no accountability, like in a 1-party system.

Ukraine is as multipolar as it gets: they don't want to be russia's bitch, so they asked everyone else for help, some helped.

This sentence makes no sense:

Unfortunately the US, and the EU, haven’t explained why they don’t want to be part of a multipolar world.

Is a multipolar world what russia is doing in Ukraine? If you're going to have a world of trade blocks: NAmerica, SAmerica, EU, Africa, ME, russia?, China, India, Pacific. Europe is perfectly prepared to enter a multilateral or multipolar world order...but not the way russia announced it.

You can't simply invade one of the members whenever they try to leave your block. Otherwise you'll have constant wars in the borders between the blocks. I can tell you already why I would not want to regress to the kind of chaos and constant wars of multipolar unstable alliances of the 17th century, now with nukes and proliferation. Fun! Who wouldn't want that?

A multipolar world can work, but you need stronger international institutions and law, not the mockery that russia, the US and israel turned the UN into.

...so was putin (who is smarter than him), it was supposed to be a 2-week SMO in the Donbas. But the problem with these megalomaniac gamblers is that it is easy for them to miscalculate, because they think war is easy, quick, simple and they think that their opponents are no match.

Ok, thanks!

I don't think anybody planned beyond that, by everyone's reactions. But it looks as if people read too much Fukuyama uncritically and not enough Huntington.

"Now kiss"

Exactly, Taiwan made sure it was worth defending, but I fear that this will lose value over time. Besides you never know what stupid shit is going to come out of tramp's brain the day anything escalates.

yeah...really puts the maga view of Europe of "pathetic freeloaders" into context...I just don't believe that leaving the US would make Europe safe. On the contrary. I actually fear a grand bargain to finally destroy liberal democracy between idiot dealmaker trump and rising power Xi. Their interests are aligned in this respect: as long as it exists anywhere, liberal democracy is a threat to their political projects.

Well, things were slightly better before COVID, after that, the EU decided to derisk, because trust in China actually decreased across the board. In other words, the US is not as untrustworthy as China...yet.

"Take on" is doing the heavy lifting in that whole video. It means dealing with all sorts of hybrid warfare on the part of China, like cyberattacks or funding Orban and far-right parties or taking on the cheap electric vehicles. It does not mean going to war with China. Even if you look at NATO's documents, it is referred to as a long-term challenge, not a direct threat.

The EU can't abandon the US first, more likely that the US would abandon the EU... damn...this is like couples' therapy.

Yeah, nobody in the EU is going to war with China, but its tech dominance (as the US's) poses a challenge to how the countries organize themselves. You confuse The EU with the west, but if the US abandoned NATO, would China abandon russia? I don't think so. So China's backstop of russia is a direct threat to the EU, whereas the EU is not direct threat to China without going through the US.

There are wealthy people in China too (and a disgusting cult of wealth to go with it to make any communist nauseous or any oligarch envious) and they're obedient little piggies, just like those idiots at tramp's inauguration

By humiliating and pushing out the pacifists, you ensure that there will be war. That's it. The US is doing it, russia is doing it, China apparently also wants to do it, why not.

No, it's russia. The whole point of NATO is russia. russia needs to have its invincibility myth shattered and imperialist tendencies restrained (Merkel tried this with trade and failed) by learning that they wasted millions of people and gained nothing. This is a hard learned lesson by most EU countries and is the glue of the EU. If the EU loses this, the lesson is that pacifism is a losing strategy and russia will just learn that war pays, so they will regroup and return for more in a generation.

The US should have learned this too from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan...and they do appear wary of starting new wars...even the neofascists.

China...has a lot of nationalists, but so far has focussed on trade...hasn't started any wars...fine with he EU. Could be a good partner to fight climate change, because the US and russia will never abandon their precious fossil fuels.

Do you understand why the EU considers this a top priority? Hint: it is not about Ukraine's land or NATO/EU membership.

I used to joke that China wants to trade Ukraine for Taiwan, now it is very clear: you shut up about helping/recognizing/arming Taiwan and we keep a leash on russia...until next time...

Yeah, that guy's gone. The policy with China was to encourage it to become the Germany of Asia in the hopes that it would liberalize as it developed. Well...no...shit happens...