In the modern world, there are 3 major empires: USA, Russia, and China.
Sure, the UK, France, and the Netherlands still have some overseas territories, but those 3 European empires are now a tiny shadow of their former selves. Nobody is shaking in fear that those 3 nations will take more land for themselves in this day & age.
Iran is more of a regional power competing with Saudi Arabia over who is the king of the Muslim world. Both have proxies fighting each other in Yemen. And Iran is still considered a major threat to Israel, a nation founded as a refuge for a long-persecuted people. Though Israel is a refuge for a people long persecuted for their ancestry, the government does persecute people for their ancestry. Though Israel does have a large group of opponents, it doesn't even have much land. It's less than 1% of the Middle East.
India is the 2nd most populated nation in the world. Its main external conflict is with Pakistan over the long-disputed territory of Kashmir. The other is a border dispute with China. Other than that, the rest of the world doesn't shake in fear over India.
So now the only 3 major empires left are USA, Russia, and China.
The USA has the world's largest economy and the most well-funded military.
Russia has the most land in the world.
China has the most people in the world.
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Rewind back to the era of 1989 to 2000.
It was the end of the Cold War and the USA's time to shine. The USA was considered the world's last superpower. Liberal democracy has won. As Francis Fukuyama famously stated, it was the end of history.
And to show that the USA is back from its humiliation in Vietnam, the USA overthrew Manuel Noriega in Panama and expelled Iraqi troops from Kuwait. They also had a successful peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The USA had a prosperous 1990s. And top it all off, we were leading the world into the internet age.
As for Russia, it was licking its wounds. While it still had more land than any nation on earth, it was still humiliating to lose control of so many newly independent countries. While there was optimism that Russia will smoothly integrate into the world of democracy and capitalism, it was suffering under the incompetent leadership of the usually drunk Boris Yeltsin.
As for China, even though the world was outraged at the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989, there was still some hope that the country's new openness to capitalism will eventually lead to an openness to democracy. There was a huge reduction of poverty in China. But there was no reduction in human rights violations by the government.
Enter the 21 century
The USA entered the 21st century as the leader of the world. However, that would be tested in 9/11. The USA got bogged down in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The USA had early victories in overthrowing their dictators but couldn't keep the peace afterward. The USA withdrew from Iraq and had an extremely humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Russia entered the 21st century with a new leader Vladimir Putin. He promised to bring strength and prosperity to Russia. He did both. However, he, as a former KGB agent, felt that the fall of the Soviet Union was the worst disaster in history. He also had grievances with the US-led alliance NATO, which expanded into Eastern Europe and even with 3 former Soviet republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).
To prevent further NATO expansion, he picked fights with former Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine, taking a little piece of their territories, and basically daring NATO to fight him over this.
China did become one of the fastest-growing economies in history. Millions rose out of poverty and had a taste of prosperity that the average Westerner experiences. It was also assumed that the exposure to prosperity and the internet would create a demand for democracy like it did for South Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s. But it turned out that China would develop the highest-tech systems of controls that the Soviet Union could only imagine.
China with its billions of people created a market from companies of the world wanted access to. But the companies had to follow China's rules. Companies that wanted to do business with China couldn't criticize its human rights violations. That meant film studios would no longer hire Richard Gere, a former romantic comedy star who criticized China's oppression in Tibet. That also meant the NBA would outcast players and managers who criticize China's crackdowns on Uighurs and on Hong Kong. Contrast that to the 80s where American media had ZERO fear of mocking the Soviet Union.
The world now
Russia's leader Vladimir Putin isn't satisfied with leading the country with the most land. He wants more. He wants Ukraine back under Russian control. He also wants to eventually regain control of Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. But first thing's first.
China's leader Xi Jinping isn't satisfied with leading the country with the most people. He wants more. He wants Taiwan back under China's control. Taiwan was the refuge for the Chinese nationalist leaders who were overthrown by the communists in 1949. All those decades later, China still hasn't forgiven Taiwan for that. It's to the point where China wouldn't accept diplomatic relations with any nation that has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. But most countries want to have trade and economic assistance from the most populated country, they fall in line and refuse to have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
With the USA having a humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the Fall of Kabul being so reminiscent of the Fall of Saigon in 1975, the leaders of Russia and China think it's their time to shine as world powers.
Russia invaded Ukraine this year in the hopes of making it a part of Russia again. The people of Ukraine experienced 30 years of independence and they liked it. They're not giving that up without a fight.
The world's reaction to Russia was swift. While the world is afraid of a nuclear war with Russia, they had other ways of fighting back. There are boycotts of anything Russian. Companies have been pressured to withdraw investments from Russia. There are travel bans. Russian accounts in foreign banks have been frozen. And to add insult to injury, the US has banned imports of Russian oil. Oil is Russia's main source of income.
China is watching all this! They want to see if Russia's invasion of Ukraine is successful. China plans to learn from Russia's successes and failures so that China can have better luck if they invade Taiwan. China also wants to see if the worldwide boycott of anything Russian would really work in stopping Putin's imperial ambitions.
Though Russia has more land, its economy is much smaller than China's and less integrated with the world's economy. How many companies are really willing to withdraw from the world's most populated nation. How many companies are really willing to walk away from billions of dollars?
Nearly everything is made in China. If you think the supply chain issue caused by the pandemic is something, wait until you see the supply chain issue if everyone had to withdraw from China with nowhere else to go. Smart business leaders would start diversifying the locations of their factories because if China goes to war, those who make everything in China would be in a world of hurt.
China would have an advantage over Taiwan in that it is much smaller than Ukraine. But Taiwan is richer than Ukraine and hopefully, that means Taiwan has funded more sophisticated defensive systems.
The leaders of Russia and China can be very paranoid. Even any hint of USA support of the opposition could mean nuclear launches towards Alaska, Guam, or Hawaii. As a resident of Hawaii, this is scary.
Hawaii has an independence movement that worries that US occupation makes us targets of retaliation from China or Russia. After all, it's unlikely that China or Russia would target independent nations like Tonga or Fiji for retaliation.
But many people in Hawaii also worry that if the USA withdraws from Hawaii, China might take over. We do remember Japan warplanes bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, and there is concern China might even do more than that.
But let's also be real, it wasn't China or Russia that polluted the aquifers in Red Hill (not far from Pearl Harbor), it was the USA military's fuel tanks that leaked that caused the pollution. The USA government has promised to empty the tanks. time will tell if that happens for real.
While I do hope Hawaii can eventually be independent, it might not happen until Russia or China withdraws its imperial ambitions and become more isolationist. And hopefully, the USA can allow its overseas holdings to become independent. If all that happens, it could hopefully mean the end of empires and imperialism.
But you know that might be overly optimistic. After all, a lot of history happened after Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the End of History at the end of the Cold War.
While technology changes, human nature doesn't change much. We may have to go through this forever :(
