Donnacha Ó Beacháin

And, you know, they constantly emphasize that they are the preeminent economy.

They have the largest military and

So that hemispheric dominance is a prerequisite for global dominance in many respects.

And this comes, of course, at a time, as we know, when the U.S.

economy has been in relative decline for some years.

So you might say this is a desperate gamble on their part, alienating allies and adversaries at the same time.

China is the economy on the rise.

There is a kind of a theory in international relations or a notion of what they call the Thucydides trap.

It was formulated by Roy Allison, essentially one of the dangerous times of any civilization.

you know, situation is when you have a rising power and a declining power.

Both of them think that they can take the other.

Certainly, the US still thinks it's preeminent.

China certainly is playing a long game, but quietly thinking that it's going to be preeminent soon.

And then you have Russia, which, as I said, is not a major economy, but is a major supplier, of course, of China fossil fuels.

In relative terms, I should add, because I'm old enough to remember when

the Russian economy and the Soviet economy was greater than the Chinese one.

In fact, during the Cold War, it was quite clear that China was the junior partner, if indeed there was a partnership.

Now China's economy is 10 times greater than Russia's.

And so... But Russia has, as I said...

It's also has an ambition, maybe a more clearly articulated ambition of dominating its neighborhood.