Trying to step a little more back: Can we agree that there is an ongoing shift from a unipolar moment (1990-ca.2015) to a multipolar world (basically US & Chin

Trying to step a little more back: Can we agree that there is an ongoing shift from a unipolar moment (1990-ca.2015) to a multipolar world (basically US & China)? What confuses me in this "shift" that there is still very much a 'cold war rhetoric' inherent pushed by NATO and transatlantic alliances which very existence relies on seeing Russia through the lens of constant threat which in turn proliferated the nationalistic and militaristic currents and tendencies in Post-Soviet Russia. This dynamic was indeed anticipated way back in 1997 [0] when the Clinton administration - at the height of 'unipolarity'- made their policiy decision not to pivot from the myopic Europe-Russia view to the vantage point of emerging Asia by not solidifying the alliance of the Yeltsin era of Russia with new military partnerships. So, in the 'dark' (in the now comfortable fully locked transantlantic view) there was brewing a greater and greater resentment and Putin successfully captured back the imaginations. Now we find ourselves in 2022 where the transatlantic power in Europe has successfully severed Russia from Europe, so much that the clearly waning Putin went all-in bluffing, so far Russia is losing. I'm not sure if the cost for the US and the EU is worth it in the long run. But if China stays calm and patient it can 'take in' a heavily bleeding and sufficiently defused Russia by very little work on their own. [0]https://web.archive.org/web/20190503072531/https://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/05/opinion/a-fateful-error.html https://web.archive.org/web/20190503072531/https://www.nytim... Edit: The more I learn about the current 'military operation' the more I'm baffled. From a military perspective he had a lot of options in taking down and significantly weakening the Ukrainian military instead he amassed a huge army to 'invade' at a high cost (resources, operational precision and morale) when long-term 'occupation' wasn't his goal in the first place but - deriving from the actions in the past 8 years - creating a 'buffer state' alike to 2012 and/or effectivley splitting Ukraine (Donetsk/Luhansk etc). It doesn't make sense for me in the light of his former actions, it looks like a self-inflicting wound from afar. Maybe the experience in Georgia from 2008 has something to do with it, the utter international isolation, internal crisis ... I'm trying to figure this still out. The US in the past had also made very poor choices (at least in their unipolarity), so maybe this was a long overdue 'twitch' on the part of the hawkish delusional Russians. Militarization is certainly experiencing a scary revival in Europe, now.