He's taking the Kissinger approach with spheres of influence and allowing smaller nations to be held by "world powers" like poker chips to avoid M. A. D. situat

He's taking the Kissinger approach with spheres of influence and allowing smaller nations to be held by "world powers" like poker chips to avoid M. A. D. situations, "you have your satellites and I have mine". Personally I think that mode of thinking and the context that birthed it are long dead but some people still subscribe to it 30 years after the Soviet Union imploded for... some reason I'm sure.