This is the "shadow war" that is the other half of what's happening in Ukraine. Russia and China reached some sort of agreement last year with their "Lunar Base" treaty. Now we are seeing the results of it.

They are using the Climate Crisis to their advantage to force a realignment of the Global Economic Order.

Consider, what makes a "superpower" a superpower?

It's not military might, although that's part of it. The true power of being a superpower is control of the global marketplace. Specifically the power to be its gatekeeper. The power of sanction.

That's what China is making a play for. It's why Biden spent hours on the phone pleading with India to join in the US sanctions on Russia. It's the power that's made the US the "Great Power" of the post war (WW II) world economic order.

If things deteriorate, China may be able to declare sanctions on the US and the rest of the world might follow them. To mix metaphors this is an “en passant” moment and we are in a state of “atari”.

Victory without a battle being fought.

Dalio's analysis is sound, but I think Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" is more nuts and bolts and less social theorizing.