The SCO summit in Tianjin, Beijing’s massive military parade, and the emergency BRICS meeting weren’t just diplomatic events. They marked the moment when a four-century-old system finally gave way.
Farewell to Illusions
The 1648 Peace of Westphalia gave us a simple formula: states control what happens inside their borders, those borders don’t change, and nobody interferes in another country’s internal affairs. This system survived Napoleon, two world wars, and the Cold War. After 1991, it seemed to peak as the “liberal world order.”
But history didn’t end, despite what Fukuyama claimed. It just took a breather.
Now we’re watching something completely different emerge. Sovereignty isn’t a guarantee anymore—it’s something you fight for every day. Borders have become contested zones rather than fixed lines. International law increasingly gives way to raw power, dressed up as historical justice.
Tianjin: Building an Alternative
When leaders from over twenty countries met in Tianjin last August, Western commentators dismissed it as another authoritarian club meeting. They were wrong.
The Tianjin Declaration was a blueprint for a new world. The SCO Development Bank, Strategy-2035, new coordination mechanisms outside Western control—these weren’t just initiatives. They were foundation stones of a rival international system.
The defining moment came when India’s Narendra Modi clasped hands with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Three nuclear powers representing three billion people, joined in a single handshake. What had been scattered resistance to Western dominance suddenly became something systematic and real.
Beijing’s Show of Force
If Tianjin was the manifesto, Beijing’s September 3 military parade was the muscle behind it.
DF-5C missiles that can hit anywhere on Earth. Hypersonic weapons that make American missile defense obsolete. Drone swarms rewriting the rules of warfare. Ten thousand soldiers moving like clockwork.
But the hardware wasn’t the real message. The staging was: Xi Jinping at center, Putin to his right, Kim Jong Un to his left. A new axis broadcast to a billion viewers.
The West sent two representatives—Slovakia’s Fico and Serbia’s Vučić. Everyone else stayed home, underlining their growing distance from what’s emerging.
BRICS: Economic Warfare
The September 8 BRICS summit happened online, behind closed doors. No statements, no communiqués. Just hours of intense discussion among leaders controlling 36.7% of global GDP.
The agenda was clear: surviving Trump’s economic offensive against anyone who won’t follow Washington’s lead. They discussed payment systems that bypass the dollar, trade in local currencies, paths to technological independence.
The numbers tell the story: BRICS economies grow at 3.8% yearly, beating the 3.2% global average. By year’s end, 200 million BRICS citizens will earn over $15,000 annually—a new middle class buying Chinese phones, burning Russian fuel, watching Indian movies.
Russia and Israel: Uncomfortable Mirrors
Two countries demonstrate how territorial control works in this new reality: Russia and Israel.
On September 9, 2025, both launched attacks that drew global attention. Israel struck Qatar’s capital while Russia unleashed its biggest drone and missile barrage yet on Ukrainian infrastructure.
The parallels are striking. Both countries invoke millennia of history to justify territorial claims. Security trumps international law for both. Each maintains buffer zones against perceived threats and claims to protect their diaspora communities.
The scale differs—Israel conducts targeted operations across multiple countries while Russia wages full-scale war in Ukraine. But the underlying logic remains consistent: when traditional rules fail, control goes to whoever holds the ground.
The West’s response is telling: antisemitism and Russophobia surge in tandem, as Europe’s oldest anxieties resurface when familiar order collapses.
The Human Capital Factor
Here’s what most analysts miss: controlling territory means nothing if you can’t develop it.
Low-development regions become liabilities rather than assets. They generate terrorism, social divisions, and justifications for outside intervention. Donbas complicates Ukraine’s position. Gaza challenges Israel’s security. Xinjiang tests China’s governance. Poor peripheries create expensive problems.
The lesson is clear: taking territory isn’t enough—you need to improve living conditions there. Otherwise control remains theoretical while problems stay very real.
What’s Coming
Several trends are emerging from the current upheaval.
Regional blocs are replacing global institutions. The SCO dominates Eurasia, BRICS offers economic alternatives, Islamic alliances proliferate, and the West increasingly fragments. Each system operates by its own logic.
Different civilizations have stopped pretending to share universal values. Chinese, Russian, Indian, Islamic, and Western worldviews now openly compete rather than converge. Everyone’s constructing their own framework for what counts as legitimate.
Countries increasingly choose self-sufficiency over economic optimization. Technological independence, food security, and energy autonomy matter more than comparative advantage.
Sovereignty itself has become fluid rather than binary. Instead of sovereign versus non-sovereign states, we now see a spectrum from total control to nominal authority.
The Cost of Change
New orders don’t emerge peacefully. The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, with Taiwan potentially next, aren’t isolated events but symptoms of systemic transformation.
International law, built over centuries, erodes daily. The UN increasingly resembles a debate club. Geneva Conventions get selectively applied. Nuclear deterrence faces unprecedented strain.
Yet reversal seems impossible. Countries that experienced genuine autonomy after decades of American primacy won’t voluntarily return to the old constraints.
Living Through Transition
We’re witnessing the end of a four-century cycle. The Westphalian system follows previous orders into history—the Roman Empire, medieval Christendom, European colonialism.
Its replacement appears less idealistic but perhaps more honest. Gone are the comfortable myths about history’s end or democracy’s inevitable triumph. In their place: genuine diversity and actual sovereignty for those strong enough to maintain it.
Worth remembering: Westphalia itself emerged from the Thirty Years’ War, which devastated Central Europe. Major transitions rarely happen smoothly.
The new reality has already arrived. The only question is how quickly we adjust and whether we can minimize the inevitable disruption.
The future will differ radically from the past. Whether that’s cause for concern or cautious optimism remains to be seen.