In geopolitical terms, Russia and China are reenacting the norms of the nineteenth-century, when states competed by amassing hard power in a system of unbridled nationalism and rigid state sovereignty. Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be trying to reassemble the nineteenth-century map of Czarist Russia by holding on to Crimea, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and other parts of the old empire at all costs.
俄罗斯和中国正在地缘政治领域重新执行19世纪标准，即各国在肆无忌惮民族主义和僵化国家主权制度下开展硬实力竞争。事实上，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京似乎想通过不惜一切代价抓住克里米亚、阿布哈兹、南奥塞梯和原有帝国的其他领土来重现十九世纪沙皇俄国版图。