After decades of a rule-based international order built on the principle of national sovereignty and territorial integrity and equal interactions based on multilateralism, which emerged after two world wars driven by nationalist expansionism and imperial rivalries, a new era of geopolitics ruled by great powers who are dividing the world into spheres of influence.
An all-American hemisphere?
The US has under President Trump engaged in extensive unilateral hardline power play in relation to Latin America, most notably in the US invasion of Venezuela in January 2026 and the toppling of its leader Nicolas Maduro. This was justified by reference to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which rejects the involvement of non-American powers in the western hemisphere and asserting the US right to intervene should any country in the Western hemisphere jeopardise its national interests. Hence, the US invaded Venezuela as the latter was seen as due to migration and drug trafficking concerns, allegedly compromising US national security, and by the desire to expand US access to Venezuelan oil by reversing the nationalisation of the industry under the previous socialist regime. Trump has threatened similar actions against Cuba, Colombia and Mexico under accusations of neglecting to prevent drug trafficking and migration into the US.
In a similar vein, President Trump has threatened to take over the Panama Canal from Panama to counter the extensive presence of Chinese companies along the canal, which the President argues jeopardises US interests. Here again, the US fights foreign presence and shows disregard for the territorial sovereignty of third countries located in what it seems its rightful sphere of influence. Thus, recent US actions suggest a view of the Americas as the US’ exclusive sphere of influence in which it can act as it pleases to achieve its national security and economic objectives. Similarly, President Trump has threatened to annex Greenland which has long been considered within the US sphere influence and which is seen as a key aspect of the US Golden Dome defense plan against Russia. The importance of Greenland has actualised as great powers like Russia, China and the US are competing for controls of new trade routes and natural resources in the Arctic that emerge as climate change increasingly reduces ice coverage, with each claiming territories.
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The pursuit of a Russo-sphere
Likewise, Russia has been pursuing a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe since 2014. With explicit aims to recover the former territories of the late Russian empire, Vladimir Putin first annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea before launching a full scale invasion on Ukraine in 2022. In addition, recent years have featured a plethora of Russian incursions on the aerial space and territorial waters of Baltic and Nordic countries like Sweden, Finland, and Estonia, and cyberattacks, drone surveillance around airports, and sabotage against underwater cables. Thus, Russia attempts to wield influence and establish dominance over the strategically important Baltic Sea and surrounding territories.
A notable difference in recent months, however, is how other powers now seem to unquestioningly accept these territorial claims to an exclusive sphere of influence. For example, Donald Trump threatened to withdraw military aid to Ukraine in 2025, and has expressed willingness to appease Putin’s demands to annex currently occupied Ukrainian territories. Similarly, China has been recalcitrant to condemn Russian aggression, and has maintained extensive trade in energy and commodities with Russia, helping to maintain the Russian economy against western sanctions.
Eastern expansionism
Such claims to influence are not limited to Europe and the Americas. China has in recent years seemingly been pursuing its own sphere of influence in Asia. The most known is China’s long standing ambition to re-incorporate Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China in accordance with its “One China” policy. Consequently, China has since 2016 ramped up its military presence and long-range aerial and cyber capabilities, and intensified its political and economic pressure in relation to its neighbor, while stopping short of a full scale invasion. This may, however, change soon. In April 2026, President Trump again shocked the world during a US-China by seemingly backtracking from its traditional pledge to defend Taiwanese independence, by for the first time suggesting that US arms exports to Taiwan could be a negotiable issue. This, coupled with the US own violations of international law and inability to stop Russian aggression, suggest a tacit acceptance by the US of China’s claim to a sphere of influence in South-East Asia, which may encourage China’s expansionist ambitions in the future.
The Scramble for the Sea
Relatedly, China has made claims on Japanese territorial waters, claiming the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands to be part of the Taiwan province and deploying military operations in the East China Sea as a warning to Japan against getting involved in the Taiwan question. Moreover, China has long made extensive and disputed claims on the South China Sea in accordance with its so-called “nine-dash line” map, by increasing its military presence in the region, including constructing artificial militarized islands and conducting extensive military intelligence operations, contrary to international law, in order to assert its dominance against the territorial claims of neighboring Philippines, India Indonesia and, Malaysia.
Hence, we seem to be entering an era in which the world is again being carved up between a few great powers, where might dictates right and international law and multilateralism is being sacrificed.
