As for Russia, I have one interesting thing to say: doesn't it seem as though Putin wants to start another Cold War? He keeps supporting Iran in its building of a nuclear power plant and tries to oppose America on many, many issues. And then, there is Kosovo declaring independence and his guarantee of Russian military force in aid of the Serbians retaining their territorial integrity. Doesn't that seem like the Cold War?
Not really, no. People just forgot how fun 19th century diplomacy used to be, and can only ever see "cold wars" where there are none.
Frankly Putin has never topped Yeltsin's policies in the very same Kosovo, and has never really tried to do as much.
Couldn't he find support that wouldn't piss of America or, at the very least, a nation that isn't in imminent danger of being squashed? I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult.
Show me a country that is not generally irrelevant and at the same time genuinely neutral towards America.
The agreements with Iran don't really spell out much to me; they appear to be merely a tactical maneuver that is probably aimed less against America (not that it isn't a factor) and more to prevent a Russo-Iranian conflict.
The great diplomatic alignments of the early 21st century are the Sino-Russian and Anglo-American axes, easily viewable in Security Council voting, with Western (and much of Eastern) Europe, as well as most other second-tier democracies (Japan, Australia, Brazil) vaguely adhering to the latter, and various 'rogue,' radical or leftist states (Venezuela, Sudan, North Korea, Iran, etc.) finding support with the former.
It's tempting, but improbable. Again, this is a multipolar system, albeit with USA in a position even stronger than that of middle 19th century Britain. Russia and China might agree on some issues, but might as easily disagree, and America might easily ally with the former or the latter. The constituent members of the European Union (it is clearly unwise to regard it as a truly unified geopolitical block
at the moment, at least) might or might not become wild cards, and the rogue states are just that by their very definition, though they are usually inclined to fight USA because it's really the only thing they could hope to fight in their vicinity.
As usual, India finds itself mostly non-aligned, more due to internal chaos and equal antagonism towards both American-supported Pakistan and China than any coherent policy.
Americans are strongly befriending India, though, while the support of Pakistan seems tenuous at best. As said, don't suppose this to be as linear and straightforward as the Cold War (and I know that it wasn't, either). The 19th century model of diplomatic relations is much more appropriate, or at any rate the conclusions that come from applying it are much less ridiculous.
