In your book, you talked about how WWII was divided into three powers with each of the three corners being dominated by a nation-state. Now, we have the same thing but with each of the corners dominated by a network. The axis powers lost because the other two corners ganged up on them. They only pulled from the force corner, making for a very myopic worldview. Germany, Japan, and Italy viewed imperialism as the best way to gain wealth. Naturally, this made them tons of enemies such as the USSR, Britain, and the USA.
The USSR was a bit less myopic than the axis powers since it drew from two corners - moral and force. Like the axis powers, the USSR did seize territory from other nations but this was a means to an end for communism, the country's main justification. The USSR was a more challenging opponent for the US because unlike the axis powers, the USSR had soft power. The Cold War was all about soft power (when there weren't coups and proxy wars going on). Leftist ideology was quite appealing to many in poorer nations, often as the result of colonialism (you'll notice that communism never took root in Thailand like it did with neighboring countries). The soft power of the USSR began to break down when it became apparent that wealth redistribution was no substitute to wealth creation.
This brings us to today in which we have the CCP pulling primarily from the submission corner, the left pulling from the sympathy corner, and web3 pulling from the sovereignty corner. There is hardly a guerantee that web3 will come out on top, especially if the other two corners gang up on it. Only time will tell as to which network comes out on top but it will probably be the most balanced one as the US was.
In your book, you talked about how WWII was divided into three powers with each of the three corners being dominated by a nation-state. Now, we have the same thing but with each of the corners dominated by a network. The axis powers lost because the other two corners ganged up on them. They only pulled from the force corner, making for a very myopic worldview. Germany, Japan, and Italy viewed imperialism as the best way to gain wealth. Naturally, this made them tons of enemies such as the USSR, Britain, and the USA.
The USSR was a bit less myopic than the axis powers since it drew from two corners - moral and force. Like the axis powers, the USSR did seize territory from other nations but this was a means to an end for communism, the country's main justification. The USSR was a more challenging opponent for the US because unlike the axis powers, the USSR had soft power. The Cold War was all about soft power (when there weren't coups and proxy wars going on). Leftist ideology was quite appealing to many in poorer nations, often as the result of colonialism (you'll notice that communism never took root in Thailand like it did with neighboring countries). The soft power of the USSR began to break down when it became apparent that wealth redistribution was no substitute to wealth creation.
This brings us to today in which we have the CCP pulling primarily from the submission corner, the left pulling from the sympathy corner, and web3 pulling from the sovereignty corner. There is hardly a guerantee that web3 will come out on top, especially if the other two corners gang up on it. Only time will tell as to which network comes out on top but it will probably be the most balanced one as the US was.