Yeah - it wasn't always this way & it's not this way everywhere. China appears to have maintained their sovereignty while expanding. I think many of the SE Asian countries still have some sovereignty but they're being slowly coopted by China's influence. America & Europe (the west) has been captured using their legal & political processes. Democracy has quite a few flaws in that respect. The taking heads change but the lobbyist interests are always seen to. The idea that a western country's elected representatives serve the interests of the people has become a joke. They serve the commercial interests of their donors now & politics is just theatre to help that turd sandwich go down. To use western nations in your game theory is a mistake. Their incentives are private rather than being for the public. The becomes even more apparent when you start game out conflicts. On the surface, the US is using force to remove Iran's nuclear capabilities. But they've also thrown most of the world into an energy crisis that's threatening their economies. The US seems to be the least effected by the closing of Hormuz so you might think that's the main driver behind it. With the "complex" lens on though, you see the MIC making bank on defence contracts while the Iranian leaders are being undermined domestically. The US as a nation has no rational reason to invade except this pretext of "no Iranian nukes". The MIC & ultimately the FIC benefit greatly from the fighting & the eventual rebuild. It's the FICs long term agenda in the middle east that will eventually rise to the surface. If you think of the US as a participant in your game theory, you miss the incentives of the FIC that actually controls the actions of the US. Gov. A big one I noticed was in gaming out a nation state attack on Bitcoin. You could assume their objective is to destroy Bitcoin because it undermines their money printer. The reality is that the FIC have multiple disruptions in play & command multiple participants with stakes on either side. No matter what happens they benefit because they have hedged the outcome. Socialize the losses, privatise the profit. Bitcoin then becomes a great tool for extracting & laundering value. It's no longer seen as a threat to their fiat system because they have figured out a way to use it. It shifts your thinking in predicting outcomes when you better understand the incentives & participants at play in the game.