International | The new non-aligned

How to survive a superpower split

We analyse the crafty countries that don’t want to pick sides

Image: Mel Haasch
|BEIJING AND JOHANNESBURG

Caught between America, China and Russia, many countries are determined not to pick sides. As the American-led order in place since 1945 fragments and economic decoupling accelerates, they seek deals across divides. This transactional approach is reshaping geopolitics.

One way of capturing the sheer scale and heft of these non-aligned powers is through a Russian lens. Our sister organisation, eiu, has analysed countries based on their economic and military ties to Moscow, their diplomatic stances including votes at the un and whether they support and implement sanctions. Although 52 countries comprising 15% of the global population—the West and its friends—lambast and punish Russia’s actions, and just 12 countries laud Russia, some 127 states are categorised as not being clearly in either camp (see map).

This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “How to survive a superpower split”

How to survive a superpower split

From the April 15th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from International

Paris could change how cities host the Olympics for good

The games will test the success of new solutions to old bugbears

Could America fight its enemies without breaking the law?

The speed and intensity of prospective conflicts could test the laws of war


How China and Russia could hobble the internet

The undersea cables that connect the world are becoming military targets


Trump and other populists will haunt NATO’s 75th birthday party

Threats to Western alliances lie both within and without the club

The rise of the truly cruel summer

Deadly heat is increasingly the norm, not an exception to it

Brainy Indians are piling into Western universities

Will rich countries welcome them the way they did Chinese students?