Many countries don’t want to align with either of the two power blocs. From Marwan Salamah at thesaker.is:
It has always been about the economy. What is the use of hegemony without economic gain? It is like throwing a party and no one comes. Or, going to war for purely egoistical or ideological reasons (aka shared values).
What is even worse, is going to war and winning militarily, but discovering that the costs were horrendously too high, and the net results were pittance or negative – A Pyrrhic victory.
Throughout history, all empires and belligerent nations expanded for economic gain. More land to farm and exploit, wealth and resources to loot, and more people to subjugate and tax or enslave. This goes back to ancient Mesopotamia, passing through the Persian, Greek, Roman empires, and all the way to European colonialism in the past 500 years. Today, it remains the same although it has been disguised to appear docile and friendly, but, make no mistake, it is colonialism – economic neo-colonialism! The shills, however, will present it as development aid, economic assistance, modernization, democracy, human rights, modern values, and may even, masquerade it as improving the ‘Happiness Index’ of the colonized nations.
THE HAVES AND HAVES-NOT, IN TERMS OF POWER
As such, most of the ‘exploitable’ world has been dominated and what remains is Russia and China, plus a few stubborn or poor nations here and there. Russia is simply too vast and rich not to be lustily desired and has been a target for centuries via direct belligerence or, more softly, via geopolitical ploys. To publicly temper this lust, pseudo-intellectual doctrines have been utilized to justify it; among which is the century-old Mackinder Theory of the ‘Heartland of the World’, which states that whoever controls Russia and its environs, controls the world. As for China, its unexpected spectacular rapid growth to the pinnacle of economic success now necessitates clipping its wings to bring it back into the obedient fold.
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 