‘Putin is living in a different world’, remarked the German Chancellor Angela Merkel when Russia made moves to annex the Crimea at the beginning of 2014. John Kerry, the American Secretary of State, also condemned Russia: in the 21st century, ‘You just don't … behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped up pretext.’1 What Putin did, however, was more than many imagined: it was the ‘normal’ power politics of great powers, or countries that see themselves as such. At the same time, a similar power struggle was taking place on the other side of the world. At the beginning of 2014, China, which lays claim to large parts of the South China Sea, was engaged in a sharp confrontation with the Philippines and Vietnam over the control of small islands.

In this book, I explain why power politics never went away and why, due to the relative weakening of the West's position, power politics is becoming more visible and tougher. Upcoming powers are demanding their place in the sun and are gaining more and more influence on the shaping of the world order, which is becoming less and less ‘Western’ as a result.

A country's power is determined by a combination of factors: its population size, territory, economy and military apparatus. Technology and factors that are less easy to measure, such as political and strategic culture, also play a role. These last two factors determine to a major extent whether a country engages in power politics, and if so, how. Power politics is a country's readiness to use its power and the way in which it uses it. Germany, for instance, is a powerful country, but it shows little readiness to use its power – something that is certainly true of its military power. Russia, by contrast, is a country with a weak economy and a weak army, but it is willing to use its power.

The current ‘Western world order’ was institutionalized after the Second World War and reflects the power of the West. One important milestone was the financialeconomic Bretton Woods Agreement, initiated by the United States and agreed by 44 countries in 1944.