Isn't it an axiom that competition is good for business? In that sense I wonder if the biggest game changer coming in international affairs is Russia's stated intention to start selling its energy in currencies other than the US dollar.
This has been hinted at for some time, but if you add the Ukraine kerfuffle to the attempted Iranian isolation and the exclusion of China from the Tran Pacific Partnership Agreement, then a fair amount of the world's energy and one of the world's biggest energy markets no longer have much skin in the US game.
I see this as largely a West's own-goal. It is not Russia, Iran and China that have been orchestrating the imposition of economic sanctions. How, pray tell, did those in power in the West think they would react?
Once the US no longer has a strangle hold on the world's economy, they may decide to start negotiating rather than dictating. This can only be a good development for the world and world peace.

Obama's sneer about Russia as a "regional power" like a great deal of US foreign policy, ignores a whole range of realities. Russia's "region" in fact extends across multiple time zones from the Baltic to East Asia. Russia and China have been steadily increasing the influence of the BRICs arrangement, as well as their inter-country co-operation.

As Halduell points out, the recent moves, by both China and Russia, to trade in their own currencies bypassing the US$ is a major development. In fact, it is even greater than he acknowledges. Without the US$ as the world's sole global currency, the basis of US hegemony collapses.

Putin and Xi are far too clever to be sucked into the western game plan. Almost completely unmentioned in the Oz media is the growing trade and "soft power" developments by both countries in Africa and South America.

We are in an era of rapid change. The interesting short-term question is whether the Abbott government recognises the reality of the global shift in power, or whether Abbott clings to his Anglocentric world view. The early signs are not promising.

Isn't it funny that Russia is the new terrorist on the block ?The USA has 800 military bases around this planet and is far more armed and dangerous than Russia and China combined.

The Ukraine is all about surrounding Russia and making them slaves to our debt creation money system.

Why are Western Countries in so much debt while Russia and China are not?

Russia is a socio economic basket case led by delusions of grandeur..... outside of main cities it's crumbling infrastructure, declining population, unemployment, lack of legal transparency, low quality services, controlled media, lack of capital for investment in mining and resources, and a leader who has been in too long and is not as popular as he used to be (and likes to think he is)...... not unlike Turkey..... dictatorships and monopolies inevitably become corrupt and inefficient due to leaders being isolated and out of touch.....