Gordon Duff shocked the Syrian Counter-Terrorism conference in December of 2014, when he laid this out in plain English to a room full of shocked attendees.

They were challenged to wrap their heads around the concept that the ideological, religious and national competitions were all second fiddle issues.

One can look at the failure to isolate China and Russia as a stupid policy, because it forced them to put long-simmering competitions aside and to work more closely than they would have without the Western military advance on their borders.

But, at a flip of the switch you could look at their reaction to work together in defense, energy and trade as creating the sizable opponent needed for continued US massive defense spending. Maybe that is exactly what the bad guys wanted.