The US faces faithful choices: preserve American primacy, let it go, keep current alliances or restructure them, accommodate China/Russia/Iran by granting spheres of influence, or try to contain them and rebuild a 350-ship fleet; the question is whether to find new equilibrium in each region or face confrontation, and whether the US can combine containment, cooperation, delicate calibration of strength and diplomacy.

The threat to the West and the United States is not external military conquest but internal loss of faith and will in itself; the Western system can only be undermined from within.

The past 250 years have witnessed the most spectacular increase in human well-being in history: 1.3 billion people have been lifted out of poverty, life expectancy has soared globally, child mortality has collapsed, and this is the safest period in recorded history.

The G7 at its peak accounted for just under 70% of global GDP, but now accounts for only 47% of global GDP, meaning the G7 countries have only gotten richer in absolute terms but their share of global GDP is dropping like a stone—this is called success but the West was not ready for it.

China's GDP grew from $261 million in 1979 to approximately $12 trillion today; per capita income rose from $270 a year (nominally) to $7,500, or $14,000 in purchasing power parity; China's national income is now 60% of the US economy, up from 6% in 1992 and 25% in 2007.

China is now the world's number one manufacturer, number one exporter, and number one consumer market for oil, vehicles, and smartphones, yet the West cannot figure out how to provide economic and social opportunity for the lower middle class and middle class anymore.

The Western sphere of influence during the Cold War was a classic sphere of influence inspired and sustained by competition with the Soviet Union, and it played a significant part in European integration, gave impetus to American civil rights and desegregation, and disciplined American power to remain part of something larger than itself.

The current moment is not one of profound instability and war; there is actually less war now than during the Cold War and more predictability, despite 24/7 cable news coverage making it seem worse.

China has 20 borders (14 on land and 6 on sea) and multiple border disputes with neighbors, and despite rapid military modernization, is geographically hemmed in by US military bases and Taiwan, while the US has vastly superior geography (Canada, Mexico, oceans) and unmatched global military reach.

Having fought and won the difficult Cold War, the West is now poised to lose the post-Cold War period, which Codkin finds astonishing because the West should be secure but instead is on the precipice of losing it.

The topic of the three-lecture series is whether the international order exists or not, because when you have an international order you can criticize it, but when you don't have one, you can't really criticize it—and the West is on a path toward not having one.

Russia has three current spheres of influence (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Crimea, and Eastern Ukraine), but Russia's actual sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space doesn't really exist because those countries are suspicious of Russia and recognize it could annex them.

Russia's military doctrine is that if it's losing a conventional war, it will use nuclear weapons to avert defeat, meaning Russia cannot be defeated in a war because it has approximately 7,700 nuclear weapons that work.

Russian hacking is different from Chinese hacking: Chinese hacking does a million attacks all at once hoping one gets in, while Russian hacking does pinpoint attacks to exactly where they want, gets in, and doesn't turn the malware on—they just stay in case they need it later, for example staying in JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to potentially shut Wall Street down.

China now has greater international leverage because it is the number one trading partner of about 43 countries, while the US is the number one trading partner of about 32 countries, a reversal from earlier patterns.

China claims 95% of the South China Sea as a 'core interest,' which is the same language used for Taiwan, indicating China will 'go to the wall' for the South China Sea just as it would for Taiwan.

China has built seven artificial islands in the South China Sea, several of which are military bases including Fiery Cross Reef which is larger than Pearl Harbor and was built in just two years (2014-2016) with a 10,000 foot runway.

Scarborough Shoal, which is not yet built up by China, is only 140 miles from Manila, indicating how close Chinese military expansion is to Philippine territory and demonstrating China's encroachment on neighboring countries' maritime space.

Enduring shifts in the global balance of power are extremely rare, but when they happen they are momentous; large-scale wars are always predicted after the fact on cable television and are only obvious post-facto; business as usual can trigger large-scale conflict; all wars are miscalculation by decision makers; and the US and China are now in a situation of potential confrontation due to Chinese opacity, American ignorance and incompetence.

East Asia and South Asia contain about 3.7 billion people (though not all shown on regular world maps), which represents where the game is now—that is where the stakes of geopolitical competition are highest.