Brussels : the new Rome -- The Russian devolution -- Ukraine : from border to bridge -- The Balkans : eastern questions -- Turkey : marching east and west -- The Caucasian corridor -- Conclusion : stretching Europe -- The silk road and the great game -- The Russia that was -- Tibet and Xinjiang : the new bamboo curtain -- Kazakhstan : "happiness is multiple pipelines" -- Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan : sovereign of everything, master of nothing -- Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan : men behaving badly -- Afghanistan and Pakistan : taming south-central Asia -- Conclusion : a change of heart -- The new rules of the game -- Mexico : the umbilical cord -- Venezuela : Bolívar's revenge -- Colombia : the Andean Balkans? -- Brazil : the southern pole -- Argentina and Chile : very fraternal twins -- Conclusion : beyond Monroe -- The shattered belt -- The Maghreb : Europe's southern shore -- Egypt : between bureaucrats and theocrats -- The Mashreq : road maps -- The former Iraq : buffer, black hole, and broken boundary -- Iran : virtues and vices -- Gult streams -- Conclusion : Arabian sand dunes -- From outside in to inside out -- China's first-world seduction -- Malaysia and Indonesia : the greater Chinese co-prosperity sphere -- Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam : the inner trianble -- Size matters : the four Chinas.