Something my mother told me once, back when we were working to end the Nuclear Arms Race between the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A, 40-odd years ago:
(This is a follow-up thought / memory to this post, about hearing news from Ukraine)
The term “The Third World” was coined by U.S. foreign policy people in the aftermath of WW2.
The term “First World” was used for industrialized -- and Capitalist -- countries that were under U.S. influence.
The term “Second World” was used for industrialized -- and Communist -- countries that were under Soviet influence.
“Third World” was used for those countries (usually recovering from exploitation) that were unaligned and were (sarcastic quotes) “up for grabs.” And instead of fighting a hot war with each other, directly, the U.S.A and the Soviet Union fought multiple wars-by-proxy in these countries in the mostly global south.
Yes, it was racism. And imperialism. Because both the Soviet and US American governments just took for granted that those (brown-skinned) peoples’ destiny was to be pawns in their game of Nuclear War Chicken.
So anyway, that’s why news pundits around the world are making such shocked noises about how Putin has moved his war to Europe, even while shrugging off the wars in Yemen, and Syria, and Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and ...
It’s because Putin has moved the game to a different board
He’s completely tossing out the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” that governments and diplomats tacitly agreed to, at the end of World War II.
Of course the whole game is rotten, and should never be played. But that won’t stop certain mouthpieces from making noises about “fair play”