“…Therefore, it is no surprise that these and other episodes of "armed interdependence", inextricably intertwined with measures of selective and discriminatory protectionism, such as those mentioned in the previous paragraphs, have pushed Russia and China, but also other countries of lower "geopolitical status", to pursue the creation of networks and infrastructures supporting global exchanges, which are alternatives to the existing ones, believed to be controlled by the United States and its allies. In other terms, actors in the developing world are challenging the international governance system, aspiring to act as rule makers, and prompting a "messy transformation" in which the crisis of the existing order and the prospects for a more inclusive one intertwines (Villa and Ramanzini Junior 2021). In this "messy circle" of actions and reactions that takes shape and reshapes the world, going back to the causal factor upstream can be more complex than identifying what is immediately perceptible.…”