Nowadays, if a person steps out of line, says something or does something that is not within his or her usual frame of reference, we might respond with the popular coloquial warning, "stay in your lane."

In the world of geo-politics, it's a little more complicated, but, leaders of nations or factions might want to take a good look around at their friends and neighbors (not a mutually-exclusive list) and consider what is known as their "sphere of influence."

Under current conditions, it seems as though every country with the capacity to throw weight around, economically, socially, and politically, is hell-bent on global domination.

China wants to sell its goods to the rest of the world, particularly the West, Europe and the United States. Russia, for all its good intentions, doesn't seem too greatly bothered that its Western border is being threatened by everybody from France, to England, to the United States.

In the Middle East, Israel, Iran and Turkey seem to be constantly at each other's throats, lobbing munitions across the vast deserts, threatening each other with annihilation, seeking to dominate territories that are not under anybody's strict control, especially Syria, various parts of Iran, the West Bank, and Sinai Peninsula.

European nations - mostly England, France, and Germany - continue to press upon their citizenry the need for militarism in the face of a Russian threat, which, from a military perspective, exists only in the minds of Emmanuel Macron. Keir Starmer and whoever is currently deemed to be the leader of Germany, be it Olaf Scholz, who seems to be on his way out, or Friedrich Merz, who appears destined to be the next Chancellor. Germany is beginning to look more like Italy from the 1980s and 1990s, when governments came and went as often as trains from Rome to Milan ran late, which was most of the time.

When it comes to the United States, over the first 25 years of the new millennium, from Clinton to Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden and back to current President Donald Trump, friends, allies, and enemies seemed to be thrown into a bag, shaken about and spilled out in haphazard ways.

Were we friendly with China or not? Countries in the EU were either allies through NATO or rivals in international trade. The U.S. could play as nice or nasty as it liked, or so it seemed. One thing that was certain from 2000-2025 was uncertainty. After 9-11, the War in Iraq and the endless waste of resources, blood and treasure that was Afghanistan, U.S. attention became focused on Russia, for no reason other than they appeared to be capable of being bullied.

The 2014 Maidan coup in Ukraine kicked off a war between Eastern and Western factions, primarily focuses on the people of the Donbas, mostly Russians, who this in the West considered somehow, unwelcome. As it turns out, those people - here is sphere of influence first hand - wanted to be Russian more than they wanted to be Ukrainian, so bombs flew, eventually prodding Russia enough to intervene after a good eight years of mindless finger-pointing, bombing, death, and destruction.

Russia's involvement, via its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, could easily be seen as a protection of their own sphere of influence. After all, what would the United States do if there was a civil war (with ample outside instigation) in Mexico, for instance. It's difficult to send by idly while your neighbor's house is being blown apart.

The world might be a better place if leaders of countries kept to their own business. Russia, post collapse of the Soviet Union, for instance, is a good example of a country that just wanted to go about its own business. The Soviet years of conquest and annexation were far behind, a relic of the past of which Russians were willing to just let go. Outside of China, which shares one of the longest land borders in the world with Russia, the rest of the world seemed uneasy about letting bygones be bygones.

There were opportunists from Europe and the United States seeking to extract some degree of satisfaction, or money, or prestige from keeping Mother Russia under the international thumb.

At the same time, from the late 1980s to the present, America went about bullying and blowing up most of the Middle East for no good reason other than the usual, "protecting the interests of out ally, Israel."

That line of reasoning served well enough to blow up countries from Egypt to Iraq, to Syria, Lebanon, and beyond. The United States, acting as a benevolent dictator to the world, rained peace down on people in the form of bombs and rockets. Neocon elements in the government made sure that democracy would be shoved down people's throats because it was "right."

Talk about hubris and straying out of one's lane. The U.S. thought not only that it owned both sides of the road, but that it built it and paid for it. The road to peace, according to the neocon playbook was paved with spent munitions.

When it comes to spheres of influence, the United States would likely do well to pay more attention to countries physically closer and socially similar to us. Europe, well, they may look like us and act like us, for now, but there's still a vast ocean between us.

The way the United States has dealt with Latin America, from Mexico down the continent to Chile, hasn't been one of which most Americans would be proud. Essentially, we've minded out business in our hemisphere while at the same time meddling in others' half a world away.

As Russia, China, India, and other BRICS countries pull back and away from the outsized global hegemonic influence of the United States and its institutionalized financial arms, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, our leadership - yes, President Trump, but also congress - might want to consider making friends rather than enemies, since we seem to have a more than ample supply of those.

Absent military adventurism, President Trump is going to upset the international balance of trade, which, right or wrong, the United States seems to have been getting the worst of for at least the last 30 years. Trump's trade policies and tariffs could promote more ill will against the United States or it could lead to negotiated peaceful deals amongst trading partners.

The unexpected outcome from financial and commercial fisticuffs might result in fracturing the global balance - whatever remains of it - or putting more countries, including the United States, back in its own lane, each managing its own unique sphere of influence to best advantage.

Between Trump's desire for an American "golden age", BRICS continued departure from the status quo and Europe's war drumming, the next few years should prove to be consequential in the larger global scheme.

The views and opinions of Fearless Rick are his own and are likely to be one and the same as those of idleguy.com, over which he exercises considerable influence.

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