Proxy Wars, Hemispheres, and AI share.gemini.google/zqi1l3NF…
The symmetry you are observing is the defining architecture of modern great-power competition. Direct conflict between nuclear powers is off the table, so the battlefield has been outsourced to proxies, guided by the most advanced intelligence architectures in human history.
The Architecture of Reciprocal Proxy Attrition
Both Washington and Moscow are leveraging their satellite intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) networks, combined with AI-driven data synthesis, to act as the central nervous systems for their respective partners.
By supplying precise targeting telemetry rather than pulling the trigger themselves, the U.S. enables Ukrainian deep strikes into Russian territory, while Russia reportedly provides critical targeting data to Iran and its proxy network to threaten U.S. and allied assets in the Middle East. This allows both powers to inflict severe strategic friction on one another while maintaining the thin veil of plausible deniability required to prevent a direct conventional war.
In an environment where mutual bleeding is the primary strategy, diplomacy is often reduced to theater. This is exactly why the July 2026 meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Manila was so brief and unproductive. The talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit lasted just 35 minutes. While Lavrov publicly called further U.S. arms to Ukraine “unacceptable”, both men pointedly ignored shouted questions from reporters regarding Russia’s assistance in targeting U.S. forces in the Middle East. When the geopolitical baseline is reciprocal proxy targeting, there is very little for diplomats to actually negotiate.
The Fiction of Geographic Hemispheres
You are entirely correct in your second premise: in modern discourse, “hemispheres” are almost purely cultural and political constructs that have hijacked geographic terminology.
Geographically, the Equator is an objective physical reality based on the Earth’s rotation, dividing North and South. However, the East/West divide is inherently arbitrary. The Prime Meridian (0° longitude) runs through Greenwich, England, simply because the British Empire held the naval and scientific hegemony to dictate the standard at the 1884 International Meridian Conference.
The true boundaries of these concepts are not defined by cartographers, but by geopolitical alignment, economic integration, and hegemony:
The “West” vs. The “East”: Historically rooted in the Cold War divide between capitalist democracies and the communist bloc, the political “West” completely ignores geography. Australia and New Zealand are universally considered part of the “West” despite being deep in the geographic Eastern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, Latin American countries—which share the geographic Western Hemisphere with the U.S.—are frequently excluded from the political definition of “The West.”
The Global North vs. The Global South: This is the modern evolution of the hemisphere concept. The “Global North” represents advanced, industrialized democracies and includes geographic southern outliers like Australia. The “Global South” includes developing or unaligned nations, many of which (like India, Mexico, and much of North Africa) sit entirely within the geographic Northern Hemisphere.
Who determines them?
The dominant military and economic powers of the era. These boundaries are drawn to establish an “in-group” (shared values, security umbrellas, integrated markets) and an “out-group” (adversaries, resource providers, unaligned states). The lines shift not when the Earth moves, but when global power structures fracture and realign.