Plus the kind of new rules of the game which say you can't go on your own, you cannot intervene by yourself. And so that keeps driving this game, where indeed we might have only permanent allies, as much as we sometimes dislike and resent each other. No, it's still states' rule. States have the last word, but states can no longer do what they used to do for hundreds and hundreds of years, which is to go off on their own, to fight a war on their own, to do without any legitimizing cover by others, by international organizations, because the states are now democratic states. They're no longer princes and potentates.
Democratic states are on a much shorter leash of popular acceptance and legitimation.
Mind you now, Frederick the Great, the absolutist king, also had to worry about his people, but the leash was longer. Louis XIV had to worry, but the leash was that much longer. That's the point, the leash has become shorter. But states are still states. Well, I wouldn't know how.