One of the concerns of some students of the cycles of hegemonic wars in political geography are how to establish a system were we can avoid having hegemonic wars.

To what extent did the UNSC work to avoid a hegemonic war by giving all world powers a veto on the legitimate use of force? Then, UNSC veto power becomes the definition of world power, and the tension between a hegemon and an aspiring hegemon is replaced by the tension between the current group of recognised world powers and aspiring world powers.

For instance, Britain and France can hardly claim to be individually as powerful as they were after WWII when they retained their colonial empires. However, we have the EU slowly configuring itself as a world power to replace Britain/France and (thankfully) avoiding the question of Germany as a world power.

The breakup of the Soviet Union has also somewhat diminished Russia, but it seems fanciful to claim Russia is not a world power given its size, its resources, its level of development and its military.

Then there's India which is not recognised as a world power but might well be. A UNSC with the US, EU, Russia, China and India as veto-wielding members would make a lot more sense than the current one. So maybe the biggest potential conflict is actually between Britain/France and India/Germany, and the EU could help resolve that peacefully if Britain decided to finally blend in.

In my opinion neither Russia nor China have any interest to start an overt confrontation with the US: that's just the US neocon propaganda in search of an adequate bogeyman.

The real problem with the current world system is that the hegemon, the US, has been busy dismantling it since the end of the Cold War.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes