It's not really western centric so much as military power centric - that only the military powers count and less armed people in the middle are pawns. For example in the 1904 skirmish between Russia and Japan those two powers were arguing over who should control Korea and nearby areas with weak militaries.

It's become a bit passe with the internet and human rights movements and the like - you can't just go militarily occupy the neighbours these days without pissing off a lot of people as Russia is finding just now.

The 1904 thing was quite interesting in the current context. Emperor of Russia Nicholas II thought it would be easy to take out the Japanese navy but they ended up with most of the Russian navy sunk and subsequently the Russian royals got overthrown and replaced by the communists which has led up to what we have now.

It's possible that history will play out in a similar way - Putin thought taking Ukraine would be easy but loses that and then loses power at home and ends up replaced. Perhaps by a normal democracy, looking on the optimistic side.