Joshua Kurlantzick, one of the few to see the big picture, has a good piece in the Boston Globe on the rise and rise of authoritarian capitalist states:

As the global business momentum shifts from private companies to national governments, the implications are far reaching. Many authoritarian governments realize that, in the post-Cold War era, a wealthy nation can extend its power very effectively without trying to build an army to compete with the US in military force in the short term. (…)