You can compare humanity with an earthworm stretching along the road. First, the head (the "advanced" countries and peoples) moves forward, then the lagging tail catches up with it.
Now the tail (the third world countries) has caught up with the head and the worm-humanity has a problem: what to do next? The head, for objective reasons (there are no breakthrough technologies and a sea of ​​resources), cannot take a step forward, and the head that has got in the way prevents the tail, which has gained momentum.

Third world countries have gained strength and high-tech missiles of the high elves are already barely holding back the crowds of baboons with AK-47. The point is that the number of cheap but effective AK-47s and jeeps competes quite well with the effectiveness of expensive missile systems. It will be even more difficult further: the elves' bet on missiles will play into the hands of the baboons, increasing the risk of the elves using high-tech weapons against each other. If this happens, then nothing will stop the tail from becoming a new head, which foolishly decided to self-destruct.

A nuclear war will not work, since this deprives the human head of not only markets, but also the meaning of existence. The goals of their existence, other than to make more money and have more power, don't exist at all. But the tail is now quietly developing its sales markets. Whichever country you come to, everything around you is about the same: the same machines, the same tools of production and the same household items. If you search pockets of random a Black of an average African country or a European walking along the Champs Elysees in a dark alley, their content will be the same, right down to pills and condoms. And if you look into their apartments, then there will be even less differences: the same microwave ovens, the same TVs and plumbing fixtures. The skyscrapers of Vietnam are already so similar to the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

A change of world elites is coming. These are always some kind of perturbations. An ordinary war will not be able to return the world to its former state: the tail that came to the head turned out to be too massive, and the war of the elves among themselves is a common suicide in the current situation. The elites understand this, and there is already a struggle between them for the right to implement their strategy.

There are two ways out for them: to knock the heads of the leaders of the former Third World, to arrange something of a world war in Asia and in Africa, or to somehow delay their development.
I do not even consider the discovery of new advanced technologies - there are no prerequisites for their appearance yet.

Hence the simple conclusions: either a new virus is ahead, but more serious and for a limited number of countries, or a large-scale war in Asia. Well, or a bloodless change of leadership, that is, the collapse of the hegemons with all the consequences for their satellites.
"Soft" hybrid warfare does not give a quick result, and very little time remains.