The 1990s happened.
And a lot happened in the last quarter century, so you should update yor world model (preferably without resorting to MSM propaganda).
As to why why Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are sticking together, it is because they they don't want to hang separately.
As to why the West has lost its proxy war against a petty regional player, that is something for the history books.
It would be interesting to revisit this review for the forthcoming Strix Halo. Particularly, for ML tasks on relative large memory sizes which are prohibitively expensive for GPUs.
Hospitality and healthcare occupations are doing badly in much of the Western World. Construction is highly seasonal, and arguably much of it is currently driven by an investment bubble rather than organic demand which could pop, ending in a long winter. Skilled trades, maybe, but you need a healthy job market so that people can afford these.
While these occupations are safe from AI, for time being, they're not safe per se.
As to why why Russia, China, Iran and North Korea are sticking together, it is because they they don't want to hang separately.
As to why the West has lost its proxy war against a petty regional player, that is something for the history books.