The Dark Forest (Remembrance of Earth’s Past, #2)

by Liu Cixin

“But there’s one thing you never anticipated: There are no longer any great powers. All countries have declined in political power.” “All the countries? Then who rose up?” “A suprastate entity: the space fleet.” Luo Ji thought this over for a while before realizing what Jonathan meant. “You mean the space fleet is independent?” “Yes. The fleets do not belong to any country. They form independent political and economic entities that, like countries, are members of the UN. Right now, there are three major fleets in the Solar System: the Asian Fleet, the European Fleet, and the North American Fleet. Their names refer only to their primary region of origin, but the fleets themselves are no longer subordinate to those regions. They are entirely independent. Each one possesses the political and economic might of a superpower of your era.”