...as long as there are great powers, or superpowers, or hyperpowers, those other countries will end up being used as pawns.
Ukraine, for example, just shifted from being a pawn of Russia to being a pawn of the US (as it has several times since its independence was recognized). Its government is fundamentally corrupt and so we simply outbid the Russians after capitalizing on discontent over the failure of the EU treaty under Yanukovich.
The only way we could stop that is for all the major powers to agree to stop attempting to play games to influence other countries. Even then, note that Russia didn't intervene militarily in 2004 when Ukraine shifted camps because there was no NATO threat implicit in that.
ἡ δὲ κἀκ τριῶν τρυπημάτων ἐργαζομένη ἐνεκάλει τῇ φύσει, δυσφορουμένη, ὅτι δὴ μὴ καὶ τοὺς τιτθοὺς αὐτῇ εὐρύτερον ἢ νῦν εἰσι τρυπώη, ὅπως καὶ ἄλλην ἐνταῦθα μίξιν ἐπιτεχνᾶσθαι δυνατὴ εἴη. – Procopius
Ummaka qinnassa nīk!
*MySmiley*