He said legacy / naive multinational orgs where hegemons with disproportionate influence and exceptionalism can game the system to subordinate smaller countries, especially in stacked bilaterals. He propose variable geometry which is scoping down from "universal" multinational orgs to "exclusive" minilaterals of medium sized countries come together to hedge on issues against hegemons to avoid being on the menu. It's not a contradiction, it's proposing we move from rule based, to power based, i.e. like-minded medium countries need to bandwagon to leverage as bloc, which means entails being exclusive / eliminate weak links / prevent capture. It maybe wishcasting but it's a different arrangement than legacy system.