The thing is it's not necessary in this day and age.
Corporatism over took any of the original facets of capital gains or resource gathering that the original colonialist had started to accrue over a period of time.
The simple fact that you have proxy wars or lend lease style systems where countries and corrupt governments stay in control and corporate entities buy sell and trade without the messy business of having to actually be in control of the area, administer laws, oversee infrastructure, or genuinely try to improve the lives of the local population outside of any agreements made with the government, which in itself is usually self serving, such as creating roads to expedite mining or resource collection or railways for the same reason, they have no hand in anything.
They have all of the exploitative benefits of being in the position of colonial style exploitation without any of the costs that the actual colonialist accrued during that period.
America and China are excellent examples of this, and I'm including the UK in the American sphere of influence when it comes to exploiting natural resources in Africa. I've met a few of these corporate types and they are more than willing to admit that it's a perfect market. The local government gets a cut of the money being produced, they have full access to mineral rights, oil, or other natural resources and a guarantee of no extra judicial issues when it comes to exploiting them in the form of actual environmental law enforcement or other going concerns like labor laws. That with a cheap and easily replaceable labor force and it's win win.
The only catch is, it's dangerous. Nothing has changed since the 1600's in terms of the locals being aggressive and willing to kill anyone who is different to them. Places like the Sudan, like Northern Nigeria, parts of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, they are armed and they have mercenaries and they live in defensive encampments.
Whites going outside their encampments without protection were taking their own lives into their hands.
I knew someone who lived in the Sudan part time as an oil field consultant, even when the civil war was going on, his company was still operating their oil wells peacefully, and trying to turn back the local Sudanise who sought protection from the civil war, because they knew the government and opposition wouldn't attack the oil wells, because however won that would be their main source of revenue.
That said I think Colonialism is maligned because Colonialism wasn't a case of some of the world powers greedily eyeing up the undeveloped world and invading. It was a myriad of mixed issues that drove colonialism forward and people tend to forget this. The settling of the New World by Europeans was prompted mainly as a way of getting rid of excess population, opening up new markets, exploration and Christian concerns.
James Town was the first exclusively British attempt to set up a colony in the new world and that was 1610, the Americans didn't finally win the Indian Wars and settle the west to establish the current America until around 1900.
The British in India was prompted by the East India Company taking over administrative control of tracts of land in India for trading purposes and having reached such a point of power and influence, that it became apparent that if Britain did not annex India, than it ran the risk of having it's French and Dutch competitors doing it first.
Africa up until the 1800's and the explosion of railway technology was resistant to most foreign intervention, even the earlier adventurers and slave traders who were only able to do so by the will and grace of the local Kings and Rulers were able to map out parts of the coast and not actually do any major exploration of the interior until that time.
The Boers the defacto largest White settler community in Africa settled most of the modern parts of South Africa as an attempt to escape religious persecution and internal wars at home, the same reason that the Huegenots and the Puritans settled in America. The land at the time of the great treks to escape the increasing pressure from the British who wanted the cape because of it's relevance to Indian sea trade, was empty because of the great dying that had been precipitated by the Zulu's, and signed treaties to the effect. The same with the gift of the Port of Natal to the British. The British merely capitalized on the work that the Boers had done in settling the land by taking over the Boer colonies when mineral deposits were found in the Orange State and the Transvaal.
Realistically exploration, and some financial considerations/experimentation aside the only other group of colonialist involved in Africa were the great missionaries who effectively braved an unknown continent with a myriad of deadly diseases and a hostile populations in order to spread Christianity to the dark continent.
There are loads of other considerations to think of as well, but that's just a few as an outline of colonization not just being in financial interests.
Now to answer your question, it depends.
The issue with larger influential world powers and smaller weak nations usually falls into a question of spheres of influence.
So for instance the Great Game between Russia and Britain almost exclusively game about because of the value of India and Russian expansion into the Steppe nations that now make up the Stan's on the map. The lynch pin in the center was Afghanistan, which is why the British conquered it, and then reconquered it.
The country had no intrinsic value to the Empire, except that it was the land gateway to British India, and with an ever increasing pressure from the Tsar and Russian expansion into Afghans neighboring nations, as well as diplomatically friendly ties being established between the ruling Shah and the Russian crown Britain saw it as pertinent to their sphere of influence to hold that country.
In America the classical stance of the Monroe doctrine still stands, which is why America almost exclusively is the sole influential power in South American politics. The Cuban Missile crisis was essentially one of the first times, since the overthrow of the Spanish rule and the establishment of the doctrine that a massive foreign national power had any hand of influence in South America.
So any potential conquering and establishment of new colonies would have to essentially follow these rules in order not to cause any international upsets or conflagrations.
- Not a strategically important ally or geographical location to a super powers sphere of influence.
- Not a nuclear power, and therefore capable of high impact high death toll retaliation or mutually assured self destruction.
- Not likely to be of any major strategic importance in the future.
