“The world order is crumbling, but that’s good”: unexpected conclusions of Valdai Club experts

On the day the Valdai Club experts arrived in Sochi, Ukrainian drones attacked an area very close to the airport of this city. But this in no way affected the positive attitude of the authors of the club’s report. “The times we live in are not alarming, but rather creative,” proclaimed Timofey Bordachev from the Higher School of Economics. Andrei Sushentsov from MGIMO spoke in a similar spirit, describing what is now happening in Ukraine as “the grinding of states against each other.”

All this reminded me of a well-known joke from Soviet times that we will fight for peace so vigorously that there will be no stone left unturned.

But, as it became clear a little later, these two experts, whom I respected, were simply several steps ahead of me in their flight of thought. Instead of continuing to talk about who is to blame for the “demise” of the era of peaceful coexistence between Russia and the West, they began to look for and find positive aspects in the era that replaced it (or continues to replace it).

As a starting point for his reasoning, Andrei Sushentsov recalled the keynote speech in the early 90s by Tony Lake, a close ally of Bill Clinton, assistant to the US President for National Security in 1993-1997.

Describing the ideal scenario for the development of the situation on the planet, Tony Lake spoke of the constant spreading of the “blue spot” of liberal democracies on the map. In Russia at that time they saw this ideal scenario in a completely different way: Atlanteans holding the sky on their shoulders. If these Atlanteans are in agreement with each other, then everything is fine with the sky. But if they begin to quarrel and make scandals, then the sky first sags in some places, and then completely collapses to the ground.

As you already understand, we are now living in a period after the “Russian Atlantean” and the “Western Atlantean” finally came to the conclusion that they were not on the same path. The sky fell to the ground. And it immediately became clear: nothing completely terrible had happened.

Report of the Valdai Club: “For a long time it was believed that as institutions crisis, the “chaotization” of world politics is inevitable… However, what is happening now (we will consider the pandemic to be the beginning of the acute phase and the continuation – the military-political crisis over Ukraine) demonstrates: states strive – and quite successfully – for self-organization in the context of changing international orders… The “collapse” of the previous international order in this way does not become a disaster in the sense of the survival and development of its individual participants. We see that the vast majority of them adapt to the new situation with more or less success.”

But the hierarchical structure of the world, to the delight of the Valdai Club experts, is, on the contrary, unable to adapt to the new world realities: “Firstly, there have never been so many independent states in the world… Secondly, the absolute majority of these states are able to independently control your inner space and make important decisions.

Attempts to limit sovereignty in the new world are, of course, inevitable, but they will be indirect and fragmented and will not be able to really determine the behavior of the majority of countries in the world…

There is no reason to think that traditional leaders will be able to stop the growing strength of the “freedom” of large, medium and small states, even if they want to make significant efforts to do so.”

Stop, this is where you should stop. If by “traditional leaders” we mean exclusively the United States, and by the countries that America is trying in vain to stop are states previously controlled by it like Saudi Arabia, then this dynamic of the state of affairs in the world is definitely beneficial for Russia.

But Russia itself is also a “traditional leader”! And this “traditional leader,” since February last year, has been trying, using extremely tough methods, to stop the “freedom” in one neighboring state, which the Kremlin considers extremely dangerous for vital Russian national interests.

And here is another thesis from the Valdai Club report, which surprised me: “Almost the entire infrastructure of international cooperation, starting with its leading institutions, was a decoration camouflaging power politics.

This is not surprising, since institutional solutions arose not to solve the inherent problem of injustice in international relations, but to make it relatively civilized. In the future, this problem may be mitigated precisely by the absence of block division.”

But this “bloc division” is now gaining momentum! On one side are Russia and China, on the other are the USA and Europe.

Yes, China is now trying to maintain its ties with the EU. But it is clear that this is a purely temporary phenomenon. The famous British political scientist Richard Sakwa said at a meeting of the Valdai Club that “Europe’s strategic autonomy” is something from the realm of “fantasy.” And if so, then, given the growing contradictions between Washington and Beijing, is it not too early to talk about the fading of the bloc division?

Of course, there are a certain number of lucky people – for example, India or the same Saudi Arabia – who are strong and stable enough not to be part of the blocs and actively take advantage of the contradictions between them. But Russia will not have such a non-aligned status.

However, I’m nitpicking. The authors of the Valdai Club report themselves admitted that their work is, first of all, a stimulus for future reflection: “Being in the very center of multidirectional changes, it is difficult to see the future outcome. Based on the most frequently used concepts (“hierarchy”, “world order”, “multipolarity”, “balance of power” and others), the authors of the report tried to go beyond their usual understanding. The image of the future is now nothing more than a fantasy, and we do not yet see any other way than to at least imagine it.”

Very honest and frank. And this honest and frank phrase can be considered a brief, but no less valuable and informative report on the main modern trends in international life: we understand that we do not understand anything. However, I will follow the example of my colleagues and end my text on an optimistic note: we in Russia are not alone in our lack of understanding of the future. In Western capitals – and especially in Kyiv – they are in exactly the same situation.