Russia in Global Affairs

There is no doubt that today’s shifts are profound and are taking place across virtually all domains. That said, they cannot be viewed as an expression of someone’s deliberate will but should rather be regarded as a series of processes which were quite predictable and natural. These changes are not “the biggest since…” – they simply represent a new era that does not need to be compared to any other.

Some countries, such as the U.S., India, and Germany, eschew academic training of their diplomats, confining training to a more limited set of professional skills such as crisis management and digital engagement. This trend can be attributed to the increasing velocity and complexity of the international system: cyber threats, economic shocks and more.

New rules emerge from shifts in the balance of power and, if we take the modern-day world, the fact that small groups of countries are no longer able to tell the rest of the international community what to do.

The events, which climaxed in early 1991 with the U.S.-led Desert Storm, were the first manifestation of the “new world order.” Amid today’s dramatic events, it is useful to recall how the Soviet Union and the United States tried to become partners in shaping the then new—and now collapsing—U.S.-centric world order.

The threat of a direct military clash between great powers and nuclear war will persist and, perhaps, become even more acute than during the Cold War. The key goal of diplomacy in this new world will be to develop a toolkit that will make it possible to endure decades of turbulence without nuclear bombardment.

To be sure, hierarchy has ended. However, it did not end with its complete triumph and the dissolution of the international order therein, but with the exhaustion of the possibilities that it offered. The unification efforts have had the reverse effect, as different cultures and peoples seek to emphasise their identity and distinctiveness even more. The current stage is transitional.

Nobody has any doubts that what is happening now in Ukraine is not simply a regional conflict but a test for the current international hierarchy. Predictions of the outcome would be woefully premature in any case, but one can try to imagine which principles may form the foundation of a future system of global co-existence and which will be relegated to the past.

World politics has begun to rapidly return to a state of anarchy built on force. “The end of history” culminated in the restoration of its usual course – the destruction of the international order resulting from large- scale conflicts between centres of power.

In international crises the sides have to rely on unreliable communication channels and often interpret the other sides’ intentions based on the nature of the actions being taken. This guesswork expands the room for speculation and misinterpretation. The latter, in turn, makes the situation extremely difficult to calculate and, hence, even more dangerous.