Russia in Global Affairs

This is the article ordered by Financial Times to Professor S. Karaganov. But is was not published for the lack of space. But we still believe it is worth reading.

The political systems of most countries that have decided to challenge us and China are not adapted to a long and fierce confrontation. If we were opposed by the West ruled by more authoritarian and effective governments, the situation could be much more complicated.

In this insightful interview conducted by Modern Diplomacy executive Kester Kenn Klomegah with Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Research Director at the Valdai Discussion Club, and Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, focused largely on Russia and Africa relations, and a few aspects of the emerging new world order.

In this episode of #ThePrintUninterrupted, Fyodor Lukyanov tells ThePrint's Senior Consulting Editor Jyoti Malhotra that the people of Russia support President Vladimir Putin in the conflict against Ukraine, that the West wants to weaken Russia via the Ukraine conflict, that Russia is trying to evolve an alternative world order to that of the West, that China and Russia are in the same boat today vis-a-vis the US and that India's politics have become even more interesting.

With the worldview crisis in Russia’s relations with the West entering a hot phase after the beginning of the Special military operation in February 2022, the future of the world order and principles of international relations is again among the issues making media headlines around the world and featuring widely in discussions held by political pundits. Let’s take a look at it through the prism of foreign policy planning.

Ukrainian conflict is not the thing-in-itself core issue. It’s just a symptom, a sign of ailment the current world order is striving to survive. If the West continues to supply the regime in Kiev with weapons, equipment, and expertise, this conflict will be protracted with more blood and suffering.

In this insightful interview conducted by Modern Diplomacy executive Kester Kenn Klomegah with Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Research Director at the Valdai Discussion Club, and Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, focused largely on Russia and Africa relations, and a few aspects of the emerging new world order.

In this episode of #ThePrintUninterrupted, Fyodor Lukyanov tells ThePrint's Senior Consulting Editor Jyoti Malhotra that the people of Russia support President Vladimir Putin in the conflict against Ukraine, that the West wants to weaken Russia via the Ukraine conflict, that Russia is trying to evolve an alternative world order to that of the West, that China and Russia are in the same boat today vis-a-vis the US and that India's politics have become even more interesting.

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.

The main objective of the next stage of international politics is to prevent any savage behaviour as rules and institutions crumble and it becomes every country for itself. This is hardly a very uplifting mission, but it is what the past thirty years amounted to.

In 2020, about a year before the “escape from Kabul” drama began to unfold, the academic collection of essays entitled On Strategy: A Primer hit the shelves in the United States. Chief editor of this book Nathan Finney well represents the modern cohort of U.S. staff officers boasting a remarkable combination of professional military training and fundamental university education.

In the Western mind, Russia remains among the most important significant Others. These days, given the rapidly developing identity crisis of the modern West, even more so than before.

The feedback effects of sanctions on European economies have yet to be fully revealed. The sum of these effects, the so-called “boomerang effects”, will indeed only be known within a year. It could turn out to be far greater than the effects on Russia. In the long term, Russia may well do well while the EU, mired in thoughtless support for Ukraine, may have to pay a prohibitive price.

The sooner we understand that the basis of “soft power” is internal, and not in the activities of Russia’s representatives abroad, the sooner we will be able to benefit from our own objective advantages.