What is happening in the world? Is it a revolution that is breaking old foundations and bringing something fundamentally new? Or is it just a cyclical shake-up that will stir up the environment, but leave intact the principles of relations between states that did not change for millennia? And will the new turn out to be the well-forgotten old in the next stage?
The Valdai Discussion Club reflects on this in a series of reports that are issued for the regular annual meetings in October. The fourth report, prepared this year, is titled «The Importance of Being Earnest: How to Avoid Irreparable Damage.” But unlike the piquant play of Oscar Wilde, (which the title was borrowed from), the authors urge to abandon the «strategic frivolity», that enveloped the global elites at the end of the last century and shattered their most basic foundation, of self-preservation.
It is necessary to return to an adequate perception of reality with its entire palette of dangers and threats, and understand that self-preservation is not ‘every man for himself’, but everyone together against the risks that is more effective to combat jointly.
Report: The Importance of Being Earnest: How to Avoid Irreparable Damage
