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28 march 2019
“We do not dream of the future anymore, we’re scared of it.”
People used to have the right to their own interpretation, but the facts were common. Now everybody has the right to his own facts. Ours is a life in a room with walls of mirrors. It’s no wonder that we are scared of each other.
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25 april 2018
No Need to Wait for an Attack, the Threat of War Is in the Air
“Russia and China need to think about creating a joint strategy to strengthen peace. There is no need to wait for someone’s attack – the threat of war in the air,” Valdai Club expert Sergei Karaganov, who takes part in the Russian-Chinese conference in Shanghai.
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26 february 2018
The Russian Revolution of 1917: History, Memory, and Politics
In 100 years since the Revolution of 1917, it continues to have impact on the Russian society. Divergent assessments of the Revolution and different approaches to its commemoration have been sparking off heated debates on Russia’s past and future that emphasize the need to reconcile different narratives.
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4 december 2017
Plural but equal in everyone’s world: Dialogue in Sochi – or Information Warfare by Other Means?
Geopolitical pluralism, in all its continentally and regionally uneven permutations is the global reality in what passes for ‘no one’s world’ (Charles Kupchan) and/or a ‘world in disarray’ (Richard Haas) when in fact, there is an evolving underlying logic to a multipolar landscape in what should be considered ‘everyone’s world.’
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20 november 2017
Glocalization: When Globalization Goes Local
Complexity and diversity make the world more stable. A global world with identical political, economic, and any other elements could have more, not less conflict. Globality is getting localized, and locality can be globalized, too. These two trends do not contradict each other: on the contrary, their synthesis is a source of stability.
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30 october 2017
A Cold War: A Forecast for Tomorrow
Nuclear deterrence is the only reason why the world did not plunge into a nuclear conflict during the Cold War and is not sliding down that path now as we are living through a new Cold War which is even worse than the previous one.
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23 october 2017
The Importance of Being Earnest: How to Avoid Irreparable Damage
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?
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25 may 2017
Mogerini's Adviser: Pragmatism Becomes the Basis of EU Foreign Policy
Despite the contradictions between the EU member states, they become aware that they would eventually get more from joint actions than from satisfying one hundred percent of their desires, said Nathalie Tocci, adviser to the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini.
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19 april 2016
The Middle East: the main trends
The Valdai Discussion Club hosted the 5th meeting of the Valdai Middle East dialogue, «The Middle East: From Violence to Security.» The following is a summary of the discussions and conclusions reached by its participants.
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10 february 2016
War and Peace in the 21st Century. International Stability and Balance of the New Type
Valdai Discussion Club Report
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13 january 2016
A turn to Asia: the history of the political idea
Russia has already made its turn towards Asia, and the important question now is how deep and successful it will be.
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12 december 2015
The Inevitability of Fight
“Fifty years ago the streets of Leningrad taught me a lesson: if a fight is inevitable, hit first.” These words by Vladimir Putin have become a most quoted phrase of the past fall. Said at the Valdai International Discussion Club, it unambiguously conveys the underlying principle of Russia’s current foreign policy.
A new world order: A view from Russia
Since around 2017–2018, the world has been living through a period of progressive erosion, or collapse, of international orders inherited from the past. With the election of Donald Trump and the rapid increase of US containment of Russia and China—which is both a consequence of this gradual erosion and also represents deep internal and international contradictions—this process entered its apogee.
Will US pullout from Syria increase risk of conflict with Russia?
The announcement of the US pullout from Syria was received with caution in Moscow. Besides the security and political challenges it may bring about, the Trump decision could mean the end of a practical, relatively constructive US-Russian approach to conflict at flashpoints.
What is the ‘New Era’ of the Sino-Russian Relationship?
For a long time, Western commentators did not take the close relationship between Russia and China seriously, because conventional wisdom held that the foundation of this link is fragile. Russia has its “Eurasian complex,” which is considered ephemeral and opportunistic, whereas in China there has been a strong distrust of Russia since the 1949 Communist revolution, as typified by the Mao-Stalin alienation. Today, such analytical logic can no longer hold water.
Is There Life After Arms Control Death?
For several years, serious experts in Russia and the West have repeatedly warned the public about the threat of the collapse of the international nuclear arms control system. They spoke about the system, to be precise, because in the past half a century arms control developed as a sum-total of supplementary elements rather than an eclectic set of separate unrelated bilateral or multilateral agreements.
The INF Treaty: Mirror or Abyss?
The number of nuclear weapon states, their respective arsenals, and transatlantic nuclear arrangements make Europe one of the most “nuclearized” continents. Luckily, even when the total warhead numbers were even higher, nuclear use had been avoided – although the threat remains real.
Common Dreams or Vulgar Delusions? Elite Preoccupations in Discourses about the ‘Commons’
Our age is witness to a proliferation of discourses about the ‘commons’. They are emerging from more and more quarters, and the word is being applied to more things than ever before. One important strand of discourse, claiming to be communist, seeks to apply it to all kinds of spheres, from the earth and its natural bounty to culture, and to all sorts of resources, from the most immaterial, such as common knowledge, to the most material, such as the use of the earth’s finite natural resources. Internet activists refer to information and knowledge that exits on the web as the ‘digital commons’.
Globalization: New Pathways Along the South–South Axis
The year 2018 was marked by escalation in trade tensions among the world’s largest economies, mostly via bilateral trade restrictions.