Russia in Global Affairs

Between the nation and the empire there lies the term ‘civilization.’ Russia will be doomed to build its identity on the archetypes of civilizational loneliness (an imperial feeling) as there is no system to build itself into to obtain guarantees of further existence.

While only recently the West’s dominance looked absolute, now the roles of the teacher and the student, the leader and the straggler are no longer definitely assigned. Сompetition in interpreting reality, defining meanings, and translating values will increasingly grow.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union created a decade-long illusion that the era of ideologies and ideological struggle was over and the world was moving towards a single system of values based on Western liberal democracy and capitalism. Europe and America fascinated the world with their freedom and winning political system...

The exponential growth of new technologies brings about qualitative mutations of society, the economy and even the human being. The combined potential of major global corporations by far exceeds that of many national economies and encourages them to seek the status of independent political actors and devise a new world order.

The West and the rising rest are poised to compete over principles, status, and geopolitical interests as the shift in global power quickens. The challenge for the West and the rest alike is to forge a new and pluralistic order – one that preserves stability and a rules-based international system amid the multiple versions of modernity that will populate the next world.