Valdai Club

The fate of modern think tanks is a graphic illustration of our world’s crisis, namely, the lack of a future plan or even a responsible discussion thereof. So, for all their diversity and intellectual refinement, the think tanks’ real role in decision-making is quite arguable, for many reasons. On the one hand, think-tanking is a lucrative business. The number of more or less recognized think tanks alone is approaching 8,000.

The mankind enters an era of critical transformation. The conflict between different political forces is deepening. But, most importantly, the communication zone of political battles expanded enormously. Formerly an insignificant player - the broad world masses - gained space for direct political action. Traditional political elites - educated and wealthy - risk losing control over the world processes.

Just recently the humanity had a dream of a beautiful future. Now it has instead the frightening idea of the inevitability of new technologies in the hands of barbarians. It seems that the world clock goes both back and forth simultaneously and shows a completely inconsistent time - something like minus 26 hours and 88 minutes.

Only the lazy does not speak now about the collapse of the old world order and the need for a new one. But the question is: Do we really need this new world order? Maybe it could be better to be happy with what is now? Could it be that in the end the world policeman will basically perform the functions of world jailer?

From the carnival-like referendum in Catalonia (like a scene straight out of Verdi’s Don Carlos) to the bloody clashes in Myanmar (hardly something out of the Bhagavad Gita, but still), recent events set in stark relief the striking change in the nature of modern conflicts compared even to the not-too-distant past. They are increasingly chaotic and localized, reflecting humanity’s fragmentation and loss of purpose rather than general progress.  

The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the example of North Korea will further push many countries for the acquisition of atomic might. Today it is one of the most dangerous challenges.The atmosphere of a gloomy-cheerful and maliciously frivolous rattle indicates that no one has any strategy to overcome the crisis.

The terrorist threat will grow and it is important that people be prepared to resist it. "With all the importance of the work of intelligence services, policemen and embedded agents (this is absolutely necessary), the most important thing is the unity of society against terrorists. The society must defend itself," Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Valdai Club, said in an interview to valdaiclub.com, commenting on the attacks that took place in Spain on August 17.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the possibility of using new digital technologies, Big Data, and artificial intelligence to enslave and manipulate humanity. Recently, Beijing’s presumable attempts to establish full digital control over the Chinese segment of humanity hit headlines. It is obvious that in today’s trans-communicational world, this cannot be true for a single local fragment of the planet, therefore the threat cannot be confined to an individual region, unless it is attempted to build a digital “fortress” in order to separate countries and regions from one another.

Humankind has been lucky for quite a while, and we still exist. We may be lucky this time again. In this case, we will manage to find the key solutions, the old elite players will strike a compromise with the new global elites, and the latter will take into account the need to significantly regulate global processes. There is hope that the artificial intellect by that time will come into full force and completely relieve us of the hassle of having to regulate the state of affairs in the world.

The election of Emmanuel Macron as President of France will not lead to any fundamental changes. Macron is a deft politician who has given quite a lot of promises. He will be oriented toward real politics, seeking solution of the essential issues the European Union is facing. The recent French election has been rather dramatic, but this is not because of Macron’s personality. The reason is that the situation is very complicated and the problems are very real.