Valdai Club

Russia’s relationship with Africa was and remains unique, in a way that most states are missing. Russia had been distancing itself from the internal affairs of its allies. When Africa was forced to embrace Western democracy and civilisation as a new approach in order to qualify for foreign assistance, Moscow used that gap to help African states use their own efforts to produce for themselves, stand on their feet, and face their challenges as independent and sovereign states, writes Godwin Gonde Amani.

On September 24, 2024, the Valdai Discussion Club will hold a joint Russian-Indonesian conference in Jakarta. It offers something unique: in addition to the current foreign policy issues on the agenda of our countries, a special session of the conference will be devoted to the history of bilateral relations and the role of historical memory in the development of the bilateral dialogue.

A new phase of cold and soft war has begun in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia; a shifting of the power puzzle’s role. If some regional powers move to change their borders, it will have dangerous regional implications in the third millennium, Alibeman Eghbali Zarch writes.

The European Union has already militarised Ukraine to the breaking point. It is logical that, out of supposed fear of Russia, the countries of the European Union, which form the first line of contact with Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea, would embrace additional militarisation. The transformation of the European Union into a defence union is certain to lead to the further militarisation of Europe, Aleksandar Raković writes.

“May you live in interesting times”… This Chinese curse perhaps most concisely describes current world affairs. We’re once again at the precipice of a new global order, which theoretically promises the equal distribution of geopolitical and economic power in a number of regional centres around the world. In economic terms, it seems like multipolarity is already underway and reshaping the balance of power among the strongest economies. Geopolitically, however, the global order is in the midst of an uncertain, turbulent and tremendously strained period of transition; its conclusion is just as unpredictable as the developments leading up to it.

The three largest military-political centres – China, Russia, and the United States – have simultaneously faced deteriorating foreign policy conditions, whereas twenty years ago all three were in a much more peaceful environment. The fate of the future world order still depends on the ability of the troika to control rivalry and on the results of such rivalry, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Ivan Timofeev.

Great power competition-driven instability over the most-used trade routes, combined with climate change, is making the INSTC more attractive and the North Pole more navigable; it is offering Asia’s greatest powers the epoch-making opportunity to reshape the geography of world trade. Russia is the player set to economically benefit the most from such a development, but the diplomatic reverberations have the potential to positively affect all the greatest powers in the international system, Emanuel Pietrobon writes.

When China overtakes the US in East Asia militarily, Washington will have to think twice before attempting to provoke or “trap” Beijing. A key event here could be a significant strengthening of China’s nuclear potential, which would create strategic deterrence between China and the US, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

Nowadays, the state of the German army can be considered a consequence of processes that mirror those that took place during the years of the Weimar Republic, Artyom Sokolov writes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia was a strategic manoeuvre aimed at reinforcing India’s foreign policy independence, counterbalancing China, and enhancing defence and technological cooperation, Nivedita Das Kundu writes.