Valdai Club

National and regional needs and interests will find their best atmosphere in a growing, renewed and fair Multilateral System. We must act in it, within the framework of our possibilities and realities, as actively as possible, writes Jose Octavio Bordón, President of CARI (Argentine Council for International Relations), and participant in the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

There is a growing realization of longer-term looming vulnerabilities for the global economy, a significant part of which have to do with high-technology and human capital-related sectors. As opposed to “black swans” and the “known unknowns” such as climate change, those fragilities that pertain to human capital development are at least more tractable and amenable to attenuation/moderation via concerted economic policies and strategies geared towards longer term exigencies of sustainability, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Yaroslav Lissovolik.

Gas trade between Russia and Europe has had its ups and downs for over half a century but has brought tremendous benefits to both sides. Europe’s energy policy ambition of a fast shift to a carbon-neutral economy for which natural gas is undesirable and merely a near-term, stop-gap solution is a threat to Russia-Europe gas trade. In these circumstances, Russia is likely to intensify its efforts to diversify away from its dependence on the European gas market both in terms of methods of gas delivery and target markets, writes Vitaly Yermakov, expert with the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Since the mid-2000s, the Americans themselves have begun to admit that the strategy of democratisation both in Iraq and in Afghanistan had turned out to be wrong and did not bring results. Systematically, the Americans failed, because they were not able to build trusting relationships with a society that they did not respect, considering it underdeveloped, archaic, chaotic, and completely undemocratic, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

India’s strategic rival China has already made advances in maintaining a sustained human presence in orbit and the learning curve for India appears steep. Only collaboration with Russia can give India a leg up and may perhaps be the only path for India to catch up to China in any meaningful way, writes Aditya Pareek, Research Analyst at the Bangalore-based Takshashila Institution.

A lot depends on how clearly peaceful interaction in Central Asia and around it will be re-established, in a way that’s acceptable for all parties, writes Yuri Vasilyev, Special correspondent for the Vzglyad business newspaper. There is one of the main questions for Uzbekistan as one of the main partners of Russia in the region: will the systemic reforms in the country allow it to overcome the dependence of its citizens on systems that facilitate fast payments from abroad?

It is becoming obvious that after the “Afghan exodus” a real war of compromising materials began in Washington. The State Department blamed the Pentagon, the Pentagon — intelligence, and intelligence agencies blamed the White House. Together they blame former President Donald Trump: he was wrong to make an agreement with the Taliban, organised the negotiation process poorly, etc. However, it was Joe Biden who turned Afghanistan into one of the most critical problems literally from scratch, Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov writes.

When the obvious leaders of the past are losing their positions, Russia has a chance to use its creative potential and unique historical experience, and, relying on the culture of life “according to conscience”, to offer the world a new economic and social model — a model of harmony between man and nature, writes Valdai Club expert Andrey Bezrukov.

A common platform for economic cooperation across the Global South opens the possibility for the world economy to lower global imbalances via creating a “no core – no periphery” mode of cooperation, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Yaroslav Lissovolik.

The most ominous threat might arise from the continuing intense rivalry in cyberspace, which could spin out of control, despite the ongoing cybersecurity dialogue. Ransomware attacks aside, the complexity and ambiguities of cyberspace, and the rapid advances in cyber tools and weaponry, make the temptation to seek unilateral advantage in the cyber realm almost irresistible, writes Valdai Club expert Thomas Graham.