Valdai Club

The fragile hope presented by the conference in Berlin, is very vulnerable, because real, not formal, implementation of its decisions is possible only with the active participation of the Libyans themselves.

The Black Sea is another theatre of bilateral brinkmanship, which NATO and Russia conduct for lack of options for resolving their current political contradictions. This is not done for the sake of impressing the opposing side as much as it's done by each party as a show for their own interest groups and voters.

With Iran's “tit for tat” policy in attacking the American military bases in Iraq after the assassination of Major General Gassem Soliemani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force, it seems that both Iran and the U.S. have entered a de-escalation phase. For Tehran, this limited conventional military action was necessary and justified as a show of its national strength and unity. It also legitimised the nation's regional policy.

The Libyan crisis is one of the most complicated. No single conference can settle all the issues involved. TheBerlin conference did not achieve all the expected results, but it prevented the crisis from worsening. It may also be a step ahead in the long road to a settlement of the Libyan crisis.

Escalation of the US-Iranian conflict in early January 2020 led to yet another wave of American sanctions against Iran. Washington avoided a military response to Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on US military facilities in Iraq. Tehran positioned these attacks as a reply to the murder of General Qassem Soleimani. Tension seriously exacerbated. However, eventually the Americans decided against using force but instead increased pressure on Iran with more sanctions.

An additional layer of global governance targeting technological development that is more agile in the mode of its operation could complement the “Waterfall”/hierarchical/rules-based model, in which country-level, regional and global layers interact with each other.

An armed struggle between the United States and Iran, if it continues in earnest, may prove a conflict of the new epoch in the true sense of the word. A ratio between the political aims and the military tools for their attainment is of fundamental importance.

Russia should give its response to NATO’s activities in the Black Sea region through the strengthening of its naval presence in the Black and Mediterranean Seas. And this, in turn, is inextricably linked with the modernisation of the Russian Navy, as well as the solution of a number of related issues, primarily the solution to the logistical problems.

Since its first mention in an official policy document by Australia in 2013, the idea of Indo-Pacific has steadily gained prominence amongst the polity and commentariat in several countries. The concept, which acknowledges the salience of economic and maritime connectivity of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, has more recently acquired a complex political dimension as well.

Merkel may have realized that successful peacekeeping in the region should be negotiated with Moscow rather than with Washington. With her visit to Russia, Merkel demonstrated that Germany and the EU will seek their own strategy toward Russia instead of letting themselves be harnessed against the rest of the world by the US.