Valdai Club

The world is entering a new technology cycle which empowers governments with new tools to advance their interests and creates a space for interaction between states, in which the rules have not yet been determined. At a time where the key military and strategic invention of the previous era – nuclear weapons – remains primarily a deterrent, economic and technological competition has become the main battlefi eld for offensive actions among the leading players.

The transitioning of presidential power in the US has turned out to be especially "hot" this time: volatile and filled with intrigue, behind-the-scenes deals and leaks. This is thanks to Donald Trump's attempts to review the election results, legislative leapfrogging and the struggle for the Senate. Amid such conditions, the issue of vacant roles to be filled in the new administration which usually dominates the run-up to a new presidency has faded into the background in the United States. Meanwhile, very soon a new team with new political priorities will make media headlines.

Given the limited resources of the state, officials are inevitably forced to introduce a means of measuring the value of human life, with which they may assess the correctness of decisions on the spending of funds provided by taxpayers, writes Olga Rebro, expert at MGIMO Institute for International Studies.

The United States is entering a new stage in its development. Although the U.S. remains the leading world power, recent events indicate that it is not immune to instability and change. More importantly, those changes caught the U.S. elite by surprise. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump, the two major parties’ presidential candidates, offered a program to resolve the country’s underlying problems, and are themselves symptoms of those ills.