🇧🇷 Brazil Before the Second Round: A Race of Promises

On October 6, the Valdai Club held an expert discussion on the presidential elections in Brazil.

The moderator was Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club. According to him, the presidential elections underscored the actual split of the country into two parts. Former President Lula da Silva, the left-wing candidate, won 48 percent, while incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing candidate, garnered 43 percent. At the end of the month, the second round of presidential elections will take place, and the question is: what should be expected from it, and how foreign policy and domestic policy will change if one or another candidate wins.

💬 Lyudmila Okuneva, Head of the Department of History and Politics of European and American Countries at MGIMO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, described in detail the current political balance and the course of the election campaign in Brazil. She stressed that Bolsonaro received many more votes than sociologists predicted, although Brazilian sociology has a lot of experience and usually makes successful predictions. The results of the rivals are very close, the difference between them is only five percent — and the current president may well make up for it in a month. Now there is a sharp struggle for a new electorate, which, according to Okuneva, has given rise to a “race of promises.” The parties actively play for each other’s bases. In fact, what is happening looks like a clash not only between two leaders with two personalities, but also between two models of the country’s development, the researcher believes.

💬 Dmitry Razumovsky, Director of the Institute of Latin America of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted that the election campaign was notable for its phenomenal scandalousness. Predicting the possible results of the victory of one or another candidate, he pointed out that Bolsonaro’s programme is much more clearly defined and in fact implies a simple continuation of his course. Despite his ambiguous reputation, he has generally achieved success in the economy. Meanwhile, Lula da Silva has built his campaign mainly around opposing Bolsonaro, so it is rather difficult to say what specific steps he will take.

💬 Victor Jeifets, Director of the Centre for Iberoamerican Studies at St Petersburg University, believes that no matter which of the two rivals wins the Brazilian elections, the results of the upcoming US Congress elections in November will seriously affect its foreign policy. “Brazil makes its own decisions, but it makes them in context,” he stressed. If the Republicans win a majority, Biden’s position will be weakened, giving the winner in Brazil a chance to play on different fronts. At the same time, the policy of any of the presidential candidates is unlikely to be complex. The former clear orientation of Lula towards cooperation along the South-South line and opposition to the collective West and Bolsonaro’s clear orientation towards rapprochement with the United States will now most likely not happen. Also, according to Jeifetz, the topic of BRICS is important for both Lula and Bolsonaro in these elections as one of the tools to pull Brazil out of the economic crisis.

#Brazil

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🏰💻 The era of technoeconomic blocs is coming, which means that high technology is moving into the geopolitical plane and taking on a strategic dimension.

Protectionism, the pandemic and the sanctions wars that we have been witnessing over the past few years have contributed to the curtailment of globalisation as we knew it.

The international division of labour at the global level is narrowing and is being localised in individual regions.

Technological independence and security are becoming critical for the main global politics players, and the EU is no exception.

To mitigate the geopolitical risks in an increasingly divided world, in which established production and supply chains are collapsing, the EU has resolved to master key core technologies in microelectronics, quantum computing, artificiial intelligence and blockchain, and to find reliable supply chains.

In other words, the EU is seeking ways to resolve the technological sovereignty issue.

📑 Find out more in the Valdai Paper №119, titled “EU Technological Sovereignty and Its Limits”.

#EconomicStatecraft #EU #technology

@valdai_club

🇷🇺🇹🇷 Russian-Turkish Relations - Fragile but Flexible

On October 7, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, titled “A New Model of Relations Between Russia and Turkey in the Crisis of the International Order”.

The moderator of the discussion, Andrey Sushentsov, Programme director of the Valdai Discussion Club, said that Russia and Turkey are an example of complex interaction between partners amid the new conditions and have provided an example of sovereign goal-setting in an international environment full of conflict. In his opinion, the nature of these relations is determined by the personal diplomacy of Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who have managed to build a constructive dialogue.

💬 Maxim Suchkov, director of the MGIMO Institute for International Studies of the Russian Foreign Ministry, developed the formulation of the American diplomat Richard Haas, who said that Turkey is an ally for the United States, but not a partner, and noted that for Russia, on the contrary, it is a partner, but not an ally. In Russia, there are no inflated expectations associated with Turkey's behaviour as an ally, but the awareness of the strategic partnership is pushing both Moscow and Ankara to constantly search for a balance of mutual interests, he believes. According to Suchkov, in relations with Turkey, Russia is guided by three principles: 1) to understand issues of fundamental importance for Turkey's security; 2) in advance, but without unnecessary noise, indicate the red lines and discuss acceptable corridors; 3) use the mistakes of Turkey's other partners, especially the United States, to "play in contrast". The researcher also pointed out that relations between Turkey and Russia are both fragile and plastic.

💬 Hüseyin Bagci, president of the Turkish World Policy Institute, acknowledged that there have been ups and downs in relations between Turkey and Russia, but added that this does not negate the special relationship between Turkey and Russia and strong contacts between the leaders. According to him, Russia remains the most important partner for Turkey - as a neighbour, as a source of oil and gas, as a partner in the field of nuclear energy and as a partner in the tourism industry. “Neither now, nor in the future, do I expect Turkey to oppose Russia. Therefore, it did not implement the EU and US sanctions,” he said.

💬 Grigory Lukyanov, a researcher at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stressed that, in addition to the personal factor and current interests, the foundation for the agreements between Russia and Turkey was the presence of an institutional basis for the two countries, on which leaders can rely. This institutional basis is a strong backlog in the field of economics and trade, as well as in the field of education and cultural information. The information spaces of Russia and Turkey are very open to each other, despite the language barrier, he says. He also named financial interactions and population movement between the countries as important factors, provided not only by the will of political leaders, but also by the needs of the market, the needs of the people themselves.

💬 Turkish political analyst Hasan Selim Ozertem also pointed to the importance of the economic partnership. At the same time, he noted that for a long time, against the backdrop of deepening economic relations, political issues were perceived as something separate. This led to the crisis of 2015, which was overcome with a lot of effort. After that, in 2016, the parties moved to a new stage, in which economic cooperation was combined with cooperation on regional crises, such as in Syria. In this regard, he suggested that the role of leaders in relations has grown precisely because in 2015 the power of institutional structures was not enough to cope with the crisis. However, relying on the personal factor, it makes the relationship fragile, so now we are talking about the transition to a third phase, which involves the search for an institutional framework. The SCO Samarkand summit reflected this.

#ModernDiplomacy #Turkey #Türkiye

⏰ TODAY at 12:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion titled “Explosions at Nord Streams: The Geopolitics of Interrupted Energy Ties”.

❓To what extent will there be a reduction in gas supplies from Russia to the EU in the coming months?
❓Is the EU capable of compensating buyers for the lower volumes? What will be the reason for such compensation?
❓What are the prospects for the reorientation of Russian gas supplies to Asian markets?
❓What is the state of Russian projects in the field of liquefied gas production and is it possible to reorient pipeline supplies?

Participants of the discussion will try to answer these and other questions.

A link to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, Twitter, VKontakte, Telegram and Zen.

#EconomicStatecraft #NordStream #NordStream2

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UPD: The livestream is over. The video of the discussion is available via the same link. Stay tuned!

🎥 LIVE: at 12:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3) we are starting an expert discussion titled “Explosions at Nord Streams: The Geopolitics of Interrupted Energy Ties”.

https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239036

#EconomicStatecraft #NordStream #NordStream2

@valdai_club

📷 On October 10, the Valdai Club held an expert discussion titled “Explosions at Nord Streams: The Geopolitics of Interrupted Energy Ties”.

Photo gallery of the discussion is available on VK.

The video of the discussion is available via this link.

Stay tuned!

@valdai_club

🧣🏰 “War is coming back to Europe” is the new mantra. However, war didn’t come back just because of Ukraine.

There have been previous winters of war in Europe, linked to the bloody disaggregation of Yugoslavia. However, war in Ukraine, with all its geopolitical consequences, is a true game changer.

The sanctions taken against Russia by EU countries are generating a major “boomerang effect,” one which could lead to a global energy crisis. The shock will probably be felt by the EU economy this winter and afterwards.

It is therefore at this time that crucial political questions will arise regarding the expediency of the EU countries’ policy towards Russia, writes Valdai Club expert Jacques Sapir.

#Norms_and_Values #Europe #geopolitics #gas

@valdai_club

🚏🗺 The unipolar order has already collapsed as evident by the weaponization of economic dependencies and declining trust in the freedom of navigation.

Liberal international economic systems with reliable transportation corridors tend to form under economic hegemons with control over the seas.

There is self-interest in providing public goods in the form of trust in open transportation corridors, as the “benign hegemon” can organise the international economic system under its administration. However, declining hegemons have incentives to limit or condition the freedom of navigation to prevent the rise of rivals, which causes a return to mercantilist traditions. 

As the unipolar order has come to an end, Eurasian integration is facilitating a multipolar world in which trust can be restored in new transportation corridors. 

Eurasian transportation networks are not only creating more cost and time efficient transportation corridors, they are also reviving reliable connectivity in a multipolar format.

Gradually, the Eurasian land powers are displacing the competitive advantage of the oceanic powers, writes Valdai Club expert Glenn Diesen @glenndiesen.

#Valdai_WorldEconomy #Eurasia #multipolarity

@valdai_club

🌀'Geopolitics of Chaos' in the Energy Sector

On October 10, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion titled “Explosions at Nord Streams: The Geopolitics of Interrupted Energy Ties”, dedicated to the state of gas cooperation between Russia and other countries. The moderator was Ivan Timofeev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

💬 Aleksey Grivach, Deputy General Director for Gas Problems of the National Energy Security Fund, noted that until recently, relations between Russia and Europe in the gas sector were a vivid example of interdependence, an important aspect of which was mutual trust. This system not only served as a solid basis for bilateral trade, but also a constraint on unfriendly steps. “Now it is, if not destroyed, then certainly staggering, which opens the way for further escalation not only in the energy sector, but also in the field of strategic security,” the expert admitted.

💬 Evgeny Tipailov, Executive Director of the Institute for Interdependence Studies, outlined a number of factors and patterns that affect energy relations between Russia and Europe in the short and medium term. The first of these he called the "chaotisation of order". The ‘business as usual’ formula has ended, and the market is now waiting for the degradation of the legal landscape, the relativisation of contractual obligations, the growth of government interference, the erosion of the financial infrastructure and the zeroing of trust. The second factor is “arrhythmia in the energy markets”, a parallel acceleration and deceleration of a number of market processes. The third factor is the Americanisation of European energy policy, and the growth of American intervention. The fourth factor is the turn of Russian energy diplomacy to the East. The fifth factor is “energy homeostasis”, the desire of both sides, against the backdrop of energy hunger in Europe, to balance their position. The sixth factor is the reconfiguration of interdependence. For Russia, the key task should be to create a system that is as balanced as possible in terms of risks. Finally, the seventh factor is the “swan song of the dying world order”, a high probability of unpredictable events that could radically affect the commodity market and complicate forecasting.

💬 Alexey Gromov, Chief Energy Director of the Institute of Energy and Finance, called the Nord Stream sabotage a continuation of the “geopolitics of chaos” and an attempt to destroy the pipeline infrastructure as a field of opportunity for further cooperation. Analysing the prospects for Europe, he noted that it has every chance of persisting through the current heating period, although without much comfort. However, the question is what will happen next, given that European storage facilities were filled in the first half of this year mainly with Russian gas. It is not clear how the European Union will fill them next year without Nord Stream. It is also not clear how serious the risk of a complete cessation of Russian supplies is.

#EconomicStatecraft #gas #NordStream #NordStream2

@valdai_club

🌎⚔️🌏 The circle of participants in the Ukrainian crisis includes six groups of players pursuing different political goals. They are:

▪️The United States
▪️The countries of the so-called “New Europe” (Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries, the Czech Republic, Slovakia)
▪️The countries of Western Europe (Italy, France, Germany)
▪️The union state of Russia and Belarus
▪️A group of Western countries, which we call “gateways” (Turkey and Hungary)
▪️Ukraine itself

In view of the “vacation from strategic thinking” taken by the elites of these countries several decades ago, they met the first weeks of the crisis with a lot of confusion.

As a result, the countries of Western Europe actually delegated goal-setting in the outbreak of the crisis to the United States, the countries of New Europe and Britain.

The autumn of 2022 allows us to sum up the efficiency of the strategy of each group of actors in the unfolding crisis.

🔹 The countries of  “New Europe” have managed to get the United States actively immersed into European affairs. They have also achieved an internal political consolidation of their governments to embrace anti-Russian politics, which partially compensates for the dissatisfaction of the population over the fall in living standards. The failures of the “New Europe” include deep economic, social and migration crises — how they will compensate for it is not yet obvious.

🔹 The strategic successes of Western European countries are not obvious. Berlin, Paris, and Rome are facing unprecedented economic and energy crises, runaway inflation, and the risks of political destabilisation amid failed economic policies. These risks have been significantly exacerbated due to the fact that citizens actually pay for the prolongation of the crisis using their own money. There is a loss of initiative in “Old Europe” in the development of the crisis, which has been intercepted by the United States and “New Europe”.

🔹 The “gateway countries” — Hungary and Turkey — have acted more successfully. They have increased their autonomy from Washington and Brussels, and also offer themselves as platforms for diplomatic negotiations following the conflict, which enhances their international political weight. They didn’t pursue their course without risks: external pressure from the allies is increasing against them in order to “bring Ankara and Budapest back to the right line.”

Today we are witnessing a transition to the second phase of the Ukrainian crisis. The transition of the military-political confrontation between Russia and the West to 2023 seems highly probable, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

#ModernDiplomacy #UkraineCrisis #Europe

@valdai_club

🇨🇳 On October 16, 2022, the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China will begin its work.

It can be said without exaggeration that the decisions taken during the 20th Congress will determine the trajectory of China's development for the next five years, and could affect it for ten years or more.

The Congress will lead to appointments to key positions in China's top leadership, including, as expected, the confirmation of Xi Jinping's authority for an unprecedented third term. 

Meanwhile, while the prolongation of Xi Jinping's powers is already a foregone decision, the main intrigue of the 20th Congress is whether Xi Jinping is able to “promote” his proxies to key party posts, writes Valdai Club expert Yana Leksyutina.

#Asia_and_Eurasia #China

@valdai_club

🇨🇳🇷🇺 For some reason, the West is confident that Russia's special military operation in Ukraine will induce Beijing to launch military operations against Taiwan.

At the same time, even independent analysts warn against direct analogies and point out significant differences between Moscow’s approach and that of Beijing in ensuring security, as the degree to which each conflict poses an existential threat to the state is incomparable.

Moscow and Beijing do not adhere to the logic of bloc confrontation, even despite the West's clear course of deliberately creating threats near Russian and Chinese borders and engaging in numerous provocations.

China and Russia will not be able to ensure their own security if each ignores the challenges and threats facing the other.

This idea is confirmed by the growing rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing on issues of strategic stability, writes Andrey Gubin, PhD, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Far Eastern Federal University and an Associate Professor of the Northeast Asia Research Centre of Jilin University (PRC).

#EconomicStatecraft #China #WorldOrder

@valdai_club

🔵 Dear friends! This is a reminder that the Valdai Discussion Club is present on the following social media platforms:

🇬🇧 In English:

👉 Telegram — t.iss.one/valdai_club

👉 VK — https://vk.com/valdaidiscussionclub

👉 Twitter — https://twitter.com/valdaitweets


🇷🇺 In Russian:

👉 Telegram — t.iss.one/valdaiclub

👉 Twitter — https://twitter.com/RuValdaitweets

👉 VK — https://vk.com/valdaiclubcom  

👉 Zen — https://dzen.ru/valdaiclub

Stay tuned!

@valdai_club

📆 #VALDAI2022: The 19th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone” will be held on October 24-27, 2022 in Moscow.

👥 The meeting will be attended by 111 experts, politicians, diplomats and economists from 41 countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, the United States, Uzbekistan, and others. Much more than usual, there are participants from the Middle East and the Maghreb, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the CIS. At the same time, representatives of a number of Western countries have confirmed their participation.

🌐 A few years ago, the Valdai Club was one of the first to talk about the acceleration of the inevitable breakdown of the current world order and the entire system of political and economic institutions. Today we can say with confidence that this entropy has occurred, the world has entered a period of fundamental changes, and there will be no return to the previous model. Russia, due to its geopolitical and resource-historical position, has been at the centre of events, the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian special operation in Ukraine have accelerated the reorganisation of the world, but Moscow did not start this process, which is of an objective nature.

Although it is impossible to accurately determine the outlines of the future world order, an attempt will be made at the upcoming Valdai Club Annual meeting. Today, not a single country in the world is able to dictate the course of world events and is forced to reckon with the actions of other states — a post-hegemonic world has already arrived; it is already polycentric. The priority of regional non-Western powers is increasingly becoming the protection of their own national interests, providing themselves with maximum freedom of action.

Thus, the theme of this year’s Valdai Club meeting (“justice and security for everyone”) is both a statement that the hegemony of the Western bloc led by the United States has come to an end, and a wish for the future. The former international order was neither fair nor secure, which is largely the cause of the current military-political contradictions.

🎙 The Valdai Club Annual meeting promises to be eventful: a record high of 17 sessions will take place during the working days of the meeting. This year the conference programme is divided into thematic blocks: each day will be devoted to one broad topic — politics, economics or humanitarian issues. The following items are on the agenda:

• Russia in the confrontation with the West;
• The causes and consequences of the current geopolitical crisis around Ukraine;
• The end of globalisation and a new stage in the universal connectivity of the world;
• The return of nuclear weapons in world politics;
• Economic and technological war in new conditions;
• Values and communications in the modern world.

📑 The annual Valdai Club Report “A World Without Superpowers” will be presented at the conference. This year’s report is based on the Valdai Club’s hypothesis about the inevitable oblivion of the “superpower” concept.

💡 Dear media representatives, accreditation is open until 18:00 on October 21. For accreditation, please fill out the form on our website.

Stay tuned for the updates on all online platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, Twitter, VKontakte, Telegram and Zen.

@valdaiclub

📌 #VALDAI2022: Programme of the 19th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club “A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone”

📍Moscow, October 24-27, 2022
 
📆 October 24, Monday

09:30 – 09:40 — Opening of the 19th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club

09:40 – 11:10 — “A World Without Superpowers”: presentation of the Valdai Discussion Club’s annual report

11:30 – 13:00 — Session 1. The Past and the Future. How the Pandemic and the Military-Political Crisis Have Affected the International Situation

General discussion. During the first thematic session of this year, the Club's guests will share their views on what is happening in the world and what development scenarios are possible.

14:30 – 16:00 — Session 2. Cuban Missile Crisis After Sixty Years: Is Nuclear Deterrence Still in Place?

16:30 – 18:00 — Meeting with the leadership of the executive and legislative authorities of the Russian Federation

19:30 – 21:00 — Special session. The Ukrainian Question – Its Origins and Consequences


📆 October 25, Tuesday

09:30 – 11:00 — Meeting with the leadership of the executive and legislative authorities of the Russian Federation

11:30 – 13:00 — Session 3. Economic Warfare as a Defining Trend in Global Development

14:30 – 16:00 — Session 4. Energy and Food Security: Man-Made Challenges of Global Significance

16:30 – 18:00 — Session 5. One World in a New Way: Universal Connectivity Without Global Governance

19:30 – 21:00 — Meeting with the leadership of the executive and legislative authorities of the Russian Federation

 
📆 October 26, Wednesday

09:30 – 11:00 — Session 6. Values in the Modern World. What Is Their Balance for Genuine Equality?

11:30 – 13:00 — Session 7. Crooked Mirror or Last Hope? Communications in a Chaotic World

14:30 – 16:00 — Session 8. Technological Warfare: How Russia Will Develop Under the Western Blockade

16:30 – 18:00 — Session 9. Russia in Times of Mobilization: The Reassembly

19:30 – 21:00 — Special Session. Russia’s Image in the World: Myths and Reality

 
📆 October 27, Thursday

10:00 – 12:00 — Session 10. The World That Crumbled: Lessons for the Future from the 2022 Military-Political Crisis

16:00 — Plenary session

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/programme-of-the-19th-annual-meeting-of-the-valdai-club/

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