🇮🇱 It can be expected that the Israeli economy, in the event of a protracted confrontation with Hamas, will face difficulties that were generally characteristic earlier, during the period of the Al-Aqsa intifada.

By the end of the second quarter of 2023, protest activity and the delayed consequences of the pandemic had revealed a number of problems that could be layered on top of the typical difficulties for the Israeli economy during the escalation periods in the Middle East conflict.

However, there are also what could be called “anchors of stability”, that enable the state to cope with current challenges, albeit not without losses, writes Elizaveta Yakimova.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-economics-of-conflict-the-impact-of-the-war/

#EconomicStatecraft #Israel #economy

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🏆 The annual Nobel Prize award ceremony attracts the wider attention of world public opinion to science and literature for a week.

Every time the chances are discussed, and bets are even placed with bookmakers. Then everything calms down — until the next year.

For Russia, both within officialdom and outside it, this is sometimes accompanied by nervous anticipation of who will be elected this time and how it will affect the domestic political agenda, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Oleg Barabanov.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/nobel-prizes-and-russia/

#Norms_and_Values #NobelPrize

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⚔️ The redistribution of power and influence in the world, along with the shifting power dynamics among major nations, has become the catalyst for extremely acute differences between them.

As these differences intensify, they engulf ideology, the economy, and scientific-technical and humanitarian ties. Factors that used to prevent major powers from escalation in the past are weakening. These countries are now facing a real threat of large-scale non-nuclear conflicts against comparable adversaries, for the first time since the 1960s.

The prevailing form of conflict between great powers will be proxy wars of a new type, namely, large conflicts in which a major nuclear power grants its client access to its information capabilities (satellite reconnaissance and targeting, communication infrastructure, etc.), as well as military technology and expertise, and, if necessary, carries out limited direct intervention in the conflict where it will not provoke nuclear escalation.

However, the threat of a direct military clash between great powers and nuclear war will persist and, perhaps, become even more acute than during the Cold War.

The key goal of diplomacy in this new world will be to develop a toolkit that will make it possible to endure decades of turbulence without nuclear bombardment. This can only be achieved within the framework of rigorous foreign policy realism, write the authors of a new Valdai Report, titled “Warfare in a New Epoch: The Return of Big Armies.”

https://valdaiclub.com/a/reports/warfare-in-a-new-epoch-the-return-of-big-armies/

🎥 The presentation of the report took place on October 18. Watch the video recording on our website.

#ModernDiplomacy #valdai_report #ProxyWar #warfare #WorldOrder

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🧨 Several crises in the post-World War II period had the real potential of escalating into a full-fledged, protracted war, possibly followed by nuclear escalation. Both the Korean War and the armed conflict in Ukraine are conflicts over the future of the world order.

Especially for the new Valdai Report, titled “Warfare in a New Epoch: The Return of Big Armies,” we created an infographic on major wars and conflicts in the post-World War II period. The full infographic is available on the website.

#valdai_infogaphics #war #MilitaryConflict

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🗺️ In the new international environment, geopolitics is increasingly beginning to determine the structure of economic interaction in the world.

We are inside a large long-term political cycle that will last in different countries, political circles and national elites. There are estimates that the current geopolitical crisis will last at least several years: in open American sources, the top officials have specified a period of 6-7 years. This sets a certain predictability for the development of events, although it does not make the situation simpler.

Just a year ago, business circles in different countries found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that geopolitics now determines the global economy. We have seen energetic attempts to unite industrialists and entrepreneurs in European countries to challenge the political vector that their government has chosen.

In Germany we observed clear public disagreement with this course on the part of individual leaders of particular states, who are interested in interaction with Russia. However, this has not affected the general strategic vector of the German government, which runs counter to the opinion of the country’s own businesses; many believe this is suicidal for the German economy.

The United States feels comfortable in the current prolonged crisis. An extremely important American goal is to eliminate any impulses of autonomy on the European continent, which are expected mostly from the countries of Western Europe.

However, non-Western states, with interests which are different from those of Europe and the United States, are ready to come up with their own ideas about how this crisis should be resolved, writes Andrey Sushentsov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/who-is-better-prepared-for-a-long-geopolitical/

#ModernDiplomacy #geopolitics #WorldOrder

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

🎥 LIVE: at 16:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will present its new report titled “Warfare in a New Epoch: The Return of Big Armies.”

https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239144

#ModernDiplomacy #valdai_report #ProxyWar #warfare #WorldOrder

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📷 On October 18, 2023, the Valdai Club presented its new report titled “Warfare in a New Epoch: The Return of Big Armies.”

Photo gallery of the discussion is available in this album.

The video of the discussion is available via this link.

Stay tuned!

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⚔️ Brave Old World: Wars and Historical Normality Without Rose-Coloured Spectacles

On October 18, the Valdai Club presented a report, titled “Warfare in a New Epoch: The Return of Big Armies”. 

💬 The moderator was Andrey Sushentsov, programme director of the Club. He emphasised that the conflict in Ukraine refutes a concept that had prevailed for a long time, according to which modern warfare is a war with small forces, adding that it demonstrates the relevance of large military units. “War remains the same phenomenon that we have observed for centuries. The dominant view in recent years was an illusion,” he concluded.

💬 Co-author of the report Vasily Kashin, Director of the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, noted that the events in Ukraine illustrate that conflicts involving states are becoming larger in scale, pursuing more decisive goals and demonstrating the readiness of all players to make sacrifices that for a long time were considered impossible. This is due to the changing balance of power in the world. External crises are accompanied by internal ones. As a result, conflicts are escalating around the world. According to him, the big countries will have to return to the basics of military-economic planning that were generally accepted in the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.

💬 Lieutenant general (ret.) Evgeniy Buzhinsky, Chairman of the PIR Center Council, pointed out that when in the 2000s Russia suspended the CFE Treaty due to its inconsistency with modern realities, and the process of understanding the new situation began, the expert community spoke not about the scale and duration of conflicts, but about new categories of weapons. Tank battles and artillery duels in Europe seemed unthinkable. “The Ukrainian conflict has shown: the tanks are back, the artillery is back,” he said. According to Buzhinsky, in the next wars, whatever they may be, all current means of armed struggle will remain, but on a qualitatively new level.

💬 Gregory Simons, an independent expert from Sweden, drew parallels between the conflict in Ukraine and the Iran-Iraq war. In his opinion, Iraq was not a subject, but an object in the war and was forced to rely entirely on American support. Similarly, Ukraine is now not a subject, but an object against the backdrop of US attempts to block the movement towards a multipolar world. American politicians, ignoring the media rhetoric about moral confrontation, quite frankly say that they perceive this conflict as a means to wear Russia down.

💬 Dmitry Stefanovich @stratdela, a researcher at the Centre for International Security at IMEMO RAS, noted that the role of external support is important both in the current conflicts and in future conflicts. If this support is not stopped in one way or another, then the conflict can become extremely long-lasting. He also pointed to the high level of transparency in modern conflicts and the enormous amount of available data. However, how much this data helps one get the real picture is not clear: the data is too easy to manipulate. It is even difficult to say how to measure the potentials of the parties at war. In addition, Stefanovich raised the possibility of long-term support for the defence industry and big armies.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/brave-old-world-wars-and-historical-normality-without-rose-coloured-spectacles/

#ModernDiplomacy #valdai_report #ProxyWar #warfare #WorldOrder

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🗣 On October 16–17, 2023, the Valdai Discussion Club and the Institute for Strategic and Interregional Studies (ISMI) under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan held a conference in Khiva, Uzbekistan on the topic “Russia and Uzbekistan: Common Challenges and New Solutions”.

The participants discussed issues on the bilateral agenda of Russian-Uzbek relations in the context of growing interdependence.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/russia-and-uzbekistan-common-challenges-and-new-solutions-an-expert-discussion/

#Valdai_ThinkTank #valdaiclub #Uzbekistan

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🇷🇺🌏 Over the past decades, Russia’s policy in Asia has fallen loosely into the so-called “Asian Paradox.”

This term that became popular in academic and expert circles in the 1990s. In other words, it can be described as “hot economics and cold politics”, a pattern characteristic of Asia, where difficult and often toxic political relations between countries go hand in hand with close trade, economic and investment cooperation.

There are two prerequisites that led to the current situation.

1️⃣ First, the largest sub-regions (South, Southeast and Northeast Asia) were not of existential importance for Russia to the same extent as Europe or the post-Soviet space. As a result, Russia has never been involved in political and economic processes in Asia as thoroughly as in Europe or the former Soviet republics.

2️⃣ Second, a specific and at the same time strategic asset of Russia for a long time was the absence (with the exception of relations with Japan) of any serious contradictions relevant for maintaining a bilateral dialogue. Relations were devoid of severe historical trauma, as well as territorial and other disputes regarding the most sensitive issues. This favourably distinguished Russia from other major players – the USA and China.

The peculiarity of Russian participation in Asia is that it has not only refused to accept the classic formula of the Asian paradox, but also promoted alternative models of interaction.

The classic model of the “Asian paradox” in the current conditions is not applicable for Russia’s interaction with all major countries in the region. Moreover, Asia itself and the balance of power in the region have undergone changes, taking into account the active rise of China and India and a number of regional and global trends, Alexander Korolev writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/new-paradoxes-of-russian-policy-in-asia/

📑 Read more on Russia-Asia relations in the Valdai Report, titled “Russia and Asia: The Paradoxes of a New Reality”

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Asia #Russia #WorldOrder

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🌎 As our world progresses into a new world order described by some as “fair multipolarity”, we must acknowledge that such a transformation will not be met without resistance by the forces wishing to maintain a unipolar world order that is no longer sustainable. 

We can come to three important conclusions at this conjuncture: 
 
1️⃣ First, as long as the US uses unilateral coercive measures as a foreign policy tool, it will continue to employ them in attempts to control the energy market and to prevent competitors from having access to resources that could help them surpass US development in key areas. 

2️⃣ Second, there is a “new Washington consensus” promoted by US national security strategists directed at building back US technological leadership through public investment used to finance a military-industrial policy where access to oil is key. For this purpose, political and military pressures will be employed along with the sanctions toolkit. 

3️⃣ And finally, in light of this new policy, countries must build geopolitical alternatives that diminish US influence on energy markets and financial transactions.

It is through decisive and concerted action by the countries most affected by unilateralism that we can advance towards the global equilibrium that the world requires, writes Carlos Ron, Venezuela’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America and President of the Simon Bolivar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-continuous-political-and-military-threats/

#ModernDiplomacy #multipolarity #Venezuela

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🌏🌎 Events in the Middle East have pushed the fighting in Ukraine to the background of the media agenda.

Meanwhile, the development of the situation there hardly speaks in favour of the strength of the post-bipolar status quo. A sign of such strength could be Russia's return to the status of a defeated power and the final consolidation of the results of the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the facts tell a different story.

The widely advertised and expensively purchased offensive of the Ukrainian army has not met its objectives. The Russian army is slowly but inevitably increasing pressure at the front. Economic sanctions did not lead to the collapse of the Russian economy. Despite extensive damage, it quickly adapts to new conditions. The West also failed to isolate Russia politically.

For the Western partners of the Ukrainian authorities, the conflict is becoming more and more expensive. Its price may increase in the future, taking into account the knocking out of Soviet-made equipment from the armed forces of Ukraine and the growing need for new supplies. Ukraine's economy also requires external injections amid military losses, demographic failure and persistent governance problems, including corruption.

If the Ukrainian conflict was the only problem for the United States in controlling the post-bipolar order, then there might be fewer risks for it.

The bottom line is that the tactical gains from the conflict in Ukraine turn into a major diplomatic defeat for Washington in the form of an increase in the number of influential opponents where there were all the conditions to avoid this. For the EU, the strategic costs of the conflict, despite its tactical advantages, have turned out to be even greater.

It cannot be ruled out that in such conditions the United States and its allies will reconsider their ideas about defeating Russia in the Ukrainian conflict at any cost. The big question is how Moscow will reconsider its approache, writes Ivan Timofeev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/from-the-middle-east-to-ukraine-a-milestone/

#EconomicStatecraft #conflicts #WorldOrder

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🌐 The discussion about the “polarity” of the international order has been dominant for several decades in the academic science of international relations, expert statements and, of course, statements by political figures.

It is equally popular both among those who seek to preserve the unjust international order of the past and those who call for its change for the sake of a better, more just global order.

Now discussions about the coming multipolarity have become so universal, that only American intellectuals, who remain faithful to the idea of complete US domination over the rest of the world, do not participate in them. The role of those who are looking for compromise solutions is assigned to their closest satellites in Europe. They talk about the onset of a “new bipolarity” based on a comparison of the combined capabilities of China and the United States.

At the same time, those who actively talk specifically about the coming of a multipolar world, and this is not only Moscow and Beijing, but also many other states of the World Majority, imply a greater democratisation of international politics; the disappearance of dictatorship as such from it. Although, strictly speaking, in its academic version the theory that world politics is locked to “poles” does not imply any democracy. 

The discussion about the “poles” constantly takes the academic community away from studying the reality of world politics, forcing it to concentrate on a plot that has little to do with the changes that shape international life, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/beyond-the-vanishing-poles-the-pitfalls/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #WorldOrder #multipolarity

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📆 ANNOUNCEMENT: On October 26 at 12:00 noon Moscow time, the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion dedicated to the protest movement in Africa.

There have been coups or attempted coups in several African countries at once. In past years, the continent experienced a similar practice: high turbulence and intense internal political struggle. The rebels are not stopped either by sanctions or by the termination of their states’ membership in the African Union and subregional organisations in Africa.

Are these coups related to a struggle for power among the political and military elite? Or do they reflect protest sentiments in society within these states? Their low standard of living, high corruption among the ruling circles, and inability to ensure internal peace and security are among the many reasons to protest. The organisers of the coups highlighted ideological and value-related aspects. In the countries of Francophone Africa, they voiced their intention to abandon practices associated with the neocolonialism of their former metropole, as well as the authorities controlled by it. Russian flags could be seen at rallies supporting the coup in Niger.

❓What are the reasons for the series of coups in Africa?
❓What will be the consequences for the region and the world as a whole?
❓How will the existing balance of power on the continent and the foreign policy of African countries change?
❓What role does the fight against neocolonialism play?
❓How significant is the pro-Russian factor in shaping public opinion in Africa?

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

🎙️ Speakers:

🇷🇺 Elena Kharitonova, Senior Researcher at the Institute of African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Member of the Board of the Strategic Agency for the Development of Relations with African Countries (SAROSA)

🇷🇺 Konstantin Pantserev, Professor of the Department of Theory and History of International Relations, Faculty of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University

🇲🇱 Aliou Tounkara, Member of the Mali Parliament, former Head of the African Unity Club of the African Diaspora in St. Petersburg

🇳🇬 Marius Okoli, Head of the Organisation “Community of Nigerian Citizens” for the Support and Social Adaptation of Nigerian Citizens Living Outside its Borders

🇰🇪 Israel Nyaburi Nyadera, Lecturer at Edgerton University (Kenya)

🇧🇫 Lassina Zerbo, Prime Minister of Burkina Faso (2021–2022), former Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO)

Moderator:

🗣 Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club

Working languages: Russian, English.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/announcements/valdai-club-to-discuss-protest-movements-in-africa/

ℹ️ Information for the media: Dear journalists, in order to be accredited for the event, In order to get accredited for the event, please fill out the form on our web site. If you have any questions about the event, please call +79269307763.

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

#Norms_and_Values #Africa

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🌏 Starting January 1, 2024, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, the UAE, Egypt and Iran will officially join the association. Together with the founders of BRICS, these states comprise almost half of the world's population.

BRICS, after many years of self-identification and development, has acquired the status of a new multipolar (inter-civilizational) centre of power and attraction. Apparently, the further assembly of a new system of international relations will be carried out via the BRICS+ platform. Perhaps this is the first time in modern history that such a large-scale association has taken place without the participation of representatives of the so-called collective West.

Russia has a historical chance to focus on its own interests, to acquire partners and allies with whom it is possible to build truly mutually beneficial relations, write Evgeny Tipailov and Ivan Angulo.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/russia-brics-the-whole-world-and-a-positive-image/

#EconomicStatecraft #BRICS

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🌏 The heart of Asia will continue to beat in unison with Russia’s. 

Over the past 30 years, the Central Asian states have established independent political and economic ties throughout the world. Promising integration processes launched at the initiative of the President of Uzbekistan in 2017 have radically changed the atmosphere in the region. The united voice of Central Asia is increasingly heard on international platforms.

At the same time, being the geopolitical core of Eurasia and located between major world civilisational centres, Central Asia is an object of growing attraction for many powers and forces. This, among other things, confirms the growth of the 5+1 formats, which have no analogues in international relations.

The development of events convinces us that the goal of extra-regional players is to penetrate as deeply as possible into the Central Asian countries. Through the “Global Gate”, “Greater Central Asia” or other structures, they draw them into the orbit of Western values and strategic influence in order to use the region as a platform for their games against Russia and China.

Over the years of the countries’ independence, the five have determined their true friends. For example, it is quite acceptable to assert that the Russia-Central Asia-China connection is a completely tangible positive phenomenon of modern international life. 

It is important not to miss the strategic initiative, to strengthen all corners of this stable triangle, including within the framework of the SCO, writes Rashid Alimov, Professor at the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan and at the Taihe Institute (China), Doctor of Political Sciences, SCO Secretary-General (2016–2018).

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-space-of-the-former-ussr-lessons-from-the-past/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #VALDAI2023 #Eurasia

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⏰ TODAY at 12:00 noon Moscow time, the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion dedicated to the protest movement in Africa.

❓What are the reasons for the series of coups in Africa?
❓What will be the consequences for the region and the world as a whole?
❓How will the existing balance of power on the continent and the foreign policy of African countries change?
❓What role does the fight against neocolonialism play?
❓How significant is the pro-Russian factor in shaping public opinion in Africa?

Participants in 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, VKontakte, Telegram and Dzen. 

#Norms_and_Values #Africa

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