🗣 On April, 22, 2024, the Valdai Discussion Club held a special session as part of the International Kant Congress in Kaliningrad, titled “Reason and Progress? History of Civilisations Turned to the Future”. 

📷 Photo gallery

🎥 If you missed the live broadcast of the discussion, watch the video via this link.

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⏰ TODAY at 10:30 Moscow Time (GMT+3) the Valdai Club will host an expert discussion on strategic stability.

❓What is the current state of strategic stability between Russia and NATO, and how can nuclear powers collaborate to ensure strategic stability in today's world?

These and other questions will be addressed by participants in the discussion.

Links 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. 

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🎥 LIVE: at 10:30 Moscow Time (GMT+3) we are starting an expert discussion on strategic stability.

https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239186

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🗣 On April, 24, 2024, the Valdai Discussion Club held an expert discussion on strategic stability.

📷 Photo gallery

🎥 If you missed the live broadcast of the discussion, watch the video via this link.

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🇮🇱 The tense nature of relations between the government of Netanyahu and the administration of Joe Biden, aggravated by the IDF Iron Swords operation in the Gaza Strip and the presidential race in the United States, makes it possible to introduce sanctions against a number of settlers into a broader context.

In this case, the minimum task of these restrictions comes down to an attempt to force the Israeli authorities to act on the Palestinian track in a way that has a positive bearing on the re-election campaign of the current US president. In this case, the formal reason is the situation on the West Bank of the Jordan river, which does not pose an existential threat to Israel and fits into the framework of the traditional views of the Democratic Party on Israeli settlers’ activity as one of the obstacles to a Middle East peace settlement.

The maximum task is to achieve Netanyahu’s departure from the political arena, writes Elizaveta Yakimova.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/israel-how-the-us-uses-sanctions-to-inf/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #Israel #sanctions

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🌐 Is Strategic Stability Possible in a Multipolar World?

On April 24, 2024, the Valdai Club held an expert discussion about the problems and challenges which affect strategic stability.

💬 Moderator Oleg Barabanov called this topic extremely relevant, pointing out that, in addition to the global aspect associated with Russian-American relations, it has begun to acquire a regional dimension.

💬 Dmitry Trenin, Research Professor at the Higher School of Economics, argued that during the mature Cold War, strategic stability came down to the question of how to disincentivise a nuclear first strike. The world as a whole was stable, crises in most cases did not affect the vital interests of the USA and the USSR. Now the situation has changed. Strategic stability in the old sense has been reduced to a technical aspect - preventing the accidental outbreak of nuclear war. In addition, the nuclear world has now become multipolar, and strategic stability now needs to be viewed on a global scale, and not as an element of solely Russian-American relations.

💬 Naeem Salik, Executive Director of the Strategic Vision Institute (Pakistan), considers as important factors the emergence of regional hotbeds of potential conflicts involving nuclear weapons and the collapse of the European security order that emerged after World War II, implying the disappearance of the buffer between NATO and Russia. Instruments which were introduced to maintain stability during the Cold War are ending, new coalitions are emerging, and countries are talking about developing their own nuclear capabilities. Salik believes that the consequences of all this are extremely worrying.

💬 “Nuclear weapons, by their physical nature, are a weapon of escalation,” emphasized Ivan Safranchuk, Director, Leading Researcher at the Centre for Euro-Asian Studies, IMI MGIMO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. During war, its use means a transition to an even more destructive confrontation. In recent decades, the United States has greatly expanded the concept of an acceptable level of pre-nuclear competition with a military component. Now Russia faces the difficult task of returning nuclear deterrence to the pre-nuclear conflict as well.

💬 Almas Haider Naqvi, Foreign Intern at the Faculty of World Politics at Moscow State University, outlined the situation with strategic stability in South Asia. He noted that if Pakistan perceives itself as a country opposing India, then India sees the need to confront both Pakistan and China. This state of affairs creates a kind of “strategic trilemma” - a situation that is extremely difficult from the point of view of strategic stability.

💬 Dmitry Stefanovich, Researcher at the Centre for International Security at IMEMO RAS, pointed out a terminological problem associated with the understanding of strategic stability. This expression is used in a variety of contexts, often as a synonym for international security. Stefanovich proposed to interpret it as a state of relations between two or more states, excluding a massive armed conflict, nuclear or non-nuclear. Strategic stability in this sense is directly related to nuclear deterrence. At the same time, to make deterrence work, arms control is necessary to ensure a certain level of predictability and transparency. This makes it possible to prevent either enemy superiority or an arms race.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/is-strategic-stability-possible-in-a-multipolar-world/

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🌌 The relationship between the modern and the pre-modern is the main issue when exploring the topic of sustainable development of civilisation.

Does civilisational development entail the modern incrementally replacing the pre-modern or must modernity be built on the solid foundation of the pre-modern?

In the pre-modern era, society was organised on the foundation of religion, culture, and tradition to sustain the group identity and collective consciousness. In contrast, modernity is characterised primarily by reason and individualism, which arose with the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and liberal political revolutions.

Liberalism tends to consider civilisational development as the modern replacing the pre-modern. Reason replaces the instinctive, and individualism replaces the communitarian. Liberalism thus often scorns tradition as democracy for the dead as previous generations acquire intrusive influence over the present.

The principal instinct in human nature is to organise in groups for security and meaning — a foundation for a thriving civilisation. From this perspective, modernity can only exist and thrive if it is firmly rooted in the pre-modern, writes Glenn Diesen @glenndiesen.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/civilisational-development-and-the-limits/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #liberalism #modern #WorldOrder

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🗣 #CentralAsianValdai: Programme of the 4th Central Asian Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club “Russia and Central Asia: Development and Security in a Changing World”

📍 Ufa (Sheraton Plaza Hotel, Tsyurupa St., 7), May 14–15, 2024
 
Attention! The time specified in the programme is local (GMT +5)


📆 May 14, Tuesday
 
09:30 – 10:00 — Opening of the conference (live: Russian, English)

10:00 – 11:30 — Session 1. Russia and Central Asia in a Shared Regional System: Bilateral and Multilateral Dimensions (live: Russian, English)

Top experts from Russia and Central Asia will be invited to share their insights on the challenges facing relations between Russia and the states of the region and how they can be overcome to ensure political stability and economic sustainability.

12:00 – 13:30 — Session 2. Security and Extremism: A Set of Challenges to Stability and Development in Central Eurasia

During the session, it is planned to discuss the points of vulnerability in Central Eurasia, in particular the problems of religious and ethnic radicalism, social development issues, and everything that could lead to internal instability and become a basis for external interference.

14:30 – 16:00 — Session 3. Trade and Migration: On the Way to Mutually Beneficial Solutions 

Participants in the session will discuss cooperation between Russia and Central Asian states in trade and migration-related areas, and propose solutions to existing challenges.

16:30 – 18:00 — Session 4. Environment, Climate, Water: A Shared Area for Life in Central Eurasia (live: Russian, English)

Trends in climate change and water resource management in the region, as well as potential bilateral and multilateral measures to address these challenges, will be discussed during the session.
 

📆 May 15, Wednesday
 
09:30 – 11:00 — Open discussion (live: Russian, English)

Guests and participants will have an opportunity to give their own assessment of a number of important topics related to bilateral and multilateral relations between Russia and the Central Asian states during an open discussion.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/programme-of-the-4th-central-asian-conference-of-the-valdai-discussion-club/

#valdai_programme

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🇮🇷🇮🇱 The recent confrontation between Israel and Iran reaffirms the known fact that the policies of these two countries are a major cause of the instability that has plagued the Middle East for decades. 

The Israeli colonial occupation of Palestine and its genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza, on the one hand, and Iran’s interventionist policies and the use of armed militias to expand its influence, on the other, have been a constant source of tension and conflicts. Washington’s total support of Israel has also contributed to the escalation of conflicts in the region.

Iran is aware that Israel will not accept the new reality created by the Saturday night attacks and will not be satisfied with its limited response, especially since targeting the nuclear facility in Isfahan is a message sent by Israel that it can destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, so Tehran will seek to accelerate its enrichment programme to possess a nuclear weapon that will provide it with the only safe guarantee against any aggression that Israel may launch in cooperation with the United States, writes Saleh Muhammad Al-Khathlan, Professor of Political Science and Senior Advisor at the Gulf Research Center, Saudi Arabia.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-israel-iran-conflict-a-view-from-riyadh/

#Return_of_Diplomacy #Iran #Israel

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🌏 The uniqueness of Russia’s geopolitical position lies in the fact that it is the only world power naturally focused on the four most important strategic regions of Eurasia: Western Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Northeast Asia.

When it comes to prioritising foreign policy efforts and interests, these areas represent both a challenge and an opportunity for Russia.

🔹 The military-political conflict with the Western countries, whose main battlefield is Ukraine, now occupies a central place among Russia’s geopolitical priorities since it is directly related to its national security in the most traditional meaning of this concept.

🔹 Cooperation in the Asian region and partnerships with China are connected not only with the fact that Moscow and Beijing have relatively similar views on a fair global order, but also with the absence of serious security challenges to Russia’s territory and population in Asia.

🔹 In Asia, there is no alliance of powers for which the struggle with Russia would mostly determine foreign policy, and the United States, although actively present in the region, does not have organisational and spatial resources there comparable to NATO.

Taking into account how the internal situation is developing in a number of Central Asian countries, we cannot exclude the possibility that in the future, these “allies” of Russia will follow in Armenia’s footsteps.

Whether Russia itself needs this, and what strategy it can offer as a paradoxical answer, we will have to find out in the coming years, Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-southern-circuit-of-russia-new-dynamics/

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