👋 Dear friends! Today is Day 4 of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club, titled “Global Shake-Up in the 21st Century: The Individual, Values, and the State”.

📆 October 21, Thursday — Programme

10:00–11:30 — Session 7. Russia as a Solution. What Did the Shocks Teach Russia and How Is This Useful to the World?

This session will be held under the Chatham House Rule. An analytical note following the day’s discussions will be available on our website.

👥 Speakers:

🔹 Valery Fyodorov, Director General, Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM)

🔹 Sergey Karaganov, Academic Supervisor, Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE); Honorary Chairman of the Presidium, Council on Foreign and Defense Policy

🔹 Tigran Khudaverdyan, Deputy CEO, Yandex Group of companies

🔹 Maxim Oreshkin, Aide to the President of the Russian Federation

Moderator:

🚩 Raghida Dergham, Founder and Executive Chairman, Beirut Institute; Columnist, The National, Annahar Al Arabi (Lebanon)

11:30–13:00 — Open Discussion (watch live) — https://bit.ly/3aVQ9WV

Moderator:

🚩 Alexander Rahr, Senior Fellow, WeltTrends Institute for International Politics; Scientific Director, German-Russian forum

❗️17:00 — Plenary session (watch live) — https://bit.ly/3n7ifnM

🔗 Programme of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club

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🎥 LIVE: at 11:30 (Moscow time) the Open Discussion within the framework of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club will start.

Moderator:

🚩 Alexander Rahr, Senior Fellow, WeltTrends Institute for International Politics; Scientific Director, German-Russian forum

🔗 Open Discussion (watch live)

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🧠🏙 What is the main asset in the 21st century that is being fought for? At different times, these were territories, mineral deposits, labour force, transport routes, sometimes even ideological orientations. Now there is a battle for technological primacy, which means intellect, information and the ability to innovate in the broadest sense: from socio-cultural to military. What is the content of this truly "hybrid", nonlinear competition?

👉 We created an animated infographic devoted to the fifth session of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club, titled “What to Fight for? Intellect as the Prime Object of Competition in the 21st Century”.

🔗 Intelligence as the main subject of competition in the 21st century

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🗽❓ Restraining the excesses of liberalism

As the relative power of the West steadily declines, the role of liberalism in domestic and international politics recedes.

After the Cold War, the “end of history” thesis was largely internalised and expressed with the assumption that the entire world would unify under liberal principles, which would be enforced under the benign leadership of the US. As the international distribution of power shifts, Western states have increasingly expressed their concerns about the decline of the so-called “liberal international order”.

Restraining the excesses of liberalism is a positive and necessary correction as unfettered liberalism has undermined domestic and international stability. The system has not self-corrected as liberal ideology has blinded the West by the certainty of its own righteousness.

We have now reached the breaking point where the current state of affairs no longer work, writes Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and participant at the 18th Annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

🔗 Restraining the excesses of liberalism

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🌏 One of the big problems is that the Soviet experience and the “post-Soviet” identity are rapidly becoming obsolete. We need a new ideology for the greater union, in the name of which we may build international cooperation and implement reforms, writes Rakhim Oshakbayev, speaker of the special session “30 years of new Eurasia - results and prospects” at the 18th Annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, Director of the TALAP Center for Applied Research.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/greater-eurasia-30-years-on/

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🎥 LIVE: The Plenary session within the framework of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club “Global Shake-Up in the 21st Century: The Individual, Values, and the State” will start soon.

🔗 The live broadcast in English is available at valdaiclub.com

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🌐 Lessons from the Pandemic and Lessons from History. Day 4 of the Valdai Club Annual Meeting

Traditionally, the culmination of the Annual meeting of the Valdai Club is a plenary session in which the President of Russia participates. This year’s event was no exception. Before that, however, the final, seventh session of the forum was held, titled “Russia as a Solution. What Did the Shocks Teach Russia and How Is This Useful to the World?” It was followed by an open discussion.

🔗 Lessons from the Pandemic and Lessons from History

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🎥 Day 4 of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club started with the session, titled “Russia as a Solution. What Did the Shocks Teach Russia and How Is This Useful to the World?” It was followed by an open discussion. The culmination of the Annual meeting was a traditional plenary session in which the President of Russia participated.

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🤖 It is important who in the world will be the monastery defining technological heresy and dogma.

In any event, the competition between companies and mega-corporations, the rivalry among states, around intelligence and technology have different facets. At the national level, the club of the smartest brains is still very small, but more democratic, than the military technology club.

If a country rushes to be more significant, there is no alternative than to develop technologies and patents, with an emphasis on a certain specialisation, or all at once - if it claims to be a superpower. This resembles  technological napalm.

Therefore, in terms of the logic of power, political relations between states and within states, much less has changed than in instruments. Intelligence, not artificial, but quite natural and trained, will be in maximum demand by states in matters of balancing technology and ethics, and in rule-making.

Whoever is the first to push ethical boundaries with the help of intellect and technology, and then fence them, as was the case with nuclear weapons, has a chance to succeed in fundamentally new technologies that change our way of life and political alignments, writes Anastasia Likhacheva, speaker of Session 5 of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club, Director of the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS).

🔗 Ethics as Applied Intelligence

#VALDAI2021 #intelligence #technologies

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🎥 On October 21 the open discussion among the participants of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club took place. If you missed the live broadcast yesterday, watch the video on our website.

🔗 Open Discussion at the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club

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🎥 Tension between the US and China has been rising over past two years. What is expecting in this relation in future. What are the countries interests in this situation? What consequences of the direct conflict could be?

👉 Thomas Graham, Distinguished Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) (USA), shared his thoughts with valdaiclub.com.

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🎥 According to Thomas Graham, Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (USA), and speaker at the first session of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, it is possible to solve some problems by military force, as did Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh. Small powers can do this, but if big powers engage in conflicts today, the consequences can be devastating. The USA, China, Russia, India, Pakistan – all have nuclear weapons. We need to work out a code of conduct, all major powers must understand the limits of using the military force in a much more competitive world.

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🪆🌎 A conservative foreign policy presupposes reliance on manipulation rather than forceful pressure.

Since this approach is inevitably associated with limited resources, first we must ask the question of their distribution in specific situations.

However, under the pressure of those powers that behave in a revolutionary way, the conductor of a conservative strategy will increasingly face situations that will require him to use force to prevent revolutionary change, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev, who took part in the 18th Annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

🔗 Origins and Challenges of Putin’s Conservative Strategy

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🪆🌎 A conservative foreign policy presupposes reliance on manipulation rather than forceful pressure.

Since this approach is inevitably associated with limited resources, first we must ask the question of their distribution in specific situations.

However, under the pressure of those powers that behave in a revolutionary way, the conductor of a conservative strategy will increasingly face situations that will require him to use force to prevent revolutionary change, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev, who took part in the 18th Annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

🔗 Origins and Challenges of Putin’s Conservative Strategy

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🎥 How have attitudes in the US and the EU changed towards Euro-Atlantic security issues in the 21st century compared to the Cold War period? How are responsibilities now shared among the allies? 

👉 Anatol Lieven, Senior Fellow, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (USA), gave his analyses. He took part in the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

#VALDAI2021 #Europe #EU #ColdWar

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🌳🌐 While environmental social and governance criteria remain context dependent and cannot be universally applied, it is key to balance these factors with real world market realities through a technology agnostic approach, writes Valdai Club expert Christof Van Agt.

🔗 Real World Change on Climate Will Rely on Free Markets, Dialogue, and Solidarity

#climatechange #greeneconomy #VALDAI2021

📷 ©Reuters

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🎥 Is the creation of an EU armed force possible and, if so, when might it happen? 

👉 Anatol Lieven, Senior Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (USA), a participant of the 18th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, answered these and other questions.

#VALDAI2021 #Europe #EU #armedforce

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