Valdai Discussion Club

On September 16, the Valdai Club hosted a presentation of the analytical paper titled “Maritime Geopolitics of the Pacific and Indian Oceans: A View from Moscow”, prepared ahead of the Russian-Indonesian Seminar in Jakarta. The moderator was Oleg Barabanov, Programme Director of the Valdai Club. Lyudmila Vorobyova, Director of the Third Asian Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, briefly spoke about Russian-Indonesian cooperation, describing Indonesia as a time-tested partner for…

The presence of colossal stockpiles of nuclear weapons in two or three great military powers reduces the likelihood of a general war in its traditional sense. However, the state of “a world that will not be at peace” promised by George Orwell also looks like it is balancing on the edge of something that would render any theoretical constructions meaningless, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev. In the year…

Russian-Indonesian seminar of the Valdai Discussion Club, the National Archives of Indonesia and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation  On September 24, the Valdai Discussion Club, together with the National Archives of Indonesia and the Federal Archival Agency of the Russian Federation, will hold a Russian-Indonesian seminar titled “Indonesia – Russia: From the Past to the Future, History and Prospects”. The event will be held in Jakarta (Indonesia). …

On September 9, the Valdai Discussion Club presented the report “Neither East, Nor West: How Iran’s Economy Copes With Sanctions”. The discussion was moderated by Ivan Timofeev, the Club’s programme director, who noted that Iran remains one of the key cases for those studying the use of sanctions, and that Iran’s experience is extremely important for Russia. Timofeev emphasised that, while this experience cannot be copied literally, it requires careful,…

The European Union has already militarised Ukraine to the breaking point. It is logical that, out of supposed fear of Russia, the countries of the European Union, which form the first line of contact with Russia from the Baltic to the Black Sea, would embrace additional militarisation. The transformation of the European Union into a defence union is certain to lead to the further militarisation of Europe, Aleksandar Raković writes.…

Minimising the number of one’s enemies while multiplying one’s number of friends is a basic principle of diplomacy that has existed for centuries. The simplicity of the principle itself is more than compensated by the complexity of its practical implementation. In international relations, the price of friendship may be too high, limiting freedom of manoeuvre, while open hostility brings existing contradictions to the limit, radically resolving them in favour of…

The Houthis have turned the Red Sea into a no-go zone for Western ships and for vessels carrying goods to and from Western markets. With naval traffic decreasing in the main sea of globalisation, and with other routes being challenged by climate change and other factors, new opportunities for world trade are arising in Asia. The Houthis, so far, have caused more damage to Israel than Hamas and Hezbollah combined.…

A hundred years ago, the German army was in many ways similar to today's Bundeswehr. The armed forces of the Weimar Republic were small in number, had a radically reduced material and technical base, were recruited on a voluntary basis and, despite all this, remained an expensive burden for Berlin. The Treaty of Versailles limited Germany's military ambitions, guaranteeing France and Great Britain protection from German revanchism. The members of…

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Moscow, his first visit to Russia in five years, signifies the strategic importance India places in its relationship with Russia. This visit comes at a crucial time when India is perceived to be tilting towards the West, especially in the context of its foreign policy, which is aimed at counterbalancing China's influence. The visit underscores the multifaceted and evolving nature of India-Russia ties, which…

The world has been and continues to be driven by three famous elements of Realism; “self-help, statism, and survival,” writes Major General (Retd) Raza Muhammad, President of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute. Historical Background For centuries, military alliances have remained a fundamental aspect of statecraft and international relations. The rise of collective security in the face of the larger powers in ancient Greece formed the bedrock of military alliances and…

Based on the foregoing, and taking into account countries’ experiences between 1992, when the unipolar world was established, and 2024 – namely, that the initiators of draft resolutions in the UN Security Council on restrictive measures were Western countries, we can assume that such attempts will continue in the future; we should not expect changes in Western sanctions policy, Milana Živanović writes. On May 30, 1992, amid the war in…

The Republic of Belarus has clearly expressed a desire to cooperate and build relationships in its foreign policy. As a country with an open economy (export quota exceeds 50%), Belarus has long been actively involved in various integration associations in the region (the CIS, EAEU, and the Union State of Belarus and Russia), international organisations (CSTO) and initiatives (for example, China’s Belt and Road). At the same time, the range…

There are various theories explaining the motivation of both the past and current leadership of Israel to follow the path of economic rapprochement with the enemy in the regional conflict. According to the political interpretation, the desire to slow down the emergence of a Palestinian state is to blame. Following this logic, the Israeli authorities continued to refrain from changing the established practice, for fear of creating the illusion of…

Over the past several years, we have observed an increasing rapprochement between Russia and Iran in different areas - political, geostrategic, military, economic, trade and transport. It is not only notable at the level of rhetoric; it is also being expressed in concrete steps. However, we see that a series of visits by Russian delegations to Tehran have produced limited results. What could this be connected with? How can one…

SCO, NATO and the Fate of International Cooperation. Part 1The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, unlike NATO, is not underscored by decades of tradition or any fundamental philosophy. It did not grow out of the experience of several centuries of interaction between states with relatively similar internal orders and a similar view of the world. Moreover, at first glance, the SCO member countries have little need for cooperation among themselves as a…

Coalition Politics and The Rise of the Opposition With a coalition government steering foreign policy, questions have arisen about its coherence and impact. History offers some insights. In 2008, the Manmohan Singh government faced challenges due to a coalition partner's opposition to the US nuclear deal. However, experts believe the current situation might be different. Ambassador Shyam Saran, former Foreign Secretary of India, has emphasised that a coalition's success in foreign…

Good business opportunitiesThe framework conditions for the nuclear lobby in Europe have rarely been as favourable as they are at present. The explanation is simple: if the EU wants to reduce energy imports from third countries, it must significantly increase its own energy production. In 2022, the EU's energy dependency totalled 63%, meaning that it must cover more than half of its energy needs using imports. In addition to Germany,…

In July 2024, we witnessed two international summits which were of fundamental importance regarding how the space around Russia and throughout Eurasia will develop: that of the North Atlantic Alliance in Washington (July 9-11) and that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Astana (July 3-4). These organisations are almost total opposites: NATO is an old military alliance created in the very first years of the Cold War, while the SCO…

On August 16, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion, “Sanctions against Russia – from here to eternity?” Moderator Ivan Timofeev noted that despite the legal possibility of lifting unilateral restrictive measures, the reasons for their introduction against Russia remain and are getting worse. Accordingly, he added, Russia will probably live under sanctions for decades.Dmitry Birichevsky, Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, emphasised that…

Recently, the West convened the so-called “Ukraine Peace Summit” in Switzerland. The event intended to address internal and external issues, but failed on both fronts due to its reliance on an escalation strategy. Internally, the summit aimed to function as a form of "collective catharsis," placing blame on Moscow for the problems faced by Western countries. This was an attempt to justify socio-economic difficulties to their citizens, such as rising…

In this case, the relations of the same states may change as a result of the change of their representatives in negotiations. With one president (or minister), the factor of personal trust contributes to the success of negotiations, while with another leader of the same country, personal distrust undermines this. As an example, Donald Trump’s famous phrase “I had no wars. I’m the only president in 72 years, I didn’t…

Trump changed the approach to China both at the doctrinal level and at the level of practical policy. In doctrinal terms, Trump exacerbated all the comments that were previously made about the PRC in a cautious and delicate manner: China is an authoritarian country with a communist regime that has little in common with American values. The rise of the PRC is a problem and a challenge for the United…

A careful reading of the Iranian new president’s political positions demonstrates that he is seeking for an “accommodation” in foreign policy through constructing a political consensus in the domestic politics, bridging the reformist and conservative forces, Kayhan Barzegar writes. On July 5, 2024, Masoud Pezeshkian was elected as the 14th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. During the presidential champions, he emphasized that he would try to remove the…

Turkey has successfully promoted its own multilateral format, the Organisation of Turkic States, which has gradually grown from a platform for dialogue into a full-fledged organisation promoting close cooperation in a wide variety of areas. Turkey has set quite ambitious goals for itself — turning it into a Turkic-speaking analogue of the EU. Turkey seeks to implement the concept of “Great Turan”, uniting the Turkic peoples around itself under the…

Since the major part of Iran’s trade with Russia takes place with the western, more densely populated part of this country, including the cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Rostov and the North Caucasus, the main route of trade and transit between the two countries necessarily passes through the Republic of Azerbaijan. Given these circumstances, the lack of a direct rail route has had a very negative impact on the…

There are even two new BRICS members in this situation: Ethiopia and Egypt, the latter of which, as well as being a BRICS member, is also a member of the NDB, which has another member, Bangladesh, in the same situation. Ethiopia declared a default on its debt services in December 2023 (US$ 31 million) and is being pressured by the Paris Club to guarantee a US$ 3.5 billion loan with…

Politicians in American partner countries are obviously concerned that a new wave of crisis of investor confidence, provoked by the United States, will spread to their jurisdictions. Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak has repeatedly called for countries “to be bolder” in the confiscation of Russian assets; however, the confiscation bill introduced in Parliament was rejected, and representatives of the House of Lords, the Bank of England and many British…

The Second Russian-African Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club was held at a high academic level and aroused wide media interest both in Russia and Tanzania. The African participants of the conference expressed a strong interest in continuing this work. In late July 2024, the Valdai Discussion Club held its Second Russian-African Conference. A year ago, ahead of the Russia-Africa Summit, the club organised the first conference of this kind…

The reaction of Moscow, Pyongyang and Beijing, voiced essentially in unison by states which are organisationally independent and despite the lack of any special coordination on their part, is not only not accidental, it is quite natural: it reflects a common or very similar vision of strategic threats and challenges to their own national security both in the East Asian region and in the world as a whole, Alexander Vorontsov…

Cooperation between Russia and African countries in the field of cloud technologies seems quite promising. The fact is that in Africa there is a great need for such cloud technology solutions, since today many government agencies in African countries are forced, for the most part, to use Google’s cloud services, which do not guarantee data confidentiality, in order to organise effective collaboration with files and documents. In this regard, an…

Speaking at the Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed the key principles of the security architecture of Eurasia. The idea itself was voiced in the president’s message to the Federal Assembly on February 29. It is highly likely that it will become one of the supporting structures of the new Russian vision of security on the continent. The principles revealed by the president indicate…

A Pyrrhic victory for the left The proportional European elections in June 2024 brought a clear victory to the National Rally (31%, versus just 14% for the President’s party), the main opposition force in France. This was already a very strong signal to abandon the EU at a time when the European Commission, with the support of Macron, was preparing to create a supranational European federal state. The French President…

This year marks the start of a new period of changes in modern history. We are certainly sailing into unchartered waters in times of a great transition, whereby extra caution must be taken by all nations, big and small, to guide our way forward. Nelson Wong writes on the causes of geopolitical shifts and on Putin’s six principles. The unfolding of events in recent years confirms that we are entering…

Geography is history in space, and history is geography in time. In the context of deglobalisation, the relationships between space and time have become much more complex and interesting. A recent commentary by Natalia Rutkevich drew attention to the profound changes in the territorial organisation of France under the influence of globalisation. Many studies have been devoted to these changes, of which I would like to especially note the book…

Any successful development of the Middle Corridor will at best take years and at worst remain uncertain, Franz J. Marty writes. The Middle Corridor, a transport corridor meant to connect China to Europe via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus, and the Black Sea, has received increasing attention and is often displayed as a main future thoroughfare and replacement for the Northern Corridor between China and Europe, which goes…

The West, led by the US, has been the main global rule-maker for decades. However, the ‘Rest’ have not been satisfied with the global rules made by the West. In order to address how we must develop an alternative world order, we need to understand the shortcomings of the one which currently exists. The main problems with the present international order are not with its values or institutions, but with…

On July 24, 2024, the Valdai Discussion Club will hold the 2nd African Conference, titled “Russia – Africa: Strategy for Cooperation in a Multipolar World.” The first African conference was held a year ago in St. Petersburg on the eve of the Russia-Africa summit. Now, for the first time, the Valdai Club Conference will take place on African soil. It will be held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania with the…

We can assume that the new Iranian president and his pro-reform team will strive to pursue a more balanced foreign policy course; without highlighting any of its directions, it will advance where circumstances allow, without crossing the “red lines” outlined by Iran’s top leadership, Alexander Maryasov writes. The victory of the moderate reformer Masoud Pezeshkian in Iran’s early presidential elections came as a surprise to many, both in the Islamic…

On July 19, the Valdai Club held an expert discussion dedicated to the 2nd Russian-African Conference, titled “Russia – Africa: A strategy for cooperation in a multipolar world,” which will take place on July 24 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Moderator Oleg Barabanov invited participants to discuss how Russian foreign policy with regards to Africa is developing and what tasks it sets for itself.Oleg Ozerov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Ministry…

Russia-Africa relations have become more substantive and regular over the past year, with development strategies, plans, roadmaps and summit meetings, that have become regular despite the challenges and plans for annual Russia-Africa ministerial conferences. The range of the key Russian actors in Africa has changed, the list of Russia’s privileged African partners has been expanded and Russia’s contribution to the sovereignty and development of African countries has become more substantial.…