Valdai Club

Diplomacy remains a fundamental component of power, a way to convert all types of state resources into influence. Conducting research into diplomacy practices is all the more important today because the crumbling, hegemonic world order is yielding to polycentricity, which has led to increased rivalry between states, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

The United States seems to be embarked on a heated rematch between two leaders who, despite their different personalities, respective supporter bases and ideological standpoints, have very little to offer in the way of a new relationship between the United States and its southern neighbours. Rather, both a Democrat or a Republican Administration will likely just be concerned with maintaining most of the region in line with its foreign policy objectives, aligned with the US in face of non-continental actors, and distant from alternative forms of regional organisation that exclude the US.

The rational, fact-finding line that the Russian government is now taking will inevitably lead us to the point where we will know exactly who ordered this crime. We see a significant distance between how calmly and rationally (as much as is possible in this situation), the investigators of our country conducted themselves, and how our Western opponents are trying to present us with their pseudo-reality, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

If the Yemenis do not succeed in making Israel back down in its war on Palestine, they have met a geopolitical objective: by demonstrating the effectiveness of the alliance of certain countries in the Global South to counter the Western military coalitions that have been trying to establish their rules since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Today the Middle East can be described as independent and sovereign. The relations of powers with each other and intraregional processes will determine the nature of regional politics to a much greater extent than the West’s previous relations with regional powers, Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov writes.

During a series of Cold War crises, rivalry remained constrained by certain rules. We see that even at the peak of our confrontation with the United States in Ukraine, there are rules governing this confrontation. Similar things can be seen in US relations with China. This does not mean that the UN will remain unchanged, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Andrey Sushentsov.

With the rejection of the proposed Treaty between the US and Russia on Security Guarantees and agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of Russia and the Member States of NATO, both of which were sent by Russia as ultimatums in December 2021, US “arrogance” finally led to the European security crisis, writes Sung-Hoon Jeh, Head of the Department of Russian Studies at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS)

The future is always full of uncertainty, and only a handful of great people can accurately predict the future. As an academic, I have many worries about the future, wars, famines, climate disasters, viruses, economic decline, etc. However, I still hope that the world will be better in 2040. In 2040, the global economy will be even larger, capable of addressing the problem of world poverty, which now directly affects 1 billion people, writes Wang Wen, the Professor and Executive Dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. This article was prepared for the Valdai Club Youth Conference.


Scientific progress through the global knowledge commons has afforded us the evolutionary capacity to create technological solutions to endure the challenges presented by our ecology and to secure our very survival. But we need to recognise the combined yet uneven distribution of productive capabilities which excludes the global majority from sharing in the benefits of our collective ingenuity, writes Rasigan Maharajh, Chief Director of the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation at the Tshwane University of Technology (South Africa). This article is based on his presentation at the Valdai Club’s Youth Conference as part of the World Youth Festival

Youth communities play an extremely important role in the process of forming a sober understanding of the world. At the Valdai Club conference in Sochi, young experts will gain useful experience engaging in personal communication with international experts, young ambitious people who see their task as influencing the development of the world.

The study of diplomatic practices is crucial as the international order transitions from hegemony to polycentricity, intensifying rivalry between states. This paper represents a preliminary exploration of the training of international analysts and diplomatic personnel worldwide, conducted by MGIMO University. The contributors assert that the quality of diplomatic training holds significant importance in enabling nation-states to attain autonomy and agency in the evolving polycentric world order.

The multipolar landscape of 2040 will resemble a sandbox, offering people the state as just one among various available choices, albeit one that remains the most common.