Valdai Club

Creating the space for bridge states to flourish can provide more predictable contours for great power competition and increase the likelihood of compromise in a dangerous world. And by helping to elaborate this feature of the emerging global tapestry, Moscow would demonstrate its status as an order-shaping power of the first degree, writes Zachary Paikin, Senior Researcher in the International Security Dialogue Department at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). This article opens a discussion of the prospects for European security on our website.

When imagining a list of the central norms enshrined in the contemporary international order, the most elementary principles usually come to mind: sovereign equality, the territorial integrity of states, national self-determination, multilateralism, rules-based interaction, and respect for international law.