Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club; expert in international relations and journalist based in Moscow
The world as we know it in the third decade of the 21st century is no more global but still interconnected. As countries are creating barriers and dividing lines, national borders acquire more and more significance. Nation states are reasserting their role as the main actor in international politics.
Two trends can be observed as Russia and the West find themselves entangled in military-political confrontation. On the one hand, the United States is increasingly dominating the western bloc, where other countries can hardly claim strategic autonomy. On the other hand, the World Majority countries are demonstrating a degree of agency in international affairs that is unattainable for nations aligned with western military and political institutions.
Apart from making independent military-political and economic decisions, this agency means the readiness of nation states to defend their identities and their own sets of values, with the voice of middle and small powers becoming more and more prominent.