From 28 September to 1 October 2026, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club is taking place under the theme: “Responsibility for the Future: Limits of the Possible, or Limitless Possibilities?” The Club’s flagship conference brings together 120 participants from 40 countries, including Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

You can watch the live broadcast of the plenary session of the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on our website on October 1.

Last year, participants in the Annual Meeting discussed the factors that enable states to remain resilient amid ongoing change. Today, the organisers believe that, despite the crisis in the global order and the unprecedented escalation of conflicts, it is important to continue analysing what the future may look like in order to be able to influence the process of shaping it.

The issue of responsibility for the future has been a central theme, shaping the agenda of Valdai events throughout the year. Participants in the Annual Meeting will continue to discuss the question of how manageable and predictable international affairs can be against the backdrop of the crisis facing multilateral institutions. The organisers propose that participants in the 23rd Annual Meeting consider the possible consequences of escalating the military and political situation, the restructuring of trade and economic ties, and the introduction of new technologies, as well as discuss the responsibility of states and their role in the future international order.

Read the Programme for details.

Read the Annual Report of the Valdai Discussion Club here.

Not to be disheartened by adversity or elated by happiness—
that is the mark of a strong spirit and a mighty power.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Should we expect the future to be worse than before? As trivial as this might sound, it all depends on us. No matter how complex and confused, the international environment can be apprehended and adjusted, as well as managed. All the elements forming today’s global palette are obvious, and they existed before. Today, they have manifested themselves in a new quality (with greater intensity) and in a different sequence with everything happening all at once.

The accumulated experience must be treated as a guideline rather than a dogma, including negative experiences, which teach us what we should not do. The last three decades have been a case in point. There can be different ways of evaluating the intentions of those who shaped history in late 20^th century, but the results that are visible today demonstrate that this stage in the development of international relations cannot and should not be replicated.

Instead of crowning global political development, this era was marked by the post-WWII model falling into crisis. In itself, this is not a tragedy since no system has ever been nor will be set in stone. Even the most outstanding projects have a limited lifespan.

Will the future be better for those living in today’s world compared to those who preceded them? Not necessarily. After all, future is always a set of probabilities that come to fruition to various degrees. There are specific patterns defining the way developments unfold, but it all depends on how responsible we are in our approach.

The expectation that the “end of history” would address all the challenges and lead us towards a brighter future for the so-called “last man” failed to materialise, which was to be expected.

If becoming the last man is not what people really want, they should realise that charting the future is not the apanage of neither natural forces, nor social development patterns, nor sophisticated robots, nor AI. It is in their hands. Taking responsibility for the future is not a slogan but a behavioural imperative. Over the course of history, humankind has invented so many effective ways of destroying itself ranging from physical annihilation to moral destruction. These are the fruits of progress too. We do not need a future that would be better than the past. We need a future that will not be worse. Overall, having a future is what matters the most.

Authors: Oleg Barabanov, Anton Bespalov, Timofei Bordachev, Fyodor Lukyanov, Andrey Sushentsov, Ivan Timofeev.

You can download the report here.

Valdai Discussion Club

The latest state elections in Germany have confirmed a trend that is becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss. The issue is no longer the occasional success of one party or failure of another, but the gradual dismantling of a political system that for decades appeared almost permanent.

The postwar German model rested on competition between two “people’s parties,” the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats and this conservative-social democratic axis provided stability after the upheavals of the first half of the 20th century, allowing governments to alternate while remaining within broadly accepted political boundaries.

Germany adhered to this model particularly closely, so the political landscape expanded significantly only twice, first with the rise of the Greens in the 1980s, which brought the rebellious generation of 1968 into the establishment, and then after reunification with the emergence of the Left from the former East German political tradition, but that orderly system is now breaking down.

The results in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, following Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier, leap off the page, as the AfD won 38.2% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, while the CDU fell below the 5% threshold for the first time in a German state election. In Berlin, meanwhile, the Left finished first, with the CDU second and the SPD falling to fifth place.  

For the leaderships of the CDU and SPD, it’s tempting to reduce the problem to the rise of the AfD and concentrate on how it should be contained, but the deeper problem is the fragmentation of the entire electoral landscape and the disappearance of the political manageability that Germany once took for granted.

Whether the AfD itself is capable of governing effectively remains another question, given the party has never governed a German state, while the established parties continue to reject coalitions with it.

Germany is therefore moving towards something resembling the politics of smaller European countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands, or Austria, with fragmented parliaments and increasingly complicated multiparty coalitions.

There’s nothing inherently unworkable about such a system and plenty of European countries function this way, but Germany is different. Its political culture has traditionally valued predictability and institutional continuity, but if fragmentation now spreads inside the CDU and SPD themselves, the consequences will extend beyond election arithmetic.

Germany isn’t particularly comfortable with political upheaval and when Germany becomes politically nervous, its neighbors have historically had reason to pay attention.

RT

In September, the Middle East witnessed a series of rapid and dangerous developments that underscored the fragility of regional security architectures. Among the most consequential was the Iran-backed Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement not only repelling the advance of Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces toward Sanaa but also turning the attack into a devastating counteroffensive. In doing so, they seized control of strategically vital coastal positions. Houthi forces captured the port of Mocha on Yemen’s western coast, Mayyun Island (Perim) in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the coastal city of Dhubab, overlooking the strategic waterway. Within the framework of regional alliances, this signifies one thing: Iran now exerts influence over the Bab al-Mandab Strait—one of the most vital maritime chokepoints in the world, through which approximately 12% of global trade and 7% of worldwide petroleum product supplies pass annually.

The implications especially for Saudi Arabia are profound and dire, as Ansar Allah’s military spokesperson announced that maritime navigation in the Red Sea remains safe for all international shipping companies, with the explicit exception of Saudi-flagged or Saudi-linked vessels. While the Iranian Revolutionary Guard considered the Houthi advance a “divine victory,” Mohammad Mokhber, the advisor to the Supreme Leader, stated that: “their advance has placed America and its allies in a tactical and strategic dilemma.” These developments extend beyond the region, potentially impacting the broader Asia-Pacific geopolitical landscape, particularly affecting India and China due to the strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab. Instability in these waters threatens oil flows and global trade. The threats are forcing ships to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, resulting in higher costs and extending voyage times by approximately a month. Meanwhile, surging global oil and shipping prices are exerting additional pressure on the economies of both nations.

The conflicts extended beyond Yemen’s borders, reaching into neighboring Saudi Arabia. The Houthis targeted key strategic locations, including Abha International Airport, an Aramco facility, and King Khalid Air Base. Additionally, they launched an attack on the largest oil refinery in Jizan, resulting in injuries to 73 Saudi nationals.

Within the framework of Iran’s strategy to activate the “unity of fronts”, expanding the scope of their actions from Iraq, targeting strategic infrastructure that Saudi Arabia relied upon as an alternative route as the Strait of Hormuz is inaccessible. Specifically targeted the East-West Pipeline (Petroline), which transports oil from the Kingdom’s eastern regions to its western areas. As a result of these attacks, the Saudi Ministry of Energy announced the temporary closure of the pipeline as a precautionary measure. The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs attributed the attack to Iraq—an assertion acknowledged by the Iraqi government—prompting Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Falah al-Zaidi to dismiss a military commander in Maysan Governorate and implement measures that included forming an investigative committee and closing three border crossings between Iraq and Iran.

The closure of the East-West pipeline raises concerns about the potential loss of up to 4% of global oil supplies, at a time when markets are already facing supply shortages, escalating fuel prices, and inflationary pressures.  The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that Saudi oil production levels declined to their lowest point in over three decades in August, primarily due to diminished flow through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. Furthermore, the IEA projected a global oil supply reduction of approximately 5.7 million barrels per day, or nearly 6%, within this year.

This escalating sequence of events did not emerge spontaneously nor from a single moment of impulse; rather, it resulted from a series of developments that accumulated like an ice ball, culminating in a rapid descent with immense force. On July 20, the Houthi announced the imposition of a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, framing it as a “siege for siege” strategy.  This declaration followed a series of provocative actions, including an incident on July 13, when Saudi-supported Yemeni government forces targeted the runway of Sanaa Airport to prevent an Iranian aircraft from landing. The Houthis claimed that the aircraft was carrying Yemenis who had participated in the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran. the Saudi-aligned forces at Sanaa Airport refused to permit the Iranian plane to land and subsequently struck the airport runway. The Houthis retaliated by targeting Saudi ships attempting to traverse the Red Sea. Feeling increasingly threatened by both aerial and maritime assaults, Saudi Arabia decided to strike back at Sanaa, the Houthi-controlled capital and strategic headquarters.

This series of escalations marked a turning point, transforming the conflict into a two-front confrontation: an internal struggle against the forces of the legitimate Yemeni government backed by Saudi Arabia and an external campaign against Saudi Arabia. The confrontation thus evolved into a complex and layered conflict with regional implications, reshaping the dynamics of the ongoing crisis.

On July 28, a coordinated US-Saudi military operation targeted facilities and weapons depots operated by Iranian-backed militias in eastern Iraq. This action was in direct response to over 30 drone attacks carried out by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) within a 72-hour period, which targeted US military personnel as well as Saudi Arabia’s energy and oil infrastructure. The explicit and active involvement of Saudi forces in conducting strikes within Iraqi territory represented a notable development and signified a strategic shift in the Kingdom’s military policy.

During this critical time, as Saudi-backed government forces faced significant setbacks and disintegration amid the advancing Houthi forces, the Saudi Crown Prince sought assistance from the U.S. President Donald Trump to carry out military strikes against the Houthis, aiming to counter their attacks and halt their territorial expansion. However, President Trump declined to provide support in this regard.

This scene delineates Saudi Arabia’s engagement with a series of intricate and multifaceted strategic dilemmas. Despite its aerial capabilities, Riyadh encounters significant constraints in exerting decisive influence over ground operations in Yemen through airpower alone; the deployment of ground forces remains a politically and militarily sensitive option that the Saudi leadership appears reluctant to pursue. Concurrently, the Saudi-led coalition has been embroiled in an internal crisis since December 2025, involving the United Arab Emirates and the Southern Transitional Council forces (STC). It seems that the Yemeni government’s request for the UAE’s withdrawal has undermined both its defensive and offensive operational capacity on the ground, which has contributed to the coalition’s rapid retreat in the face of Houthi advances.

Furthermore, the proposed joint defense mechanism—under the umbrella of the “Mecca Alliance”—remains inactive, highlighting a lack of clarity regarding operational aspects. Sajjad Haider, the spokesperson for the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explicitly stated that no decisions have yet been made regarding the launch of military action under the “Mecca Agreement,” affirming: “There is no such matter currently under discussion… and when the time comes, we will act in accordance with the agreement.” This reflects a state of strategic ambiguity and conditional readiness rather than an actual, immediate commitment.

This confluence of factors underscores a broader crisis within Saudi Arabia’s regional and international alliances across three interconnected tiers: domestically, with the Gulf Cooperation Council exemplified by the UAE’s role in Yemen; regionally, with the Mecca Defense Alliance, which remains in a state of procedural limbo pending formal activation; and globally, with its alliance with the United States, now increasingly tested by evolving circumstances and shifting geopolitical priorities.

At the level of international organizations, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s recourse to the UN Security Council highlights the shortcomings and underlying breakdowns of the current international system and its organizations; the Council’s response was limited to rhetorical statements emphasizing the importance of de-escalation, while it clearly failed to adopt any substantive resolution capable of addressing or mitigating the underlying tensions and conflicts.

What strategic options remain available to Saudi Arabia?

Although it was announced that a conference involving Gulf foreign ministers and Iran would be held on September 14 in Oman to discuss arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian Tasnim News Agency has stated that “the Strait of Hormuz will not be reopened under the Iranian-Omani understanding.” The statement underscored that the reopening of the Strait is contingent solely upon the United States’ fulfillment of Iran’s stipulated conditions. Iran has effectively consolidated “unity of fronts” to coordinate offensive strikes against neighboring countries, thereby positioning itself proactively rather than defensively. This strategic escalation is designed to exert diplomatic and military pressure on the American administration and its allies, with the objective of compelling them to reconsider their stance, lift sanctions and economic siege posed on Iran, and prevent any potential military actions targeting Kharg Island.

It appears that President Trump, by consciously refraining from targeting the Houthis, sought to leverage diplomatic pressure on Saudi Arabia to encourage its participation in the Abraham Accords and the normalization of relations with Israel. Concurrently, this strategic restraint may have been motivated by a desire to avoid opening a new regional front, particularly in light of his previous challenges in addressing issues related to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

From another perspective, if Saudi Arabia’s acquiescence to Iranian coercive tactics it could be interpreted as a tactical success for Iran’s strategy of utilizing proxies in both Yemen and Iraq. Such a development suggests that Iran’s use of these proxies has effectively created a lever of pressure, compelling Saudi Arabia to adopt a cautious, mutually beneficial approach: facilitating Iran’s efforts to normalize relations with Gulf states and fostering a path toward resolving tangled issues with the United States—despite the unlikelihood of Trump making any concessions—in exchange for easing the pressure exerted by Iranian-backed proxy networks in the region.

This scenario poses considerable challenges not only for Saudi Arabia but also for the broader Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. Such concessions could potentially lead to a paradoxical situation of “empowering the adversary,” thereby prompting a critical strategic dilemma: will Saudi Arabia be compelled to choose between normalization with Iran or with Israel?

Alternatively, Saudi Arabia might choose to realign its diplomatic course by strengthening ties with the United Arab Emirates; such a strategic reassessment would align its political objectives with those of the UAE. This rapprochement would also reflect shared strategic interests—most notably the involvement of Emirati-backed Yemeni forces in the conflict against the Houthis—a matter of critical importance within the broader regional strategic landscape where Emirati and Saudi interests converge, at least for the time being.

Saudi Arabia finds itself at a critical juncture marked by escalating regional tensions, faltering alliances, and complex strategic dilemmas. The recent Houthi advances, Iran’s expanding proxy network, and the limitations of international and regional support have exposed vulnerabilities in the regional and Riyadh’s security architecture. The Kingdom faces the daunting task of balancing its military and diplomatic options amid shifting geopolitical dynamics, including the potential for rapprochement with Iran or strengthening ties with regional partners like the UAE. As the international community’s response remains largely rhetorical, Saudi Arabia finds itself  navigating an increasingly fragmented landscape, in front of  difficult choices that will shape the future stability of the Gulf and the broader Middle East. Ultimately, the coming phase is difficult for the region and  will be decisive in determining whether Riyadh can forge a resilient strategy to counter external pressures and challenges or whether it will succumb to the pressures of an evolving and unpredictable regional environment.

When the Allied powers of World War II drafted the United Nations Charter, they sought to establish a global system of collective security. Its aim was to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” With its adoption, all UN member states undertook to settle disputes exclusively by peaceful means. Decisions on the use of force were to be taken collectively (initially by eleven and now by fifteen members of the UN Security Council).

Yet the UN Charter contains an exception—the so-called ‘enemy states clause’ in Articles 53, 77, and 107—that has largely been forgotten today. It grants the former Allied powers the right to take military action against the former Axis powers without a Security Council mandate, in order to prevent renewed aggression from the former Axis powers. With the UN Security Council expressly excluded from this provision, each of the former Allies is free to assess for itself whether a former Axis power is once again adopting an aggressive stance.

By far the most important Axis powers to which the ‘enemy states clause’ referred were Germany and Japan. But does this clause apply to these countries today, more than 80 years after the end of WWII? The German government answers this question with an unequivocal ‘no.’ However, the legal situation does not appear unambiguous.

The German government argues that the ‘enemy states clause’ has long become obsolete. It refers to the 1995 UNGA Resolution 50/52, which “recognized that, having regard to the substantial changes that have taken place in the world, the ‘enemy State clauses’ have become obsolete.”

The German government points to the fact that reunified Germany is now one of the peace-loving members of the United Nations. Even before that, it argued that the four Allied Powers had waived their special rights vis-à-vis Germany in the 1990 Two-Plus-Four Treaty, including the right arising from the ‘enemy states clause’.

But do these arguments hold water? Here are a few considerations.

1. The ‘enemy states clause’ was never removed from the UN Charter.

The wording of the 1995 UNGA Resolution 50/52 does not indicate that ‘enemy states clause’ is now permanently invalid. Following a report from the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization which recommended deletion of the clauses, the Resolution only “expressed its intention to initiate the procedure to amend the Charter, with prospective effect, by the deletion of the ‘enemy State’ clauses from Articles 53, 77 and 107.” However, there has been no follow-up resolution. Hence the text of the UN Charter remains unchanged.

If, at some time in the future, Germany were no longer regarded as a peace-loving state, could the ‘enemy states clause’ be applied again? There is no clear-cut answer to that.

2. Resolutions of the UN General Assembly are not legally binding.

UN resolutions are generally of a recommendatory nature. Under the UN Charter, binding decisions can, in principle, only be taken by the Security Council. However, there has never been a Security Council resolution formally repealing the ‘enemy states clause’. The relevant provisions therefore remain in the text of the Charter.

3. Removing the clause would require an amendment to the UN Charter.

Removing the ‘enemy states clause’ would require a formal amendment procedure in accordance with the rules of the Charter. This would presumably also require ratification of this amendment by all UN member states. Nothing of the sort has happened, and the relevant articles therefore remain in force.

4. The Two-Plus-Four Treaty cannot amend the UN Charter.

Whilst the 1990 Two-Plus-Four Treaty is a legally binding treaty under international law, a treaty between Germany and the four Allied powers cannot decide on an amendment to the Charter. Nor does the Treaty contain any reference to an explicit repeal of the’ enemy states clause’ in the UN Charter.

5. Russia could potentially terminate the 1990 Two-Plus-Four Treaty.

Russia could argue that Germany has violated the spirit and letter of the Two-Plus-Four Treaty, for example, by participating in NATO’s war against Yugoslavia in 1999, stationing its troops in Lithuania, or establishing NATO military structures on the territory of the former GDR. 

In view of the growing tensions between Germany and Russia, the ‘enemy states clause’ could regain political significance in this conflict.[1] Russia might attempt, as it has already warned, to use it as justification for a military operation against German production facilities manufacturing long-range drones for Ukraine. It could argue that by supporting Ukraine militarily, Germany has effectively become part of the confrontation. Furthermore, Russia could point out that the German Government has developed a new military strategy directed exclusively against Russia. Worse, it could be argued that the last German military strategy was drawn up in 1939 and led directly to WWII.

By applying the ‘enemy states clause’—or even merely threatening to do so—Germany could find itself haunted by its past. Can Germany count on international support in such a scenario?

The German Government should not only consider the possibility of this clause’s enforcement but remember that, given its past, it has a special obligation to work towards a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine war, to avoid its escalation, and not to exacerbate political tensions. At the time of increasing military confrontation in Europe, it would be reasonable—and prudent—to re-establish dialogue with Russia and seek ways to de-escalate the situation. 

So much has happened since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, that the events now seem both very distant and perhaps less consequential than they appeared at the time. However, both impressions are misleading.

Twenty-five years is a considerable period in a human life, but little more than a moment in history, and however turbulent the past quarter-century has been, the significance of September 11 is only now becoming fully apparent.

Looking back, and setting aside the emotions of the time, what did the attacks actually mean for the international system?

Above all, they brought an end to a decade of virtually unchallenged US hegemony in world affairs.

The significance was partly symbolic in that the attackers struck at the two most obvious centers of American power, the World Trade Center represented its financial might, while the Pentagon represented its military strength. The post-Cold War period, during which the United States had come to believe that no fundamental threat remained to its security or interests, was over.

From Washington’s perspective, the decade had begun with the almost miraculous disappearance of its principal geopolitical adversary, the Soviet Union, yet it ended with the realization that danger could emerge suddenly from almost anywhere.

The fact that most Americans had previously known little about those who attacked them only deepened the shock and contributed to the impulsiveness of the response.

The End of History, proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama as the Cold War was drawing to a close, was followed barely a decade later by history’s turbulent and violent return

Washington’s reaction set in motion a global realignment whose consequences are now much easier to see. Whether Osama bin Laden possessed some ingenious long-term strategy for undermining American power is impossible to know, but the result was obvious as the United States embarked upon a course that gradually weakened its ability to manage international affairs.

George W. Bush’s administration, strongly influenced by neoconservative thinking, was caught off guard by September 11, so its response rested on two broad assumptions.

The first was that threats to America could originate anywhere, not merely from hostile states but from non-state groups newly capable of inflicting enormous damage, therefore such threats had to be confronted wherever they emerged, primarily through the overwhelming military power available to the United States.

The second assumption was ideological, given liberal theory held that democracies didn’t wage war against one another, meaning if that were true, then the more democracies there were, the safer the United States would become.

From this emerged the increasingly assertive promotion of democracy abroad, which at times it became openly aggressive.

Its methods ranged from military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq to political and financial support for democratic movements in the former Soviet Union and pressure for liberal political reforms across the Middle East and Libya later became another example of Western military intervention producing consequences far beyond those originally anticipated.

Some episodes from that period are now half-forgotten, such as when Washington strongly encouraged elections in the Palestinian territories despite warnings from regional actors about the likely consequences. Naturally, Hamas subsequently won the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, dramatically altering Palestinian politics.

The same confidence in political transformation characterized the American response to the Arab Spring as existing political balances across the Middle East were overturned, often without anything stable emerging to replace them.

The consequences of the 2003 invasion of Iraq were greater still. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein destroyed a major component of the regional balance that had developed during the 20th century and unleashed forces that proved extremely difficult to contain.

America became trapped in what its own politicians would eventually call endless wars and these conflicts contributed to polarization inside the United States while attempts to export democracy damaged the reputation of democracy itself.

In Iraq, this was compounded by the widespread belief that American strategic and economic interests, including oil, were inseparable from the intervention.

The broader results were remarkable with prolonged wars, a destabilized Middle East and the expansion of radical Islamist movements. The architects of September 11 could scarcely have hoped for more when they planned their attack given relations between the West and much of the Muslim world also deteriorated. 

President Bush’s early reference to a crusade against terrorism was probably an unfortunate choice of words rather than a deliberate provocation, but Islamist movements eagerly seized upon it as confirmation of their argument that Western hostility towards the Muslim world had changed little since the Crusades.

Washington subsequently tried to repair those relations, but the direction had already been set.

The destruction of Iraq’s complicated internal and regional balance created opportunities for radical movements while contributing to an image of the United States as an enormously powerful but unpredictable force in Middle Eastern affairs. As a result, for governments in the region, maintaining some distance from Washington increasingly appeared prudent.

September 11 also transformed the United States itself.

The War on Terror was conceived as a global campaign to protect American national security, but its domestic consequences were profound as surveillance and state control expanded dramatically, whether in personal communications or financial transactions.

Although the original justification was terrorism, over the following quarter-century, new reasons for expanding these mechanisms appeared while technologies changed and political priorities shifted, but the general direction towards greater monitoring and control remained.

Nor did the old problem of double standards disappear because, despite declarations of zero tolerance for terrorism, the familiar distinction between one side’s terrorist and another’s freedom fighter survived. This ambiguity becomes particularly apparent when the interests of major powers collide, whether those powers are the United States, Russia or China.

A quarter-century after September 11, the world bears remarkably little resemblance to the one that existed on its eve, but, of course, much of what followed would probably have happened anyway. International systems change because of forces far larger than any single event and China’s rise, Russia’s reassertion of its interests, technological transformation and the relative decline of Western economic predominance cannot simply be attributed to the attacks of 2001.

But September 11 was nevertheless a turning point as the attacks ended the extraordinary post-Cold War interlude in which American predominance appeared almost uncontested, and, more importantly, Washington’s response accelerated the processes that brought that period to a close.

The movement away from the unipolar order didn’t happen overnight, but began gradually, gathered momentum through wars, crises and the emergence of alternative centers of power, and continues today.

What will replace it remains unclear, given the formation of another stable international order may take many years and whether that system proves preferable to the bipolar confrontation of the second half of the 20th century, or to the brief period of American hegemony that followed it, is impossible to know.

But one thing now seems clearer than it did on September 11, 2001 in that the attacks didn’t merely interrupt the post-Cold War order, but marked the beginning of its end.

RT

Diplomatic efforts to end an acute and bloody armed conflict should always be welcomed and the persistence of Donald Trump’s administration, which has pursued this goal for more than a year and a half, also deserves recognition, even if the results so far can hardly be called outstanding.

At the very least, the White House remains the only actor in the West both attempting to change the situation and possessing significant leverage over it. Trump and his closest associates probably do genuinely want the war to end as its continuation distracts Washington from foreign policy priorities they regard as more important. But why, then, does Trump’s diplomatic initiative keep going round in circles, with each new attempt ending in another disappointment?

Trump and his principal envoys tend to approach the conflict as an extraordinarily difficult but essentially technical problem, as a puzzle to be solved in isolation from the wider international system. This reflects the worldview of the current White House, where international affairs are a collection of practical problems to be resolved in ways that strengthen America’s position, preferably with some commercial benefit attached.

Given the professional backgrounds of the president and his two principal intermediaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, this is hardly surprising.

Such an approach can be useful as an instrument, but it becomes less useful when it substitutes for an understanding of the processes that produced the conflict in the first place and, to use the Russian formulation, its root causes. Any durable settlement requires some understanding of what must change in relations between the major powers if similar confrontations are to be avoided.

Trump repeatedly insists that the war would never have begun had he been president in 2022 with the implication that Joe Biden and the Democrats were simply too incompetent to prevent it. Trump has occasionally acknowledged that NATO’s long expansion eastward contributed to the crisis, but he generally shows little interest in the broader military and political processes behind it.

Yet American and NATO policy towards Ukraine wasn’t created by one administration or a handful of officials in Washington and Brussels, rather it developed over decades from a particular conception of Western strategic interests. The crisis that entered its most acute phase in 2022 was, from Moscow’s perspective, the culmination of processes underway since the end of the Cold War.

This helps explain why Washington continues to underestimate how much the outcome matters to the principal participants. For both Russia and Ukraine, too much is at stake for the conflict to be settled through the kind of transaction Trump instinctively favors, given their interests are obviously opposed, but both regard the outcome as fateful.

Western Europe, having invested heavily in Ukraine’s cause, also has a direct political stake in the result, so every new attempt by Washington’s two brokers therefore encounters the same obstacle in that none of the parties sees this as simply another deal.

There’s another contradiction in the American position because Washington wishes to become the principal mediator in a conflict whose continuation it has materially supported.The US position has certainly changed under Trump as Washington’s previous fixation on Ukraine has diminished considerably. Trump would prefer America to step back while retaining decisive influence over what happens next, but that is precisely where the difficulty begins.

Transferring the financial burden, political responsibility and risks to the Western Europeans while continuing to dictate the terms requires a degree of obedience from junior partners that Washington can no longer guarantee. EU governments and Kiev have also learnt how to deal with this unconventional president and when they can’t persuade him, they have become increasingly adept at circumventing his pressure.

The one American instrument against which there would be little defence is a complete cessation of military support, but Trump is unlikely to take that step, even if he were personally inclined to do so because facilitating an outright Russian victory isn’t his objective.

He may care less than his predecessor about the precise shape of the eventual settlement, but a complete Ukrainian defeat would be another matter. Nor would abandoning Ukraine enjoy much support across the American political establishment, where there is virtually no constituency for a fundamental rapprochement with Russia.

The White House therefore doesn’t envisage the radical change in American policy that would be necessary to transform the conflict, but without one, events tend to return to their previous course as a prolonged and extremely fierce confrontation whose duration nobody can confidently predict.

In such a confrontation, those fighting the war and bearing its risks ultimately matter more than mediators or outside sponsors. None of this means Witkoff and Kushner’s shuttle diplomacy is pointless, given communication between adversaries is indispensable, and the present infrastructure for official dialogue remains inadequate. Also, informal channels can help restore understanding where formal diplomacy has broken down, but informal diplomacy has limits.

Friends and business associates may establish contacts and discover areas in which compromise is conceivable, but they don’t themselves make peace. The shuttle diplomacy of a presidential son-in-law and a trusted business partner may eventually serve as a catalyst for serious negotiations, however, if that moment comes, the settlement will have to be negotiated by officials and institutions possessing state legitimacy and the power to implement what they sign. Personal connections can open the door, but they can’t, by themselves, end a war.

This article was first published by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, and was translated and edited by the RT team.

On 2 September, Norwegian authorities detained Russian state-owned research vessel Professor Molchanov at Barentsburg in Spitsbergen (Svalbard), following a lawsuit filed by Ukraine’s Naftogaz.

At first sight, the detention of the Russian research vessel appears as a routine event in Norway’s long-standing strategy to oust Russia from Spitsbergen and establish absolute sovereignty of the archipelago—free from the legal restrictions stipulated by the 1920 Spitsbergen (Svalbard) Treaty. At closer sight, it opens a loophole for expropriating Russian property on the archipelago. But more importantly, trying to accommodate the current geopolitical situation to its national legal proceedings and violating the 1920 Treaty by placing national law above international law, Norway has driven itself into a legal trap.

Article 32 of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) states that state-owned vessels operated for non-commercial purposes enjoy sovereign immunity from foreign jurisdiction. Naftogaz, long pursuing Russian assets, claims that the research vessel’s visits to Spitsbergen had predominantly commercial purposes.

Norway portrays the incident as a purely technical matter based on national legislation. According to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice, its decision followed the 2023 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague as an enforcement of an approximately $4.22bn arbitral award from the Russian Federation to Naftogaz for its Crimean assets. The order for the enforcement of this ruling was issued by the District Court of Nord-Troms and Senja (in Tromsø, mainland Norway), and the Governor of Svalbard acted as a regular enforcer.

This seemingly flawless normative scheme falls apart when examined from the perspective of the basic principles of international law.

Norway’s sovereignty over Spitsbergen is based on the 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty—an international treaty that provides for the creation of a special international legal regime on the archipelago’s land territory and in its territorial waters. Essentially, the Treaty provides for the creation of a territorial enclave, similar to the Kaliningrad region but, unlike in the latter case, does not generate its own continental shelf and exclusive economic zone in the adjacent maritime areas.

The 1982 UN Convention assumes that a state has full sovereignty over its ports. However, under the 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty, Norway does not have such absolute rights and, accordingly, has no legal basis for applying the provisions of the Convention in the archipelago’s ports. Article 3 of the Spitsbergen Treaty states: “The nationals of all the High Contracting Parties shall have equal liberty of access and entry for any reason or object whatever to the waters, fjords and ports of the territories specified in Article 1; subject to the observance of local laws and regulations, they may carry on there without impediment all maritime, industrial, mining and commercial operations on a footing of absolute equality”.

It follows from this stipulation of the Treaty that:

• The Treaty’s regime excludes the application of the provisions of the 1982 Convention, including Article 32, in Spitsbergen archipelago’s ports.
• The Professor Molchanov research vessel has all grounds to engage in any of the activities listed in the Treaty, including commercial ones.
• All states-signatories to the Spitsbergen Treaty, including Norway, agreed that the Norwegian government, in addition to exercising sovereign functions in the archipelago, is obliged to ensure the contracting parties’ rights as specified in the Treaty.

The Russian research vessel did not violate the law on the archipelago, which means that its detention is a direct violation of the powers granted to Norway by the parties to the Spitsbergen Treaty.

Furthermore, the third paragraph of Article 3 of the Treaty reads: “Notwithstanding any rules relating to coasting trade which may be in force in Norway, ships of the High Contracting Parties going to or coming from the territories specified in Article 1 shall have the right to put into Norwegian ports.” This provision thus distinguishes between the archipelago’s local ports and ports on the Norwegian mainland, as well as between laws pertaining to the archipelago and those regulations that may be in force on the Norwegian mainland—the national legislation of the mainland, which incorporates the provisions of international agreements to which Norway is a party.

Claims that the 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, known as the New York Convention and ostensibly forming the legal basis for the detention of the Professor Molchanov vessel, and the UNCLOS are applicable to Svalbard because they are “merely part of Norwegian law” are inconsistent with the provisions of § 2, Part II of the Svalbard Act, which states: “Other legal provisions do not apply in Svalbard unless expressly provided”.

In the Norwegian legal system, an international treaty has no legal force for authorities until the Storting (parliament) passes a special law incorporating it or transforming it into national legislation, after which the treaty acquires the force of national law. The 1958 New York Convention was incorporated into Norwegian law through the Arbitration Act and the Enforcement Act. The 1982 UN Convention was incorporated through a series of laws, including the Maritime Boundary Act and the Act on the Management of Living Marine Resources. Upon ratification, these conventions became part of Norwegian law. When ratifying them, Norway made no reservations regarding their applicability to Spitsbergen, a territory with a special international legal regime.

The application of Norwegian national laws incorporating the provisions of international treaties immediately creates a conflict with Article 3 of the 1920 Treaty, which permits application of only local archipelago-related laws, but prohibits imposing restrictions on commercial and research navigation by Norway’s international obligations to third parties (whether the UN or Naftogaz) valid exclusively for the mainland.

In cases of collision of norms, the fundamental principle of international law—Pacta sunt servanda (Treaties must be observed)—takes unconditional effect. This is enshrined in Article 26 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and reinforced by Article 27 of the same Convention, which states: “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”

By placing the procedural code of the continental part of the country and the material claims of the Ukrainian company above Article 3 of the 1920 Treaty, Norway committed an internationally unlawful act.

For the Russian side, this incident means disrupted scientific programs, canceled expedition tours, and other losses. Therefore, in accordance with Article 31 of Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, codified by the UN International Law Commission and approved by UNGA Resolution 56/83 in 2001, Norway, as the offending state, is obligated to fully compensate for the caused damage.

In accordance with Article 36 of the ILC Act, Moscow has the right to lay financial claims to the Kingdom of Norway for:

• Actual damage: costs for the vessel’s forced demurrage at Barentsburg, maintenance of the crew and expedition members, port fees, and fuel costs to maintain the vessel.
• Lost profit: compensation for the disruption of chartered voyages, obligations to refund tourists and scientists, and the disruption of subsequent commercial contracts.
• Legal costs: Oslo must fully compensate for the costs of hiring Norwegian lawyers to appeal unlawful arrest of the vessel in the Hålogaland Court of Appeal.

The detention of the Professor Molchanov has also exposed long-standing problems in Russia’s legal approach to areas outside its sovereignty and a catastrophic imbalance in the parties’ legal preparedness.

Norway has a well-honed legal apparatus. For decades, Oslo has been deliberately and proactively using legal and administrative mechanisms to systematically emasculate the provisions of the 1920 Treaty and gradually strengthen its sovereignty. Every action has meticulously been calculated at the level of regulations and instructions for local implementers.

Since the Treaty’s very inception, beginning with the prior international agreement known as the Mining Regulations for Svalbard, Norway has actively employed manipulative legal and terminological engineering in developing the Treaty’s provisions. Specifically, it clearly used these methods to emasculate the provisions of Article 7 of the Treaty, which regulates the rights of the contracting parties to the archipelago’s natural resources.[1]

As for Russia, it could confront the Norwegian systemic rulemaking machine by accumulated academic knowledge, but for some inexplicable reason it lies idle. Russia has a robust research base,[2] but the results of fundamental applied research conducted by Russian scientists on the Spitsbergen track have been ignored for years.

Russian government agencies still lack a clear understanding that the legal response to the Norwegians’ actions should be symmetrical, systemic, and proactive, rather than belatedly reactive.

The incident with the Professor Molchanov vessel cries out for institutional change—it is time Russia moved from ad hoc reactions to continuous legal monitoring. For example, by establishing a permanent position for a leading international lawyer on Spitsbergen within the state-owned trust Arktikugol, which would monitor Norwegian lawmaking in real time, follow Oslo’s court practice, and promptly provide authorities with ready-made legal advice before another Russian vessel is arrested or a similar legal event occurs.

A similarly deficient legal policy is observed in the delimitation in the Arctic Ocean, to which Spitsbergen is directly related.[3] An analysis of the concluded bilateral treaties on delimitation in the Arctic and of national applications to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf shows that, before submitting applications with geological claims to the Arctic Ocean shelf, Russia should have established a permanent situation center at a dedicated research institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This has still not been done.

International law is a formidable weapon, and its proper use must be a powerful tool for protecting Russia’s national interests in the Arctic and other areas beyond its territorial sovereignty. Russia’s legally ineffective management, in the face the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East, has unwittingly opened a loophole for Norway to arrest the Professor Molchanov vessel, which may serve as a precedent for further confiscation of Arktikugol’s assets on the archipelago, which occupies a significant position in the geopolitical balance of power.

By detaining the Russian research vessel, Norwegian authorities have opened Pandora’s Box. If Spitsbergen becomes a testing ground for forced recovery of assets in geopolitical disputes involving third parties, its special international legal regime will be significantly damaged. Today, Oslo arrested a Russian research vessel following a lawsuit filed by Kyiv. Tomorrow, on the same grounds, courts in mainland Norway will begin detaining American, Iranian, Chinese, or Taiwanese vessels in Spitsbergen ports, following lawsuits filed by third parties. To avoid turning this international outpost into a zone of permanent legal chaos, Norway’s judicial system must return to the legal framework and immediately release the Professor Molchanov.

And it is time Russia learnt to use the expertise of its legal scholars and transform it into the competences of institutions that could effectively protect its national interests.

With Andy Burnham becoming the UK’s new Prime Minister, and Andrei Kelin leaving the post of Russian Ambassador to London, British‑Russian relations seem to be entering a new stage. Little is known about Burnham’s foreign policy agenda, let alone his position on Russia. The two sides have exchanged sharp statements in recent weeks, and tension is clearly growing. However, digging deeper, one can find some clues as to what will happen next.

Burnham has made clear that his priority is domestic policy and that he would prefer to make foreign trips only when there were compelling reasons. New to foreign policy, he will need to clarify his position on virtually all issues. His recent trip to Kiev proves that. It was an easy but symbolic success: coming to Kiev on the anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, he promised comprehensive support and brought several pleasant gifts.

From the British government and public’s perspective, everything went smoothly. In the media’s eyes, he made an unforgivable blunder wearing a zipper polo shirt instead of a business suit. Yet Burnham confirmed his commitment to continued support of Ukraine—even if his country cannot afford additional funding or significant arms supplies (while Russian gas imports keep growing).

At first glance, Burnham, like his predecessors, is struggling with the lack of long‑term foreign-policy planning and of new ideas from political parties. In the coming months, the government will have to focus on domestic affairs.

Party conferences and the autumn budget presentation will be a serious test for Burnham and the Labor, which is once again leading public opinion polls. In addition, voters’ annoyance with rising crime, abnormal heatwaves, and migrant problems persists. So, for now, he may stay away from foreign policy issues.

In this situation, the figure of the new foreign secretary may be more important. Ed Miliband, former leader of the Labor and of the opposition, the brother of the former head of the Foreign Office, is a politician disliked by the Right for his climate action undertaken as energy minister. Miliband has assembled an impressive team that includes many of those who worked under Gordon Brown. Among the secretary’s advisers are Lord Tom Wood, Hamish Falconer (who participated in negotiations with the Taliban), and Kirsty McNeil (who worked at Make Poverty History).

Former Prime Minister Brown would likely approve of Miliband’s initial steps in combating climate change and managing international aid. Miliband considers himself a realist: he supports center‑left governments around the world as a counterbalance to rising populism and advocates multilateralism in addressing global problems. He thus embodies social‑democratic internationalism that many Labor supporters have cherished for years.

Bluntly speaking, Burnham does not object to Miliband doing the bulk of foreign policy work for the time being. As the opposition’s former leader, Miliband has certain experience in this area. In fact, Miliband played a key role in the UK’s decision against strikes on Syria in 2013. Then Prime Minister David Cameron highly praised his role in the Syrian conflict—a rather unusual move, given their mutual animosity. Also, Burnham needs time to get used to his new position and learn the ropes. For example, the upcoming UNGA session will be a good opportunity for him to meet with world leaders in person.

As for the UK’s policy towards Russia, it is rumored in London that both Westminster and Whitehall recognize the need to resume dialogue with Moscow. London would like to quietly establish a channel of communication with Moscow, but the question is whom to choose for this mission.

(If you’re reading this, Mr. Prime Minister, I’m not very busy.)

Since 2010, the number of real Russia experts in the UK government has decreased dramatically. But even if the right person (or several) is found, what can British and Russian representatives say to each other? As we know, Sir Keir Starmer never called President Vladimir Putin, and the reason is almost certainly that they had nothing to discuss.

Certain hopes in this regard can be pinned on Miliband. The term ‘multilateralism’ can often be heard in Russian foreign policy discussions. Russia is also concerned about climate change and China’s growing influence in Africa and the Pacific. Combating crime is an important topic. Countering human trafficking in Southeast Asia and the Middle East is in the interests of both sides. Educational exchanges should not be overlooked either: the two countries interacted quite successfully in this area in the past. No British university actually wanted to sever ties with Russian partners, and some even suffered from these decisions.

Any of these steps could open the way for the restoration of relations and demonstrate the seriousness of both sides’ intentions to find realistic solutions to global problems. The diplomat who will replace Kelin at Kensington Gardens will be tasked with informing Moscow decisionmakers and conveying the Kremlin’s position to Westminster. If this person and Miliband find common ground, Burnham’s lack of foreign policy experience will no longer matter.

The 18th BRICS Summit, to be held on 12–13 September 2026 under India’s chairmanship at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, is set to be a major diplomatic spectacle. The elaborate protocol, heightened security and delegations from across the Global South are to symbolize the expanded BRICS’s growing political and economic weight. One major question on the agenda is who will write the rules of the emerging digital economy.

Artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in its current generative form, is already reshaping trade, production, finance, and the exercise of state power. The World Trade Organization’s 2025 World Trade Report estimates that AI could increase global trade by 34–37% and global GDP by 12–13% by 2040. AI-related goods, including semiconductors and computing equipment, are already becoming major drivers of global trade, with AI-enabling goods hitting $2.3 trillion in 2023. Over 98% of global subsidies for AI-related products currently come from high- and upper-middle-income countries, risking a deeper concentration of AI capabilities.

This transformation is distributed extremely unevenly across countries. According to Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index Report, U.S. private AI investment reached $285.9 billion in 2025, compared to $12.4 billion in China. In 2025 the U.S. also had 5,427 data centers—ten times more than any other country. Nvidia alone accounted for more than 60% percent of reported global AI computing capacity. Yet, challengers are catching up with alternative efficiencies: China now leads with 69.7% of global AI patent filings, and the performance gap between U.S. and Chinese top AI models has collapsed to just 2.7%.

These figures point to a new geopolitical reality. Countries that control advanced chips, computing capacity, cloud infrastructure, foundation models, and data and technical standards will have greater influence over the next phase of globalization.

The rules will determine how data crosses borders. They will also determine how AI-generated content is identified, how copyrighted material can be used for training, and who bears responsibility for algorithmic harm.

The Global South, therefore, faces a strategic choice. It can adapt to the rules largely developed elsewhere, or it can become a rule-maker.

BRICS+ should choose the latter.

From Digital Sovereignty to Collective Rule-Making

BRICS+ has already recognized the stakes. The 2025 BRICS Leaders’ Statement on the Global Governance of Artificial Intelligence called for inclusive and development-oriented AI governance, greater participation by developing countries, and respect for national sovereignty. It also addressed data security, intellectual property, AI safety, and AI-enabled cybercrime.

The challenge is now implementation.

BRICS members already possess substantial regulatory experience. China has established rules for generative AI services and introduced mandatory identification requirements for AI-generated and synthetic content. Russia’s National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence to 2030, originally approved in 2019 and updated by Presidential Decree #124 in February 2024, treats AI as a strategic area of national technological and economic development. The revised strategy emphasizes domestic AI capabilities, computing infrastructure, trusted AI, regulation, and international cooperation, including greater coordination with partner states on AI development and governance.

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the 2025 DPDP Rules provide a framework for personal-data governance. India’s AI Governance Guidelines, released in February 2026, offer “a coherent and balanced AI governance framework that favor innovation while safeguarding trust, equity, and accountability.” Brazil has advanced AI regulation through PL 2338/2023, approved by the Senate in December 2024 and currently under consideration in the Chamber of Deputies. Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) has proposed amendments to strengthen regulatory coordination and information-sharing, including cooperation on high-risk AI systems. South Africa’s 2024 National AI Policy Framework provides a foundation for AI policy that covers infrastructure, skills, research, innovation, responsible AI, and regulation. Its draft National AI Policy was withdrawn in April 2026 for revision, leaving the 2024 Framework as the country’s principal AI policy foundation.

These approaches, still evolving, are not yet aligned with one another. They must not be identical, but BRICS+ should work towards ensuring their interoperability. Common principles and technical standards could make different national systems compatible, without requiring that countries surrender their regulatory sovereignty.

The emerging international rulebook

The wider international framework is moving quickly.

The UN Global Digital Compact calls for international cooperation on AI, capacity-building in developing countries, and interoperable approaches to data and AI governance. The UN General Assembly has also established an Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and a Global Dialogue on AI Governance.

The WTO framework is equally important. The General Agreement on Trade in Services, the TRIPS Agreement and WTO work on electronic commerce already intersect with digital services, intellectual property, and cross-border data.

The lapse of the WTO moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions on 30 March 2026 provides a warning. The WTO members failed to reach consensus on extending the moratorium at MC14, thereby making digital trade rules part of the wider contest over economic sovereignty.

BRICS+ cannot afford fragmented positions on these issues. Individual developing economies will have less negotiating power if they approach them separately.

What BRICS+ Should Do

The New Delhi Summit should advance a practical BRICS+ Digital and AI Governance Framework with an emphasis on four priorities:

1. Data governance. BRICS+ should develop common principles for cross-border data transfers, privacy, cybersecurity, and trusted data-sharing. The objective should be neither unrestricted data flows nor absolute localization. Interoperable safeguards would preserve national regulatory choices while reducing unnecessary barriers to trade and research.
2. AI-generated content. China’s experience with mandatory labelling offers a practical starting point. BRICS+ could develop compatible standards for identifying synthetic text, images, audio, and video. Such standards would matter for elections, journalism, financial markets, diplomacy, and law enforcement.
3. Common position on intellectual property. AI developers are training models on enormous volumes of copyrighted material. BRICS+ should coordinate its approach to training data, licensing, transparency, and compensation. The aim should be to protect creators, without making AI development inaccessible to developing economies.
4. Cybersecurity and AI safety addressed together. Common minimum requirements for high-impact AI systems, incident reporting and model security would make national frameworks more compatible.

BRICS+ should also coordinate its positions in the ITU, ISO, IEC, UNESCO, and other standards bodies. Technical standards often become de facto global rules because companies adapt their products to major markets’ requirements.

The larger geopolitical question

The post-1991 international order has created an unusually concentrated distribution of economic, financial, and technological power. AI is now adding yet another layer to this structure.

For the Global South, the danger is not only in technological, but also in regulatory dependence. A country that imports AI systems, computing infrastructure and digital services may also end up adopting rules developed elsewhere. Its ability to shape how AI affects trade, employment, public services and national security would then remain limited.

BRICS+ has many of the assets required to avoid such outcome. Its members possess large markets, energy resources, scientific expertise, manufacturing capacity, digital infrastructure, and financial resources. Their combined weight gives them greater negotiating capacity than most developing countries can exercise individually.

The missing ingredient is coordination.

India’s 2026 BRICS chairmanship has already placed digital cooperation on the agenda. The BRICS ICT Working Group met in Pune in August to discuss AI, cybersecurity, future networks, digital public infrastructure, and digital ecosystem integration.

The New Delhi Summit should take the next step. BRICS+ should establish a coordinated position on AI and digital governance and carry it into negotiations at the UN, WTO, ITU, UNESCO, and international standards bodies.

The objective should not be a separate BRICS+ digital order. It should be a stronger Global South role in determining the global one.

***

The AI age is arriving while the international system is becoming more contested and multipolar. Economic power is dispersing, but technological power remains highly concentrated.

Multipolarity without technological and regulatory agency would therefore remain incomplete.

The spectacular event at Bharat Mandapam will last two days. The rules being written around AI will last much longer. BRICS+ should use the 18th BRICS Summit to make one proposition unmistakable: the Global South will enter the emerging digital order as a rule-maker, not a rule-taker.

The 20th century was centered on the geopolitics of scarcity, with nations vying for control of limited resources concentrated in narrow geographic areas, such as oil fields, natural gas reserves, and strategic minerals. This competition forged alliances, fueled wars, and defined the hierarchy of global power.

The 21st century may be built on a different logic: power may increasingly derive not from controlling scarcity, but from regulating abundance. Agricultural biomass exemplifies this shift. Every year, the world produces billions of tons of agricultural waste: rice and wheat straw, corn stalks, and sugarcane residue—that are burned, discarded, or left to decompose. This waste constitutes one of the most abundant renewable resources on the planet, yet it remains largely invisible to markets, policymakers, and strategists. This invisibility is not accidental: it is a product of an international economic system built on rewarding concentration and scarcity rather than distribution and renewal.

Agricultural biomass should be understood as a form of strategic capital—a renewable asset capable of generating economic returns, technological leadership, institutional resilience, and geopolitical independence simultaneously.

Instead of treating agricultural biomass merely as an energy source or environmental asset, we can frame how renewable biological resources can be generated and transformed into sustainable geopolitical capabilities through coordinated industrial organization. By embracing this transformation, BRICS countries can reshape the political economy of energy and food, and regain strategic power.

From Scarcity to Abundance: The Geopolitics of Biomass

Since the mid-20th century, the global economy has been organized around the principle of scarcity-driven value. Resources that are finite, geographically concentrated, and difficult to extract—oil, natural gas, and critical minerals—command high prices precisely because their supply can be controlled. This control generates rents that fund states, corporations, and strategic influence.

The post-Cold War international energy system evolved around institutions and financial mechanisms that provided considerable influence to countries controlling capital, technology, maritime routes, and reserve currencies. This architecture has created dependencies that are increasingly being leveraged for strategic advantage. From the perspective of many BRICS policymakers, recent measures—such as the proposed 100% tariffs on Russian energy buyers, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. controlling the Venezuelan oil supplies—are interpreted as part of a broader pattern of strategic competition over energy markets. This system, however, is beginning to fray. As carbon pricing mechanisms expand, as the costs of pollution become harder to ignore, and as the strategic vulnerabilities of fossil fuel dependence grow more apparent, the economic calculus is shifting.

Therefore, the agricultural biomass is becoming visible not because its physical properties have changed, but because the institutional frameworks for valuing it are finally emerging. As Chatham House report  notes, transitions towards bio-based economies “bring a new set of geopolitical dynamics and could give rise to new dominant players with natural resource endowments, R&D and innovation investments, and processing capacities.”

The Biomass as a Strategic Asset

Agricultural biomass exhibits characteristics that are the opposite of fossil fuels. It is abundant rather than scarce, distributed rather than concentrated, renewable rather than finite, and locally manageable rather than dependent on complex extraction infrastructure.

India alone produces over 500 million tons of agricultural residues annually, of which nearly 92 million tons of rice stubble are burned each year. The economic cost of this practice is estimated at $339.4 billion annually, equivalent to 9.5% of India’s GDP, while the human toll reaches 1.72 million premature deaths annually from fine particulate pollution. China generates even larger volumes—over 600 million tons of crop residues annually. Brazil, Russia, and South Africa collectively add hundreds of millions more.

These residues have the potential to meet up to 25% of global liquid fuel demand, while simultaneously reducing dependence on imported chemical fertilizers, which cost India alone over $14.5 billion annually. Converting agricultural residues into biofuels and biochemicals could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60–80% compared to fossil fuels, while improving soil health through biochar and compost application.

Shared BRICS Resource

While India exemplifies both the crisis and opportunity in agricultural biomass, it is by no means the only BRICS nation rich in this resource. Russia has extensive wheat and barley straw, Brazil boasts abundant sugarcane bagasse and soybean residues, China produces enormous volumes of corn and rice straw, and South Africa has significant maize and sugarcane residues. The critical issue is not which country dominates the feedstock supply, but whether BRICS nations can forge a collective framework to transform this dispersed resource into a shared strategic asset. Joint research centers, harmonized quality standards, and coordinated investment strategies could unlock far greater value than any single country could achieve on its own.

Traditionally viewed as a renewable energy source or a component of the circular economy, agricultural biomass should also be recognized as strategic capital—an asset that delivers sustained economic, technological, institutional, and geopolitical benefits through effective management and innovation.

Its value hinges on the technologies employed to transform and govern it, positioning biomass as a vital multidimensional asset for economic growth, technological leadership, institutional resilience, and strategic independence, ultimately contributing to both economic stability and international geopolitical stability.

Why Russia Matters: A Strategic Opportunity

Russia occupies a distinctive position in the emerging bioeconomy. As the world’s largest exporter of wheat and a major producer of barley, corn, and other grains, Russia generates substantial agricultural residues—estimated at 100–150 million tons annually. These residues represent not merely a disposal challenge but a strategic opportunity to diversify Russia’s economic base beyond hydrocarbon exports.

Moreover, Russia has developed significant expertise in biocatalytic and enzymatic conversion technologies through decades of investment in biotechnology and industrial chemistry. This scientific infrastructure provides a foundation for Russia to emerge as a technology exporter in the bioeconomy, rather than merely a feedstock supplier.

Geopolitically, Russia’s potential role in the bioeconomy aligns with its broader strategic objectives: reducing dependence on Western technology and financial systems, diversifying export markets towards Asia and the Global South, and building institutional frameworks within BRICS that are independent of Western-dominated structures. The bioeconomy offers Russia a pathway to maintain its status as a major power while transitioning from fossil fuel dependence to a more diversified and resilient economic base.

The Architecture of Implementation

The transition from agricultural residues to strategic capital requires an institutional architecture capable of coordinating investment, standardizing quality, facilitating trade, and sharing knowledge. Several building blocks already exist.

First, a BRICS Bioeconomy Platform. In February 2026, President Vladimir Putin proposed launching joint bioeconomy projects with BRICS partners, describing the sector as key “from the point of view of the quality of global growth.”

Second, dedicated financing through the New Development Bank (NDB). The NDB has committed to directing 40% of all its financing to climate and energy transition projects in 2026, with approved renewable energy projects totaling $300 million for Brazil, $250 million for India, $180 million for South Africa, and $81 million for China.

Third, BRICS Biorefinery Corridors. The existing BRICS STI Framework Program supports collaborative research on biomass conversion, which could be scaled into a network of biorefinery corridors linking feedstock-rich regions with industrial processing hubs.

Fourth, harmonized standards. In July 2026, India signed a first standards cooperation pact with BRICS partners, pointing towards a common regulatory framework for biofuels and biofertilizers.

Fifth, a common BRICS market for biofertilizers. The 2025 “Indore Declaration” by BRICS Agriculture Ministers committed member states to strengthening food security through greater cooperation.

Finally, carbon market integration. BRICS countries could collectively negotiate access to international carbon markets.

These six institutional pillars, built on existing platforms, extend them into a coherent bioeconomy architecture. What is needed is not invention, but coordination.

Limitations of the Biomass Model

Any balanced perspective must acknowledge three key limitations. First, collecting agricultural residues is often economically unfeasible due to logistical challenges, particularly in areas with weak infrastructure, where the cost sometimes exceeds the value of the raw materials. Second, a portion of the residues must remain in the fields to maintain soil health, depending on local conditions. Third, biomass has a significantly lower energy density than fossil fuels—about one-third that of crude oil—which presents challenges in storage and transportation. However, technological advancements are gradually addressing these issues. These limitations underscore the need for innovation, regional collaboration, and the development of biorefining facilities. While biomass cannot completely replace oil, it has the potential to play a significant strategic role in future energy and agricultural systems.

The New Geopolitics of Strategic Abundance

Throughout modern history, strategic power has largely been associated with the possession of finite resources. Yet the defining strategic resource of the 21st century may prove fundamentally different. It will not be exhausted by extraction, but renewed with every harvest. The transition from fossil dependence to biological abundance represents not merely an energy transition, but a transformation in the political economy of power itself.

The 20th century taught states how to compete over finite resources. The 21st century may reward those capable of organizing renewable abundance. Oil shaped the geopolitics of the past, biomass may shape the geoeconomics of the future. The strategic question for BRICS is therefore no longer whether agricultural waste has value, but whether it is prepared to recognize that value before others do.

For BRICS countries, which collectively represent nearly half of humanity, this transition offers an opportunity to break the cycle of dependency and to build a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable economic order. The resource is abundant. The technology is available. What remains is the political will to act—not as a gesture of defiance, but as a demonstration of strategic foresight.

If the 20th century rewarded those who controlled oil wells, the 21st century may reward those who mastered biological production systems. In that world, the decisive geopolitical advantage will belong less to countries endowed with scarce resources than to those capable of transforming renewable abundance into strategic power. The decisive question for the emerging international order is therefore not whether renewable abundance exists, but which states will acquire the institutional capacity to transform it into strategic capital.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has turned quarter a century in June, and, significantly, it has grown to counter Western hegemony in the global political and financial systems. Throughout the SCO’s history, Russia has viewed it primarily as a platform to utilize in order to remain influential in Central Asia at an affordable cost and never lose it to China, and establish multipolarity in the face of the Western-led order which it sees as threatening. During the first 15 years, the SCO was only secondary for Russia after to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Subsequently, the platform has become more important in Moscow’s diplomatic bag. After 2014 and particularly after 2022, it has become one of the last institutions where Russia can act as a normal member of the international community, rather than an isolated pariah state.

Russia’s multilateralism is of a broader pattern: international institutions are important to it primarily as a means to affirm its status and overcome Western constraints, and less as a means of profound integration.

The Founding Logic: Border Security and a Secondary Track

The SCO is the successor to the Shanghai Five formed in 1996. The latter was born out of a technical issue: demarcating and demilitarizing the Sino-Soviet border with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. As Moscow’s politics at the time was recovering from the collapse of the Soviet administrative structures, its main concern was preventing an institutional vacuum rather than establishing a new supranational mechanism. For Russia, it was beneficial but not imperative. Moscow’s focus during the post-Soviet era was on its own post-Soviet arrangements, particularly the CSTO as a military alliance, rather than the SCO, which is more of a bridge to China. This hierarchy has hardly changed following the SCO’s formalization as an organization with counter-terrorism ambitions in 2001. In the 2000s, Russia’s Central Asia policy shifted to bilateral agreements and the CSTO’s collective-defense provisions, deliberately not in the SCO’s repertoire. What the CSTO could not provide was a framework involving China, while the SCO offered a way to handle Beijing’s regional agenda without granting it sole authority over it.

A Division of Labor, Not a Partnership of Equals

In the 2010s, a working division emerged. After the 2018 Qingdao Summit, the International Institute for Strategic Studies stated: “Russia leads in politico-military affairs, communications, and culture, whereas China leads in economic development, investment, and infrastructure.” The comparative advantage was not accidental: Russia was not able to compete with China for capital. Yet Russia possessed cultural and military capabilities with which it could dominate a region with a Soviet-trained population: the Russian language was relatively accessible and many Central Asian officers had been trained in Russia. Russia’s relevance to the SCO has payed its way in the Peace Mission joint exercises, in which Russia typically takes the lead while China is comparatively inexperienced in training military forces’ interoperability. This “division of labor” allows Moscow to maintain presence in the security field where Beijing becomes less significant.

The SCO was obviously never intended to be the real driver of Russia’s regional agenda, as its parallel institution-building reveals.

The Eurasian Union proposed by Vladimir Putin in 2011 and realized as the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2015 was a Russian-led alternative to Chinese-led economic integration. It duplicated, rather than complemented, the SCO’s long-awaited free-trade aspirations. With Russia and China coordinating the projects, it became a forum that all SCO members could attend, once the terms were agreed between the two countries. As the pattern suggests, when Russia controls the terms, it builds its own structures and joins the SCO only as a cheap move.

Guarding against Chinese Primacy through Enlargement

Russia has been pushing for India’s SCO membership (along with Pakistan’s) as a strategy to reduce Chinese influence in the region, not as a sincere effort to strengthen regional order. The growth of the SCO, in which China backs Pakistan and Russia backs India, was also a point of difference between the two powers. By 2018, both South Asian states had become full-fledged members, and the SCO’s promotional numbers—80% of Eurasia’s landmass, 43% of the world’s population, a quarter of the global GDP—proved useful not because they indicated a functional integration of the states under the club’s influence, but because they reduced China’s share in the bloc. It is in keeping with what the preface of Marochkin and Bezborodov’s book[1] says about the SCO’s value: “a new experience of reference within intergovernmental regional organizations which would be appropriate to a new international world of growing attempts to establish a unipolar world to the detriment of a multipolar one.” The preface, written mostly by Russian university scholars, reflects Russian official discourse and speaks of mistrust between “world powers,” a “crisis of the geopolitical paradigm,” and a “post-COVID world of turbulence and uncertainty” in which the SCO’s chief utility lies in proving that it is possible to live in a world without Western tutelage.

Sovereignty as a Design Principle, Not Accident

This symbolic function accounts for Russia’s lack of aspirations towards the SCO’s supranational authority, unlike its rhetorical flirting, at times, with the EAEU’s deeper integration—a tool in which Moscow has the edge.

The organization’s initial pledges of “mutual trust, mutual respect, equality, ... respect for diverse civilizations” are appropriate for Russia twice over: they preclude the organization from permitting the outside world to examine its own policies and practices, and they set the SCO apart from the European Union model that the Kremlin has always seen as a tool for exporting Western values.

The same is evident in Naarajärvi’s conceptual framework of new-regionalism, where the SCO is ranked low in “political integration” and Central Asian regionalization is characterized as being “tightly in the hands of the state administrations”[2]—an aspect the researcher considers to be somewhat old. For Russia, it is not a failure but the essence: inscribing itself as the center of the forum simultaneously shields its rulers’ sovereignty from external criticism.

Conclusion: Dependency without Deference

Russian policy towards the SCO has always been that of measured instrumentalism—with little investment where it had other options, with symbolic emphasis when it needed a stage, and with a constant opposition to any institutional depth that might limit its capacity for action.

The SCO has become more integral to Russia’s interests in the last few years: following the imposition of Western sanctions its search for alternative venues for diplomatic negotiations and non-Western political forums has grown, as well as the need to rely on China as an economic partner of last resort.

Also, the SCO has become more important to Russia as Beijing has strengthened its influence within the SCO while Russia has weakened its own.

Russian multilateralism has one obvious core contradiction: institutions become more valuable to Moscow when its role in fashioning them decreases. Rather than a keystone of Russian grand strategy, the SCO is a reflection of its limitations; and the more it remains the only choice for posturing, the more useful it is.

The abridged version of this text has been published in Russian in the newspaper Kommersant as part of the project Contours of the Future.

Graham Allison’s Thucydides Trap has become a fatalistic narrative in Western policy circles, asserting that a rising power and an established hegemon are bound to clash. This article rejects such determinism while acknowledging genuine bilateral risks. Great-power war is a political choice shaped by institutional guardrails, economic ties, strategic doctrines, and domestic politics. Structural frictions between the U.S.-led alliance system and the emerging multipolar order are manageable through reciprocal transparency, balanced crisis mechanisms, and mutual respect for sovereign equality under the UN Charter. Drawing on the May 2026 Trump-Xi Summit and recent defense shifts, this analysis outlines a pragmatic path towards managed coexistence—contingent on parallel adjustments by Washington and Beijing.

The Trap Is a Warning, not a Verdict

Twelve of sixteen historical power transitions ended in war, yet these statistics are a historical correlation, not an unbreakable law. The Thucydides framework ignores modern constraints absent in ancient Athens and Sparta: nuclear deterrence, the UN Charter’s prohibition on aggressive war, over $1 trillion in bilateral economic integration, and global public aversion to great-power conflicts. A 2023 Pew survey shows that most people in both countries view war as an existential threat, which creates shared political incentives for de-escalation.

Conflict erupts only when three conditions converge: mutual security anxieties calcify into paranoid misperception, domestic hawkish voices override war’s catastrophic costs, and crisis communication collapses. All three are amenable to policy intervention.

The question is not whether war is inevitable, but whether the leaders on both sides possess the political will to keep these triggers in check, and whether Washington can abandon its zero-sum framing of China’s rise.

Structural Tensions: Asymmetric Postures and Divergent Interests

The current frictions arise from a structural mismatch: the U.S.-centered alliance order built for bipolar confrontation struggles to accommodate a multipolar world. China does not seek to overturn the international system but to reform its inequitable elements—a legitimate aspiration shared by many developing nations.

Washington’s perspective: U.S. strategists cite China’s military modernization, South China Sea infrastructure, and Taiwan Strait drills as sources of regional instability. These concerns are understandable but must diregard the context: China’s naval buildup is defensive, with over 80% of its energy imports traversing vulnerable sea lanes.

Beijing’s perspective: The U.S. maintains 375 military installations across the Indo-Pacific, has expanded exclusive blocs like AUKUS, enforces unilateral technology containment, and repeatedly passes legislation interfering in China’s internal affairs—most egregiously on the Taiwan question. This constitutes strategic encirclement that no sovereign state could tolerate.

Acknowledging legal contestation: Beijing regards activities around Taiwan and the South China Sea as sovereign rights under its interpretation of international law, though it acknowledges that the U.S. and its allies hold a different legal interpretation, yet such differences cannot serve as grounds for repeated military provocations near China’s territorial waters.

The disproportionateness is clear: U.S. forces operate globally; China’s posture is regionally defensive. Yet Washington demands Chinese transparency while reserving its own opacity—an imbalance that fuels rather than reduces mistrust.

Strategic Doctrine, Not Cultural Stereotypes

Many Western analysts invoke Confucian or Tianxia tropes to label China as inherently non-expansionist—a flawed civilizational essentialism that explains little. Pre-modern dynasties conducted frontier expansions; culture alone does not determine a state’s behavior.

China’s official defense White Papers (2019, 2022) offer a clearer framework: Beijing rejects hegemonism and expansionism, prioritizes homeland defense, and follows Sun Tzu’s logic of deterrence over offensive warfare. Military strength exists to counter external threats, as confrontation would derail China’s core goal of high-quality development. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) embodies this orientation, prioritizing developmental influence through economic interdependence rather than military conquest. While critics have raised debt concerns, China has implemented meaningful reforms: restructured repayment timelines, expanded grant financing and independent third-party audits in partner countries. Implementation remains a work in progress, but the trajectory reflects a strategic choice for cooperation over coercion.

The Decoupling Paradox: Eroding Economic Guardrails

Bilateral trade reached $664 billion in 2025, with total commercial activity exceeding $1 trillion. The Peterson Institute estimates full-scale conflict would reduce global GDP by 10–15% within two years. Yet economic integration alone cannot prevent war, as pre-1914 Europe tragically demonstrated.

Today’s critical paradox is that the U.S. actively enforces decoupling in strategically vital sectors—semiconductors, AI, quantum computing—via export controls and industrial subsidies, while low-stakes sectors like consumer goods provide limited stabilizing effect. The economic buffer is being eroded where it matters most. The 2026 summit’s Trade and Investment Boards offer some relief, but their impact is undermined by Washington’s unilateral technology containment. While China has consistently advocated for open, rules-based trade, Washington’s export controls and industrial subsidies have increasingly weaponised economic interdependence. China maintains that such unilateral measures are counterproductive but also recognizes that strategic competition in dual-use technologies will likely persist, making it all the more urgent to preserve cooperation in non-strategic sectors.

The May 2026 Summit: Partial Progress, Unresolved Contradictions

The May 2026 summit yielded tangible results: joint trade boards, expanded agricultural cooperation, resumed military dialogue, and a ‘strategic stability’ framework. The U.S. Defense Secretary softened adversarial rhetoric at the Shangri-La Dialogue—a positive but insufficient step.

Yet severe risks persist. China’s decision to send scholarly rather than ministerial defense delegates reflected Beijing’s assessment that U.S. congressional actions on Taiwan undercut the Summit’s positive momentum. While this was a diplomatic signal of displeasure, it also highlighted a mutual problem: neither side has fully insulated crisis communication from domestic political interference. The two sides have not established clear, symmetrical red lines distinguishing routine operations from provocations. The summit built a dialogue framework but failed to resolve distrust rooted in U.S. containment strategy. Above all, Washington must stop repeatedly damaging China’s core interests such as the Taiwan question to create necessary preconditions for sustained high-level military exchanges.

Domestic Politics: Reactive Pressures on Both Sides

Domestic hawkishness in both nations is largely reactive to the other’s strategic moves. In the U.S., Congress consistently outflanks the executive on China policy, with partisan incentives pushing presidential candidates towards anti-China rhetoric and legislative interference in Taiwan affairs.

In China, public sentiment on the Taiwan question constrains unilateral concessions when citizens regard territorial integrity as an inviolable bottom line. This nationalist sentiment arises from decades of external pressure, not inherent aggression. For China, sovereignty, particularly over Taiwan, is non-negotiable, a position rooted in domestic consensus.

For the U.S., alliance commitments and democratic values are similarly non-negotiable domestic imperatives. Recognizing each other’s domestic red lines, rather than testing them, is essential to prevent domestic pressures from driving escalation.

Three Symmetrical De-escalation Mechanisms for Consideration

To translate the summit’s diplomatic momentum into durable stability, policymakers on both sides may wish to consider several equal, verifiable operational rules to prevent accidental escalation:

First, a 72-hour advance notification mechanism for missile tests, large-scale coastal naval exercises, and strategic bomber deployments, modelled on the 1988 U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement, with identical obligations for both sides. Such transparency would reduce the information asymmetry that fuels worst-case assumptions.

Second, a dual-site joint crisis communication center in Hawaii and Beijing, staffed with dedicated language officers and enabling real-time, symmetrical data sharing on maritime and aerial activity, transforming crisis response from hours to minutes.

Third, mutual annual disclosure of military exercise schedules: China publishing South China Sea and Taiwan Strait drill plans and the U.S. publishing its Freedom of Navigation Operations and allied exercise plans near Chinese waters. This would normalize activities currently interpreted as provocative.

These measures are technically feasible and low-cost. Their adoption depends on political willingness, particularly whether Washington can accept symmetric transparency rather than demanding Chinese concessions while reserving its own prerogatives. China has consistently supported balanced confidence-building; the question is whether the U.S. is prepared to reciprocate.

Reciprocal Adjustments, Differentiated Responsibilities

Sustainable stability demands reciprocal but differentiated adjustments based on each side’s structural position.

For the U.S.: Washington must accept China’s legitimate aspiration for fair global governance reform, scale back provocative close-in patrols, end blanket industrial suppression disguised under tech security safeguards, and cease legislative interference in Taiwan. The U.S. alliance system was built for a bipolar era; its expansion now destabilizes rather than secures the region.

For China: Beijing will continue enhancing UN-aligned military spending transparency, strengthen multilateral BRI oversight, and publish defensive drill schedules on a reciprocal basis, without compromising sovereignty over Taiwan and adjacent waters.

U.S. adjustments require reconsidering military deployments and technology controls that Beijing views as hostile; China’s adjustments require deepening transparency measures that Washington views as essential. Both carry domestic political costs. The challenge is not determining who moves first but designing a parallel framework where both sides’ adjustments are sequenced and verifiable, building trust through simultaneous, reciprocal action.

*   *   *

The Thucydides Trap is a cautionary tale, not an inevitable prophecy. Managed coexistence requires symmetrical crisis rules, balanced domestic narratives, and guardrails separating global collaborative issues from geopolitical competition. Climate action, pandemic response, and nuclear non-proliferation can anchor bilateral ties if insulated from rivalry.

The 2026 Summit established the foundation for dialogue. The task ahead is to populate it with equal, reciprocal operational rules. In a nuclear multipolar world, coexistence is not idealism, it is the only rational path. Long-term stability hinges on both capitals: Washington acknowledging China’s legitimate aspirations for global governance reform and security, and Beijing continuing to provide the transparency and reassurance that addresses allied concerns. Neither side can demand the other move first; both must move together sequencing their adjustments through the institutional framework established at the 2026 Summit. Fundamentally, enduring stability cannot be achieved unless the U.S. abandons its outdated hegemonic mindset of containing China’s peaceful development.

Since the second decade of the 21st century the world has been living in a situation of disorder, which has now transformed into the most dangerous geopolitical turmoil since World War II. Its main characteristics are:

1) The emergence and consolidation of a multipolar world triggered by the rapid rise of China and other East Asian nations.

2) The relative decline of the West, accelerated by the United States’ highly problematic strategic choices: a three-front war against Russia, China, and Iran and, since 2025, an unprecedented fragmentation of the West.

3) The West’s frantic efforts to reverse its gradual decline, stopping short at nothing, including violation of international rules, use of violence, and piracy. To preserve their dominance, the U.S. and its allies are resorting to military operations and even wars.  

4) This notwithstanding, the West, and especially the U.S., remain powerful to cause—and are causing—great damage urbi et orbi. This fact should not be underestimated.

An important facet of the West’s decline is its moral decay and intellectual degradation. This is clearly seen in the low morals of current European leaders, with few exceptions, and of U.S. presidents; as well as the electoral fraud and manipulations (e.g., used to elect George W. Bush and then Donald J. Trump twice as presidents).

Few could have imagined the scope of corruption, debauchery, and pedophilia among politicians, businessmen and intellectuals as the disclosed sex offence scheme of Jeffrey Epstein and his high-profile circle has shown.

The Intensification of Racism in the West: Geopolitical Implications

All of this is well known in general outlines. Less recognized and often overlooked is the racial underpinning of the current tense geopolitical situation. The widespread ingrained racism of structural nature adds a particularly perverse connotation to the current geopolitical picture.

For purposes of analysis, today’s world can be divided into two parts—the Collective West and the Global South. The Collective West is normally understood as comprising the U.S.-led states: Canada, the European Union, Britain, Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and some other high-income countries. The population of the West, excluding Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, accounts for merely 12% of the world’s population, with a tendency to decrease. The Global South is usually understood to correspond to the Rest (to recall Niall Ferguson’s book The West and the Rest), i.e., the emerging and developing countries of Eurasia, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

The central point is that approximately 3/4 of the people residing in the West are white, with non-white minorities mainly employed in low-skilled jobs that whites are no longer willing to do.

The population of the Global South is completely different in terms of racial composition. The vast majority are blacks, browns, yellows, mestizos, etc. Whites have been a minority in Africa, Asia, and even Latin America, where European colonization had more weight.

 In the white West, structural racism has taken root, anchored in the conviction that Western civilization, more developed and sophisticated, is the product of superior people. People of much older civilizations, such as Chinese, Indian and Iranian, smile ironically at this pretension. When Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a journalist what he thought of Western civilization, the answer was: “I think it would be a good idea.”

Western racism is an old and persisting phenomenon. In the second half of the 20th century it was disguised by varying layers of hypocrisy, today the feeling of superiority over non-whites has become more transparent.

Yet the peoples who were previously colonized or semi-colonized no longer recognize the superiority of whites. They resist the colonial or neocolonial schemes of exploitation imposed by the Europeans and the Americans. They want to have their rights accepted—in practice and not just in theory. As Vladimir Putin said, “The Western elites are used to stuff their bellies with human flesh and their pockets with money. That vampire’s ball is coming to an end.”

The world’s white minority adamantly resents losing world hegemony and the privileges associated with it. ‘Human, all too human,’ Nietzsche would say. Centuries of world domination are not easily forgotten and abandoned.

The Growing Resistance to Immigration and Civilizational Regression

Another phenomenon of crucial importance is the large-scale migration of Latin Americans, Africans and West Asians who flee wars (many of them unleashed by the West) or seek better living conditions in the U.S. and Europe. As migration grows, so does the revulsion in the West towards immigrants, especially Muslims. Restrictions on immigration have gained broad public support among Europeans and Americans. The barriers and—often—inhumane ways of border control, hostility against immigrants, and resentment against even migrant citizens, are indicative of the U.S. and Europe’s civilizational regression.

The popular fight against immigration, on both sides of the North Atlantic, partly reflects the desire to protect Western culture against the growing presence of people belonging to other cultures and other religions. This is understandable. However, it is mixed with deep-rooted racism—the belief in the superiority of whites. Remarkable in this respect is that white immigrants, e.g., from Ukraine, face far fewer obstacles in Europe than Arabs or black Africans. A Ukrainian immigrant or refugee is basically seen as “one of us.”

What we have, in fact, is a new form of xenophobic fascism, with the radical rejection of immigrants at its heart. On the political party level, it is manifested in the rise of the ‘new right’ discourse in Europe and the United States.

Often referred to as ‘populist’, resonating with broad anti-immigration public sentiment, it is growing—partly because the traditional parties cannot embrace it without violating their basic principles.

Like Jews in Nazi Germany and other European countries, Muslims and other non-whites have been made a convenient scapegoat for the adverse social consequences of the West’s decline and the impossibility of continuing to exploit the rest of the world. Non-white migrants are held responsible for all sorts of crimes and violence. They are accused of replacing white workers and generating unemployment among them—when, in fact, migrant workers are engaged in unautomated and low-paid jobs that the white population rejects.

The ‘new right’ discourse in Europe and America is not exactly new, it is rather a regression to the pre-Enlightenment conceptions. It can be called fascist or Nazi, as it contains elements of this worldview, with Muslims occupying the place previously reserved for Jews. Civilizational regression has acquired such a dimension that it would be appropriate to speak of an Age of Obscurantism or an Age of Endarkenment. In what other era could an absolutely crude figure like Donald Trump be at the center of the world stage? Trump is an extreme case, but the truth is that few Western leaders measure up to the positions they hold.

In short, Europe and the U.S., previously at the forefront of the Enlightenment, are vigorously sponsoring a movement in the opposite direction.  The 18th century became known as the Century of Enlightenment; the 21st century may go down in history as the Century of Endarkenment.

Palestinian Genocide

The genocide perpetrated by Israeli Jews against Palestinians is perhaps the clearest symptom of Western civilization’s shipwreck and the central ingredient of this Age of Endarkenment. Europe’s and, above all, the U.S.’s support of Israel has compromised, perhaps irreversibly, the West’s adherence to the moral values it has been preaching so vigorously.

Importantly, Israel is far from an isolated case. Israel’s settler colonialism and genocide in Palestine have many precedents. In fact, Israel’s criminal behavior is part of the centuries-old European tradition.

 What is happening in Gaza is the latest colonial genocide practiced by white Europeans against non-whites. Beginning in the 16th century, Europeans and their descendants destroyed peoples in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Oceania to occupy their lands with immigrants from the metropolis. In Europe itself, the Holocaust would not have had the prominence it has if it had not victimized whites. Using various forms of genocide, Europeans victimized other races in what we now call the Global South, to the point of exterminating them completely or partially, like in Australia and North and South America.

The crucial and much commented difference of the genocide in Gaza from the previous genocides is that it has got wide and instantaneous media coverage, with a planetary impact. The Germans could, with some credibility, claim that they were unaware of the atrocities committed in the Nazi concentration camps, the Israelis are not in a position to claim the same.  And they do not really try. Moreover, Zionist extremists, inside and outside the Netanyahu government, take pride in killing Palestinians, justifying it by the “fight against terrorism” and even presenting the murder of Palestinian children as the elimination of “future terrorists.”

Furthermore, Gaza is sometimes interpreted as an experiment of the decaying Western Empire—a genocide broadcast globally in real time as a warning to all. The message goes like this: look what can happen to non-white peoples who resist the imperial pretensions of the West.

Inevitably, political, economic, and military support for Israel by the U.S. and most of Europe exacts an immense political price. No one believes anymore in the existence of Western values. The image, once so strong, has been destroyed in the name of a stalwart defense of Israel’s policies and priorities.

Challenges for Brazil

In conclusion a few words about Brazil that may be partly relevant to other nations of the Global South.

How can we prepare Brazil for a new international era, very different from the one we were used to?

The first imperative for Brazilians is to abandon, as soon as possible, the belief that international differences can be resolved with goodwill, diplomacy, and soft power. Careful psychological, economic and military preparation is imperative to face the storms ahead. It is not a choice or something that can be postponed. This is the most urgent challenge facing the country.

In the psychological realm, we need to overcome the inferiority complex that downgrades the country and makes our international relations so difficult. In other words, we must throw overboard all the remnants of centuries of cultural colonization. We also need to abandon our traditional pacifism—not to attack anyone, but to remember that to live in peace one needs to prepare for war. Se vis pacem para bellum, as the Romans said.

In the economy, Brazil must seek self-sufficiency in essential areas, avoiding dependence on foreign suppliers whenever feasible, especially from countries that appear as potential aggressors. Strategic production chains must be built mostly within the national territory or in reliable countries.

Self-sufficiency generates, of course, losses in economic efficiency, but the time is gone when one could rely with some plausibility on trade and financial openness as levers for development.

The second imperative is of positive nature. Brazil is able, perhaps like no other country, to offer a new word to the world, a message of reconciliation and unity. Moreover, our historical destiny may be in starting, together with other nations, a Second Renaissance that will free us from the threats and catastrophes of the Age of Endarkenment.

Thanks to its dimensions, mix of peoples from all parts of the planet, and tradition of openness to the world, Brazilians can play a significant role in the world’s salvation.

The meeting between the Russian and US presidents in Alaska last year caused a sensation in both form and substance. Expectations were so high, whether expressed as hope or alarm, that the Anchorage summit was almost certain to disappoint.

The conflict surrounding Ukraine is too deep and complex to be resolved at a single meeting, even one involving the leaders of Russia and the United States. Negotiations to end the Vietnam War dragged on for years, despite both sides understanding from the beginning that the conflict would eventually have to end.

The real question was whether Anchorage could provide the starting point for a peace process; it didn’t. Much has since been said about why, although the conditions for such a breakthrough probably didn’t exist in the first place. Yet rather than dismissing the summit with the usual sarcasm about the “spirit of Anchorage,” it’s worth considering what the meeting did achieve.

First, it exposed the widening divergence between the United States and Western Europe as the old world’s leaders remain committed to seeking a military victory over Russia, but Washington, by contrast, doesn’t want to become directly involved in pursuing that objective.

Donald Trump’s claim that the United States is merely a mediator rather than a participant is plainly disingenuous, given that Washington remains deeply involved, but American involvement could be far greater, even allowing for the apparent limits on its resources and its growing obligations elsewhere.

This divergence doesn’t mean the transatlantic alliance is about to collapse; however, it does suggest that the Atlanticism established during the second half of the 20th century will not survive in its old form. Whether its replacement will prove more advantageous to Russia remains unclear, but, nevertheless, Moscow has long wished to see the end of NATO as we have known it, and the chances of that happening are increasing.

Anchorage also demonstrated that the United States isn’t all-powerful, as Trump was unable to secure from Western Europe and Ukraine what he wanted at the time. In that instance, Washington’s failure worked against Moscow, but the broader recognition that American power has limits should be regarded as a positive development.

Taken together, these lessons show that the West is becoming more diverse and internally divided, so its remaining unity must increasingly be maintained by political pressure and institutional inertia. Russia must therefore develop a more sophisticated and flexible policy towards Western countries, exploiting their growing differences rather than continuing to treat them as a single bloc.

Anchorage offered a revealing model of modern diplomacy, in which personalities increasingly matter more than institutions, and character more than principles. There are no longer any “magic” agreements and a gentleman’s agreement lasts only until another gentleman arrives with different priorities.

What retains value is composure and reliance on one’s own capabilities, combined with a sober assessment of their limits. Russia’s mistake before Anchorage was to imagine Trump as an external force capable of fundamentally changing the situation, but he didn’t play that role, nor could he have done so.

That disappointment returned everyone to the reality of the conflict in that no outside power can impose its resolution. During the year since Alaska, the Russian-Western European military confrontation has acquired a clearer direction and an internal logic of its own and it’s within that logic that Russia must seek a way to end the present war and prevent the next one, without waiting for magical solutions or grand bargains imposed from abroad.

This article was first published by Kommersant and was translated and edited by the RT team.

As recently as 26 July this year, Ursula von der Leyen appeared full of confidence in victory during her visit to Kyiv: she claimed the tide of the war had turned, that Ukraine had regained the initiative, and that Russia was on the defensive. The cause of this supposed turnaround, after four and a half years of a devastating war, is said to be a new ‘wonder weapon’: drones which, with the help of AI provided by Palantir and others, can carry the war deep into the Russian hinterland and precisely destroy oil refineries and other critical infrastructure there. The Russian economy – particularly the energy sector – is said to be severely weakened, and the war Russia started has now hit the country itself “with full force”.

On the battlefield too, according to these accounts, Ukraine has achieved considerable success with autonomously operating “killer drones”. These drones are said to be capable of automatically detecting and destroying all life at a distance of 30 kilometres on the front line. Technology, it is claimed, has thus more than compensated for the shortage of Ukrainian soldiers. Russian soldiers, by contrast, are now said paying a heavy price in lives without being able to demonstrate any military successes. This must be wearing down the aggressors and forcing Putin to acknowledge that he is going to lose the war.

These accounts were accompanied by media-effective drone attacks on Moscow and St Petersburg. No wonder, then, that the mainstream Western media have been full of victory reports over the past two months. Some even speculated that Russia could only hold out for another six months; a coup in Moscow was deemed possible. The strategically important Crimea was said to have been largely cut off from Russia by Ukrainian attacks. Putin would now be forced to the negotiating table as the loser – and on the terms of the European NATO states, which would amount to a Russian surrender. Their policy of providing massive military, political and financial support to Ukraine, whilst at the same time refusing any talks until Russia was ‘brought to its knees’, seemed to have paid off.

But is that really the case? Or may the tide actually have turned in Russia’s favour?

It is striking that for the past week there have been hardly any reports on the course of the war, and the victory announcements have largely fallen silent. This is because doubts are mounting, both in the US and in Ukraine itself, about the success of the drone war deep within the Russian hinterland.

One need only heed the warnings of General Zaluzhnyi: the drone war is not very successful and far too expensive. As a former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and current ambassador to London, he should know. According to the pro-Ukrainian war monitors ‘Dron-Bomber’, the Russians are now reportedly achieving a high shoot-down rate of Ukrainian drones. The dismissal of Ukrainian Defence Minister Fedorov is also likely to be linked to the looming failure of the drone war. Is the realisation taking hold that this conflict cannot be won by a drone warfare alone?

This means that developments on the battlefield remain decisive. However, there can be no question of the military stalemate claimed by the Western media. According to a report by the Ukrainian ‘Telegram Channel’: “in July this year, the armed forces of the Russian Federation occupied 728.45 km² of territory in the SVO (Special Operation) zone, which represents the best result since October 2024 … The pace of the Russian armed forces’ offensive is increasing”. Russian territorial gains are said to have occurred not only in the Donbas but also around Kharkiv and in Zaporizhzhia. This is still proceeding slowly, but it is a war of attrition whose primary aim is the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces. Could this objective be achieved by capturing the last remaining fortified defensive positions around the Donbas cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk?

Even more serious for Ukraine is the fact that its drone attacks have led to a hardening of the Russian position. The Russian leadership is now openly speaking of a war – including a war by NATO against Russia – and has significantly intensified the conflict. In the cruel logic of war, the destruction in Ukraine now far exceeds that in Russia. Another crucial factor is that Ukraine has no air defences to speak of and is barely able to defend itself against massive Russian drone and missile attacks, whilst the intensity of Ukrainian attacks is reportedly waning.

This is already having consequences. The Ukrainian Black Sea ports in and around Odessa are said to have been bombed so heavily that Ukraine has effectively become a ‘landlocked country’. If these reports are accurate, this would be a severe blow: to date, around 70 per cent of all Ukrainian imports and exports, as well as 90 per cent of agricultural exports, have been handled via these ports. Key bridges, such as the Zatoka Bridge, which connects Odessa with the Romanian Black Sea ports, have also been destroyed. Furthermore, rail and road links, petrol stations, the power grid, industrial facilities and warehouses are being systematically destroyed.

The European NATO member states can do little to change this – they lack the military capabilities. Plans to station a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Poland or even to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine are completely unrealistic. The United States has recently announced that it will hand over the leadership of the NATO centre in Wiesbaden, which coordinates military support for Ukraine, entirely to European NATO member states. There is even talk of disbanding this NATO facility, which is crucial for Ukraine. Further, with the Iran war ranging, the US has hardly any weapons left to spare. There can therefore be little question of renewed US military involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Even before the latest escalation of the war, there were clear indications that the Ukrainian army was in considerable difficulty. Upon taking office in January, Minister Fedorov spoke of around 200,000 deserters; other MPs even cited significantly higher figures. Furthermore, some two million Ukrainian men are said to have evaded conscription orders. Whichever figures are accurate, they point to an alarming state of affairs within the Ukrainian armed forces – a situation that cannot be remedied either by forced recruitment on the streets or, as is now becoming apparent, by drones controlled by artificial intelligence. Similarly, a proposal now being discussed by the EU – to withdraw refugee status from Ukrainian men who have fled, in breach of international law, and to send them back to Ukraine to face the war – is further evidence of the hopelessness of the situation.

In May, the Ukrainian Minister for Social Affairs, Denys Ulyutin, stated that the population in the government-controlled part of the country had shrunk from 52 million (at the time of independence in 1991) to possibly 22 million. Of these, around 11 million are on social security, predominantly pensioners and war invalids. He expects the population to continue to fall after the war ends, as young men – once exempt from military service – would follow their families to the West. He does not expect any significant return of Ukrainians living abroad. Added to this demographic decline are increasing impoverishment, deep social inequalities, pervasive corruption, astronomical public debt and the country’s economic collapse.

This is hardly a state – let alone an army – to which the media could realistically attribute an imminent military turnaround or even victory.

Of course, such forecasts must be treated with caution. Yet the apparent failure of the drone war to bring about a strategic turning point should make it clear to the European NATO member states that, at the end of this escalation which we have accompanied with such fanfare, Ukraine may not emerge as the victor, but is instead sliding into an increasingly devastated, depopulated and bled-dry country. This should give us cause for great concern for the suffering people in Ukraine. European NATO-states must ask themselves whether a continuation of the war – which they have demanded and supported – can still be morally justified at all.

The European NATO member states are only harming Ukraine with their illusions of victory and wonder weapons, and must finally base their policy on a more realistic assessment of how the war is unfolding. It is therefore time to consider what would happen if the Ukrainian army’s resistance were to collapse one day and Russia were to capture Kharkiv and Odessa as well. Any remnant of Ukraine that remained would scarcely be viable. It must be in the top interest not only of Ukraine but also of its western backers to prevent such a scenario to develop. But how?

Certainly, this cannot be prevented through direct military intervention by NATO. This would make the situation only much worse – also for Ukraine – as such a course of action would inevitably entail the risk of a nuclear war, which nobody can win. Diplomacy therefore remains the only realistic option. After almost five years of war, it is high time that the European NATO member states actively sought dialogue with Russia. Germany – given its role as the strongest country in the EU, its geographical location and its historical responsibility – should take the first step.

To move beyond the entrenched positions of both governments, an initial rapprochement through a civil‑society initiative involving respected and influential figures may be advisable. Such an approach could open a first, cautious pathway toward renewed understanding after years of silence and mutual demonisation. Europe needs peace, and lasting peace can only be achieved with Russia, not against it.

There is not much time left for this.

This text has been published in Russian in the newspaper Kommersant as part of the project Contours of the Future.

There is one brutal truth about war. No matter how devastating it becomes, states continue to find reasons to fight each other. But while war is a permanent attribute of global politics, its characteristics are always evolving.

Today, military power has been democratized by changes in warfare technologies and economics. The proliferation of cheap, precise, and mass-produced drones and missiles has leveled the playing field, allowing small states to compel larger, more sophisticated militaries to accept stalemate. Already, protracted wars have ensnared the United States and Russia, two of the most powerful militaries, and this trend will continue.

Over the next decade, easily deployed destructive weapons will ordain indecisive conflicts that cost a lot and achieve little. This will not convince political leaders that military force should be abandoned. But it will shape the tactics of future wars, as states will try to avoid the challenges of attrition warfare.

First, hybrid tactics—those that fall just below the threshold of full-scale conflict—will become more prevalent and aggressive. These tools have clear benefits for states trying to stay out of long and expensive confrontations because they limit direct involvement, attribution, and the scope of the victim’s retaliation. These tactics are already widely used. China, for example, has exploited hybrid methods against Taiwan and Japan to limit their freedom of maneuver.

In future wars states will upgrade their use of hybrid tools qualitatively and quantitatively. They will substitute them for conventional warfare, using pressure to open space for future more assertive military action. They will also revise the boundary between war and peace, normalizing a new hybrid status quo that encompasses even some kinetic operations.

This might include physical destruction of critical infrastructure, debilitating cyber and economic campaigns, and limited strikes on government and civilian targets.

As a result, future war will increasingly develop into a daily routine, spilling off battlefields into the lives of average citizens far from frontlines.

Second, wars fought primarily as campaigns of dueling deep strikes will become more common and punishing. Such ‘stand-off wars’ (so named because they can be fought by adversaries far from a line of contact) have a low and falling cost of entry, but they can still impose physical and psychological damage, destroy industrial capacity, or disrupt an adversary’s military development. This makes them seductive for states seeking to avoid expensive ground campaigns and the collateral risk of a deadlock.

In the past, deep strike capabilities were the privilege of major powers, but this is changing. States will still invest in advanced powerful missiles, but they can also turn to inexpensive long-range munitions and drones that are almost as effective if less powerful. This will expand the frequency of stand-off wars but also their ferocity, as combatants increase the volume, precision, and payload of their strikes, as seen in the Iran war.

As deep strike weapons become faster, more deadly and difficult to intercept, acceptable target sets are likely to be expanded, making future stand-off wars more grueling and terrifying for civilian populations. In addition, as deep strike weapons can more easily hit sensitive military sites and assassinate leaders, their use will feed insecurity, fuel arms race, and make pre-emptive attacks or nuclear strikes more likely.

Finally, future war will be increasingly automated. This may not mean war fought by robots, but rather by remote-operated uncrewed systems and artificial intelligence.

The push for automation is about efficiency. Reliance on AI-controlled, remote-operated, and uncrewed systems make war faster and less personal. These systems reduce the demand for manpower, allow military commanders to take greater risks, and speed decision-making in high pressure environments. Israel, for example, has used such systems in Gaza to search houses and map tunnels while soldiers remained out of danger.

As their quality improves, automated and AI-powered systems will dominate warfare planning and execution. This will relegate military personnel to the role of programmer or remote operator. However, automation may never be absolute. Autonomous systems cannot (yet) replicate human strategic thinking or judge context.

Automated war will feel different to those involved. It is hard to imagine a populace being invested in a war fought by machines on their behalf, though this prospect is deeply unnerving. Automated war will also bring uncertainty and misperception, especially when errors occur, which will complicate decision-making and lead wars to spiral in undesired ways.This picture of future warfare is unsettling. Political leaders may think twice about costly ground invasions. But the type of warfare that emerges instead will be more diffuse, blurring the line between war and not war. It will also be more vicious and perilous, dominated by high-powered missiles and automated systems only loosely controlled by humans.

Future wars, then, will not be more decisive or controllable. They will simply swap the old risks for new risks, leaving the enduring potential for catastrophe unchanged.

After U.S. Navy forces attacked two Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf on 19 October 1987, Wall Street suffered one of the heaviest losses in its history—$560 billion. Black Monday went down in history next to the 1929 stock market crash.[1] But a rising New York property man from Brooklyn was already underscoring the vital importance of not permitting Iran to possess nuclear weapons. That man was Donald Trump.[2]

The Iran war which began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on 28 February this year (following the Twelve-Day War in summer 2025) is in a strategic stalemate. The ceasefire exists only on paper and concerns about escalation are growing.

Since WWII, major democracies have been the ones who started most wars of aggression or got involved in asymmetric wars against smaller states—Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Vietnam, and Algeria. Remarkably, they lost most of them.[3] Today, the U.S., vastly superior militarily and economically, is stuck in an asymmetric war with an extremely uneven distribution of power. Why is the global power, with a military budget exceeding the combined volume of the next ten largest states’ budgets, unable to defeat a middle power?

My assumption is that since an asymmetric war is not a matter of existence for democracies (unlike for their weaker opponents), public opposition to the continuation of such a war—especially where there is no coherent overall strategy— soon begins to grow, raising pressure on the executive to end it as quickly as possible, i.e. without achieving the objectives and thus losing the war.

In an asymmetric war[4] the politically, militarily, and economically weaker party, which cannot defeat the stronger party in an ‘open battle’ (i.e., impose its will on the opponent by kinetic means, to borrow from Clausewitz), employs non-kinetic means along kinetic (military) ones: attacking public opinion through disinformation and a war of narratives, destabilizing the opponent’s public institutions, influencing government policy, and shaping public opinion in its favor—exactly as great Chinese strategist Sun Tzu recommended in the 5th century BC.[5]

This does not mean that Iran is exploiting and fanning the flames of antiwar opinion among the American public or covertly spreading Iranian propaganda in the U.S., for example, by paying American actors.[6] But in an asymmetric war decisions leading to victory or failure lie in the realms of morale, legitimacy, politics, and/or the economy, or a combination of the above, with the dominant factors shifting over the course of the war.[7]

What is important in any war, including asymmetric, is a clearly defined unambiguous political objective. By contrast, the means to achieve this objective can and must be deployable in any combination without restriction.[8] In the book fittingly titled Unrestricted Warfare in the English translation, Chinese military leaders and party officials Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui identify different types of warfare according to the dominant means deployed: environmental war (change of the weather and composition of the atmosphere, artificial earthquakes, and engagement through NGOs; psychological warfare; smuggling warfare; media warfare; drug warfare (e.g., fentanyl in the U.S.); resources warfare, economic aid warfare (with development assistance as a disguise for control of a foreign market); cultural warfare (assimilation by cultural hegemony); international law warfare.[9]

The problem for the U.S.—and generally for the collective West and to a certain extent for Russia in the Ukraine war—is the misguided belief that political, military, and/or economic objectives can be achieved through technological superiority alone. This delusion can metapolitically be traced to the Enlightenment ideology of progress, advocating the creation of a kind of technological nirvana—a secular, materialist, atheistic paradise on Earth built with the help of technology. The Chinese military thinkers decry this fallacy on several points, emphasizing that “…in future warfare, certain advanced weapons may play a leading role. However, as for determining the outcome of war, it is now very difficult for anyone to occupy an unmatched position.”[10] Referring to U.S. strategists, they write: “They would rather treat war as the opponent in the marathon race of military technology and are not willing to look at it more as a test of morale and courage, wisdom and strategy.”[11]

William Lind, a wise American military theorist, agrees—not least with regard to the current war with Iran—that faith in technological superiority and air power is a major error of U.S. strategy, which keeps failing in asymmetric wars and conflicts.

Lind cites Gen. Merrill McPeak, Air Force Chief of Staff at the time, who frankly admitted on camera: “Historically, air power has over-promised and under-delivered.”[12] In that respect the hype around drones is also futile. Recent research by the Swiss renowned Center for Security Studies (CSS) clearly shows that: “…while new technologies and the novel adoption and adaptation of existing platforms such as drones function as force multipliers in specific contexts, they have not yet produced a fundamental revolution.”[13] A revolution in military affairs (RMA) is defined not as the use of some new supposed wonder weapon (Wunderwaffe) but as “a profound transformation in the character and conduct of warfare produced by the innovative application of technology in conjunction with fundamental changes in doctrine, organization, and operational concepts.”[14]

To apply the foregoing to the Iran war: first and foremost, the U.S. had no clearly defined objective to the war and therefore no coherent overall strategy. Over the course of the war, the U.S. administration has cited a wide range of aims, which are certainly not clearly defined or unambiguous:

• to prevent Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons;
• to neutralize its military capabilities, such as the missile program, or destroy the Iranian navy;
• to stop Iranian support for proxies (militias) in Palestine/Israel, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon;
• to effect regime change;
• to contain Israel, which would have attacked with or without the U.S., through joint coordination and loss reduction;
• to protect freedom of navigation (after the Iranians closed the Strait of Hormuz).

In fact, this variety of aims reflects the varying views on the Iran war of leading representatives of the U.S. administration. Vice President JD Vance, for instance, whom Trump ordered to Pakistan to negotiate with the Iranians, was against the war right from the beginning.[15]

Another striking fact about the U.S.’s lacking a coherent overall strategy is that the Iranian threat to block the Strait of Hormuz had been known for years. As early as December 2011, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, then Vice-President of Iran, warned that “if sanctions are adopted against Iranian oil, not a drop of oil will pass through the Strait of Hormuz.”[16] So this came as no surprise to Washington and should have been incorporated in the U.S. strategy—particularly when it came to planning countermeasures.

Without clear aims, it is also impossible to communicate clearly. No wonder that most Americans have been against the war from the very beginning. Since its outbreak, almost two out of three Americans have expressed opposition to Trump’s continued attacks against Iran and see the progress of the war as negative for the United States. Even among Republicans, a large proportion (especially in younger age groups) take a highly critical view of the war.[17]

This is where Iran’s strategic closure of the Strait of Hormuz comes into play—at least for Western states and U.S. allies in the region. The blockade has a huge impact on energy supplies, given that a fifth of the world’s oil and gas is transported via that seaway. Fuel prices, in turn, have a direct impact on inflation. A blockade of such transport routes hampers energy supplies essential for many industries. It also affects food production and shipping of fertilizers—which makes food prices rise across the world, and even exacerbates or significantly contributes to famine in some regions. It is therefore not surprising why most Americans want a quick end to the war and welcomed the memorandum of understanding which was to guarantee free passage for at least 60 days and find a follow-on solution for the Strait of Hormuz.[18] U.S. citizens’ concerns in relation to the Iran war do not center around democracy or regime change, they are primarily about gas prices, the deployment of ground troops (which the majority oppose), and their own casualties.[19] Even the notoriously passive House of Representatives, including the Republicans, has voted two times(!) against the continuation of the Iran war.[20]

Iran has been preparing for this war since 1979 and is playing its hand cleverly, not only on the economic plane. Political analyst Mehran Zolfagharieh notes that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corpse’s aim is to gain a psychological victory, sap or even eliminate the opponent’s will to fight. Ali Jafari, commander of the IRGC from 2007 to 2019, said: “Asymmetric warfare… is [our] strategy for dealing with the considerable capabilities of the enemy.” In that view, the key capabilities of the Iranian armed forces are manpower, strategic thinking, and willingness to absorb losses while exploiting the weakness of their enemies who tend to be risk-averse, sensitive to losses, and tightly bound to their technology or dependent on it as well as on regional bases.[21]

So, what to do, Mr Trump? The problem is that the U.S. has maneuvered itself into a strategy dilemma. In order to win the war, it would have to massively escalate hostilities and, for example, occupy the oil hub Kharg Island (whoever controls Kharg Island controls Iran’s oil) and the Strait of Hormuz simultaneously.

However, this would mean[22] deploying U.S. ground troops and risking the lives of American soldiers, which, given the American public’s aversion to casualties[23] and opposition to the use of ground troops, would make the Republicans’ stock fall even further—and that in the run-up to the midterms in November. An occupation beyond Kharg would be an adventure with incalculable risks: Iranian big cities and important military bases with nuclear infrastructure are protected by the Elburs Mountains in the north and the Zagros Mountains in the West. In the East, there are the Salt and Lut Deserts. According to some estimates, to occupy the whole of Iran, the U.S. military would need 3,3 million soldiers.[24]

Yet things cannot remain as they are: Iran is still in a position to threaten the U.S. allies and American bases in the region and is likely now to want nuclear weapons more than ever.[25] An important point, not only from the U.S. perspective but also Europe’s, is that control of the Strait of Hormuz remains with Iran, which will probably also demand tolls for passage—possibly even in Chinese renminbi, which would be another step towards de-dollarization.[26]

Iran is exploiting U.S. strategic cul-de-sac: Trump can move neither forward nor backward, and is now exactly where Tehran wants him to be. The lesson of history, applicable to all asymmetric wars, is: “If strategists have little or no confidence that a prospective war can be kept short, then arguably the only prudent policy is not to fight it at all.”[27] This vital point was clear to John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States (1825-1829): “Whenever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”[28]

The 1979 hostage crisis (U.S. Embassy in Tehran), was resolved not through direct military action, but the freezing of Iranian currency reserves, the arms embargo, and support for Iraq in its war against Iran, which, along with subsequent diplomatic negotiations, helped to achieve the U.S.’s aims.[29]

Today, like in the past, it is time to take a diplomatic route, combined, of course, with (military) pressure—not least because no other route is realistic.

Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, has a conversation with The Peacemonger. He offers a frank assessment of why Western Europe remains committed to the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine – and why ending it now could create serious political challenges for Brussels, Berlin and Paris. The discussion focuses on the internal logic of the European Union, the position of Donald Trump’s America, Russia’s red lines, the future of Donbass, Vladimir Zelensky’s political prospects, and Europe’s military-industrial dependence on the conflict in Ukraine. The conversation also addresses why the prospects for genuine diplomacy remain extremely limited.

The conversation is available via this link.