A Missouri judge who locked two children in jail cells because he was frustrated by their resistance to a parental custody decision is liable for violating their Fourth Amendment rights, a federal appeals court ruled this week. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected Taney County Judge Eric Eighmy's claim that he was shielded by qualified immunity, a doctrine that blocks federal civil rights claims unless they allege a violation of "clearly established" law.

"A reasonable judge should have known better," Judge David Stras writes in an opinion joined by the two other members of the 8th Circuit panel. "The law was 'clearly established' enough" to "place the issue 'beyond debate.'"

Institute for Justice attorney Dylan Moore, who wrote an 8th Circuit brief arguing against immunity for Eighmy and participated in oral arguments, welcomed the decision. "Every reasonable person knows that a judge can't throw children in jail for no good reason," he said. "Yet Judge Eighmy claimed qualified immunity shielded him from accountability anyway because no prior case told him that imprisoning innocent kids is unconstitutional. That defense is ridiculous, and we are thrilled that the court saw through it. When government officials commit such obvious constitutional violations, qualified immunity should never enter the picture."

The incident at the center of the case happened after an October 2019 custody hearing involving Kadan Rockett, then 14, and his 12-year-old sister, Brooklyn, who had achieved a modicum of fame as magicians performing on America's Got Talent. Their divorced parents, Bart Rockett and Kami Ballard, agreed that Ballard, who at that point lived in Missouri, would have primary custody of the children, while Rockett, who was living in California, would be "responsible for them at the beginning of each month and 'during TV pilot season.'" But Kadan and Brooklyn did not want to go home with their mother, which led to an argument in the lobby of the courthouse.

Eighmy intervened, telling Kadan and Brooklyn to come with him to a conference room, where he informed them that they had to leave with Ballard. "The children would not budge, even after the judge mentioned that the other option was foster care," Stras notes. "Frustrated, Judge Eighmy had the children follow him again, this time to a waiting area in the courthouse's juvenile division." A few minutes later, Eighmy "led them down a hallway to two holding cells."

Outside the cells, Eighmy again threatened Kadan and Brooklyn with foster care, but they were still unmoved. "Lock them up," the judge told an officer, who "patted them down and ordered them to remove their socks and shoes" before confining them in separate cells.

It is not clear exactly how much time Kadan and Brooklyn spent in the cells. The Institute for Justice says "about an hour," while Stras says "the time spent in the holding-cell area was between twenty and forty minutes." In any case, the children's respect for Eighmy's authority had improved by the time he came back. He "asked them one more time whether they would leave with their mother," Stras writes. "This time, they both nodded yes, so he let them go."

In June 2021, Rockett, the children's father, sued Eighmy on their behalf under 42 USC 1983, which authorizes claims against state or local officials who violate constitutional rights under color of law. In his motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Eighmy argued that he was protected by judicial immunity, which is absolute with respect to a judge's official duties. U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool disagreed, and the 8th Circuit affirmed that ruling in 2023, noting that Kadan and Brooklyn were beyond Eighmy's contempt power because they were not parties to the custody case and that "judges do not do double duty as jailers."

Eighmy reiterated his judicial immunity claim in a motion for summary judgment, and Harpool rejected it again. After the trial began, Eighmy claimed qualified immunity twice, once after all the evidence had been submitted and again after the jury's verdict in favor of Kadan and Brooklyn. Harpool denied him that defense both times.

The jury ultimately awarded Kadan and Brooklyn $5,000 each in damages, and Harpool added about $327,000 in attorney fees. Eighmy appealed again, reiterating his judicial immunity claim. But the appeals court ruled that he had abandoned that argument by failing to raise it during the trial or after the verdict. So Eighmy was left with qualified immunity, which the appeals court said he did not deserve.

Eighmy clearly violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable seizures, Stras says, because he "did not have 'probable cause to believe that [the children had] committed' an offense, much less one that justified placing them in a holding cell. Rather, their only misdeed was one every parent knows well: resisting authority. Even in the context of legal-custody proceedings, refusing to leave with a parent is not a jailable offense. Nor were there 'exigent circumstances' arising out of danger to themselves or others."

Did Eighmy's authority as a judge give him extra leeway? Nope. "Criminal contempt was off the table because the children were neither parties to the custody case nor present inside the courtroom," Stras notes. "Nor could the power to punish a party for violating an injunction have provided the justification, given that Judge Eighmy never issued one."

Eighmy's motive for jailing the children does not change that analysis. "We have no doubt that Judge Eighmy believed he was acting in 'good faith,' and possibly even in the children's best interests, by detaining them," Stras writes. "But good faith in the Fourth Amendment context is about reasonable reliance, either on binding appellate precedent or a warrant issued by a 'neutral magistrate.'"

What about Eighmy's argument that he had no way of knowing his actions were unconstitutional? "The law in this area" was "clearly established," Stras says. "'[I]t would have been sufficiently clear [to] every reasonable official,' Judge Eighmy included, that locking up two children for refusing to follow directions violated the Fourth Amendment. As we put it over a decade and a half ago, long before the events in this case, '[i]t is clearly established that a warrantless arrest, unsupported by probable cause, violates the Fourth Amendment."

That principle was so well established, in fact, that Kadan and Brooklyn, neither of whom had attended law school, took it for granted. "I don't know how you have a right to lock us up," Kadan told Eighmy when he threatened to jail them, according to Rockett's amended complaint. "We have done nothing wrong." The complaint says Brooklyn raised the same point. "How can you just lock up kids?" she asked. "This isn't legal. We've done nothing wrong."

Given Eighmy's obvious disregard for Kadan and Brooklyn's Fourth Amendment rights, "we are not concerned about the lack of a prior case" with "fundamentally similar" facts, Stras says. "Indeed, given how clear the law is, it would have been surprising to find one." He quotes an observation that Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made as a 10th Circuit judge: "Sometimes the most obviously unlawful things happen so rarely that a case on point is itself an unusual thing."

The post The 8th Circuit Rejects Qualified Immunity for a Judge Who Jailed 2 Kids for 'Refusing To Follow Directions' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

For citation, please use:
Yenikeyeff, Sh.M., 2026. The Global Energy Order – 2040: Contours of an Emerging System. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 10–41. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-10-41

Will the new energy order emerge from a managed reconfiguration or a systemic rupture? The answer will be determined largely by three powers: the U.S., China, and Russia. Their decisions over the coming years—reactive and structurally formative—will define the framework within which every other actor in the world system will operate by 2040.

Introduction: The Structural Conditions of Transformation

“If a single flap of a butterfly’s wing can be instrumental in generating a tornado,  so also can all the previous and subsequent flaps of its wings…”

Edward Lorenz, Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas? 1972

By 2040, the world’s energy system will have undergone changes comparable in depth only to the post-war reordering of the mid-20th century. The present transformation, however, is fundamentally different: it cannot be reduced to a single technological transition or a single geopolitical shift. We are witnessing several distinct yet interconnected processes, and it is precisely their interaction that may produce a non-linear outcome. 

The first process is the transition to a low-carbon economy, proceeding unevenly and marked by reversals: the phase-out of coal has slowed, while nuclear power is experiencing a renaissance. The second is the securitization of energy flows: wars and trade conflicts are turning supplies of energy and raw materials into instruments of strategic coercion, making price a secondary consideration. The third is the fragmentation of the international monetary and financial architecture, which is driving the first significant shift of energy trade away from the dollar. The fourth, marginal until recently, is the ‘last wave of decolonization’: demands by Global South states for reparations, greater retention of value added from raw-material extraction, revised resource rights, and redistribution of climate finance. All four processes interact, alternately reinforcing and constraining one another.

The escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 catalyzed but did not cause them. The breakdown of the ‘unipolar energy order of 1991–2014’ was driven in part by the U.S.’s use of the dollar as an instrument of pressure, including its mounting technological rivalry with Beijing.

The Ukraine conflict laid bare the accumulated contradictions and made them undeniable. The 2026 escalation in the Persian Gulf accelerated processes that had been developing since the mid-2010s.

According to Gopinath et al. (2024), the world economy is dividing into a U.S.-leaning bloc, a China-leaning bloc, and nonaligned connector countries that preserve ties with both. The notion of a ‘new energy order’—one in which governments, rather than markets alone, actively reshape energy flows—was articulated by Bordoff and O’Sullivan (2022) in their essay of that name. The present analysis extends that framework into 2040. Within this framework, energy ceases to be a neutral commodity: it becomes, simultaneously, an arena of rivalry, its instrument, and its prize.

Logistics Hubs as an Arena of Competition

For half a century, the strategic importance of maritime chokepoints appeared to recede as free trade expanded. They have now re-emerged as instruments of strategic coercion. Roughly 20% of global oil flows pass through the Strait of Hormuz (EIA, 2026a), while roughly two-thirds of China’s oil imports transit through the Strait of Malacca (Ovannisyan, 2019; Collins, 2018). The ability to disrupt these routes confers leverage not only over prices, but also over the political alignment of importers and producers, adversaries and allies. Political constraints on whom states may buy from can become as binding as a physical blockade.

The U.S.–Iran escalation, which began in late February 2026 and soon left the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to commercial shipping, has exceeded the 1970s oil shocks in the scale of its disruption to supply chains (IEA, 2026e). Around 1.5 million tons of LNG per week—19% of global exports—were removed from the market (Petroleum Australia, 2026). Spot prices in Asia rose above US$20 per MMBtu, reversing their discount to European benchmarks (Wood Mackenzie, 2026a). Infrastructure vulnerability was stark: the inventories of Japan’s major power utilities amounted to roughly 22 days of supply (Petroleum Australia, 2026). South Korea, with more than 20% spot-market exposure, moved to increase coal and nuclear generation (Seoul Economic Daily, 2026).

The logical response to this ‘southern vulnerability’ has been a reorientation towards northern routes. The strategic potential of the Northern Sea Route—its capacity to cut distances between Northern Europe and Northeast Asia by up to 40%, and to open Arctic hydrocarbons to world markets—was already set out nearly two decades ago (Yenikeyeff and Krysiek, 2007). What was then a forecast for 2025–2030 is now being realized: the route is becoming a strategic hedging instrument (Mishchenko, 2026; Reilly, Yenikeyeff and Paik, 2026). For China, it offers a way out of the ‘Malacca dilemma’—Beijing’s long-standing strategic vulnerability arising from the concentration of its seaborne oil imports through a single chokepoint exposed to potential U.S. naval interdiction (Ovannisyan, 2019). For Japan and South Korea, it could offer access to Russian Arctic LNG that bypasses Middle Eastern instability. Yet the Northern Sea Route is largely controlled by Russia, amid a growing Chinese presence: in April 2023, the two countries’ coast guards signed a memorandum of cooperation against the backdrop of NATO enlargement and the breakdown of wider Arctic cooperation (Nilsen, 2023; Reilly, Yenikeyeff and Paik, 2026).

The Arctic has thus become a new arena of geo-economic competition with a fundamentally different geometry, in which icebreaker technologies, navigational systems, and control over ports of refuge matter alongside naval power.

The present phase differs from the oil crises of the 1970s less in the scale of price increases than in the mechanisms of coercion: power now operates through control over energy corridors and chokepoints, not only through restrictions on commodity supply.

Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Transformation of Energy

AI and energy have become interdependent, and neither can be optimized in isolation.

AI sharply improves the efficiency of energy systems: it forecasts demand more accurately, balances load more effectively, and integrates intermittent renewable generation. Yet it also creates new vulnerabilities: attacks on algorithms could trigger cascading outages impossible in classical infrastructure. This is not a side-effect but a structural feature of the ‘smart grid’: every increment of efficiency comes at the cost of systemic fragility.

At the same time, global electricity consumption by data centers—driven increasingly by AI workloads—has grown by roughly 12% a year since 2017. In 2025 alone, it rose by 17%, compared with about 3% growth in total global electricity demand (IEA, 2025c; IEA, 2026d). In the United States, flexible gas-fired generation currently plays a central role in balancing the power system, ramping up when wind and solar output falls and helping to meet data centers’ demand for reliable, round-the-clock electricity. U.S. gas is now pulled in three competing directions: towards European importers replacing Russian supply, towards Asian buyers competing for flexible cargoes, and towards a fast-growing domestic technology sector, exemplified by the Stargate AI-infrastructure program. Where a given export shipment goes is determined not by a White House directive, but by private companies holding the cargo, whose destination-flexible contracts let them redirect volumes between markets on the basis of price arbitrage rather than state policy (Bordoff, 2025).

The emergence of the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek-R1 raised the possibility that algorithmic and architectural improvements could reduce the energy intensity of some AI workloads. Yet lower unit costs may stimulate greater use, leaving total AI electricity demand uncertain.

The AI boom’s most significant effect on the energy order, however, has been felt in a different domain altogether: it has driven the largest technology corporations towards nuclear generation. 2024 marked a turning point that some analysts already rank in importance alongside the energy-policy decisions of the 1970s. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Meta (recognized as extremist and banned in Russia), and Oracle signed or announced agreements with nuclear energy companies—from the planned restart of Three Mile Island to small modular reactors—together supporting several gigawatts of low-carbon capacity for their data centers (Mitchell, 2026; DOE, 2025). According to IEA estimates cited by Pew, nuclear power accounted for roughly 20% of the electricity consumed by U.S. data centers in 2024 (Leppert, 2025), a share that could grow.

The logic here turns on a single fundamental constraint: solar and wind generation are, for physical reasons, unable on their own to provide the continuous baseload required by hyperscalers; gas-fired generation is vulnerable to market volatility and competes with export demand. Nuclear power, whether in the form of large plants or small modular reactors, is one of the few sources combining continuity, a low carbon footprint, and the potential for predictable costs over a horizon of decades (DOE, 2025).

Russia, too, has entered the race: in November 2025, President Vladimir Putin presented the country’s small modular reactors as a potential solution for powering data centers (Putin, 2025). This broader approach is already being realized on the ground: one of Russia’s largest data centers has operated alongside the Kalinin nuclear plant at Udomlya since 2019.

By 2040, several competing digital-energy systems for AI are likely to emerge—Western, Chinese, and possibly Indian—each with its own configuration of generation, hardware, AI models, efficiency rules, and power-price benchmarks. The advantage will go to whoever can generate electricity, direct it into computation, and convert computational capacity into economic and political influence.

This implies a structural shift to a new era in which the kilowatt-hour becomes the fundamental unit of value, and the petrodollar may give way to the electrodollar, as discussed below.

The AI boom has reinforced nuclear generation’s status as a strategic resource. Access to reliable low-carbon electricity near data centers is becoming one of the determining factors in the pace of technological development.

Nuclear Power’s Quiet Return

The AI-driven demand described above is the latest and most visible catalyst of the nuclear renaissance, but the renaissance itself has deeper roots. Three pressures are converging: the Hormuz crisis exposed the limits of relying on variable renewable generation alone; energy imports remain vulnerable; and digital infrastructure demands unprecedented amounts of power. Nuclear power addresses all three at once; it is one of the few sources that combine stability, scalability, low carbon intensity, and relative insulation from fuel-imported disruptions.

One caveat, however, is decisive: many advanced reactor designs require high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU): uranium with U-235 content of 5–20%, well above the 3–5% used in conventional reactor fuel (World Nuclear Association, 2026; Atomnaya energiya 2.0, 2026). At-scale HALEU production infrastructure exists today only in Russia and China, while Russia remains the only commercial supplier. The U.S. began demonstration-scale production only in late 2023. Until Centrus and other producers reach industrial scale, Western reactor programs requiring HALEU remain constrained by the lack of a viable non-Russian source.

According to the IAEA high-case projection, global nuclear capacity could more than double by 2050; in 2024–2025 new units were commissioned in the UAE, France, the U.S., India, and China, and by mid-2026, 72 reactors were under construction worldwide (IAEA, 2026; Atomnaya energiya 2.0, 2026).

China has become the leader of the nuclear renaissance. By April 2025, China had 102 reactors in operation, under construction, or approved, with a combined 113 GW (CNEA, 2025), while its nuclear capacity under construction had ranked first globally for eighteen consecutive years. Yet nuclear power accounted for only 4.72% of its electricity generation in 2024—leaving considerable room for further growth. The strategic rationale is straightforward: in a maritime-blockade scenario, nuclear power and domestically supplied coal would provide firm generation relatively insulated from short-term disruptions in seaborne fuel imports (Reilly, Yenikeyeff and Paik, 2026). For China, the nuclear renaissance supports industrial modernization and strategic autonomy.

Russia retains its position as the world’s leading exporter of nuclear power plant technology.

Rosatom holds the industry’s largest foreign nuclear order book in the industry, comprising 39 units in ten countries, 22 of them under construction in seven (Chaban, 2025); various estimates place its share of the global reactor export market at roughly 70–80% (Siddi and Silvan, 2024; Rosatom, n.d.). The Build-Own-Operate model is especially significant here: where it is used, as at Türkiye’s Akkuyu plant, the state corporation does not merely build a plant but retains ownership, operates it, and supplies its fuel. Such arrangements can turn an export project into an instrument of long-term geopolitical influence, binding the host state to Russian fuel supplies, servicing, and technical expertise for decades.

Alongside this, small modular reactors—compact units that can serve small grids and, in some designs, operate off-grid—are advancing quickly. Their capabilities make them attractive to two very different markets: hyperscalers in the developed world (DOE, 2025) and Global South states with underdeveloped electricity infrastructure. Rosatom poured first concrete for its inaugural overseas small reactor project—a RITM-200N in Uzbekistan—in June 2026 (Rosatom, 2026). The U.S., Canada, South Korea, China, and the UK (with Rolls-Royce SMR) are developing their own competitors (World Nuclear Association, 2026). As noted above, such choices can bind the client to a supplier for the plant’s decades-long lifetime; the decisive contest of 2030–2040 will thus be for the Global South’s emerging nuclear markets.

Renewable Energy: The Limits of the Current Phase

Over two decades, renewable energy has become one of the central stories of global transformation. However, solar and wind power have now encountered two structural constraints that investment alone has yet to overcome at scale: low power density and the lack of economically viable long-duration storage. Lithium-ion batteries are designed primarily for hours, not days; pumped-storage plants and hydrogen remain geographically and economically constrained. Bridging this storage gap would require a leap akin to that from an early-1990s floppy disk to a modern flash drive—reflecting decades of advances in architecture, materials, and manufacturing. No equivalent leap has yet occurred in electricity storage.

The energy transition rests on a tacit assumption that fluctuations in solar and wind generation can be reliably balanced. In practice this remains difficult during prolonged periods of low output. Germany and California, with some of the world’s highest shares of renewable generation, already experience multi-day stretches of very low solar and wind output. The Germans call this Dunkelflaute, the “dark doldrums.” In November–December 2024, such episodes drove German wholesale electricity prices to an 18-year high, peaking above €900 per megawatt-hour (Fortune, 2024). Under such conditions, backup gas- and coal-fired capacity appears not merely as a temporary transitional measure, but as a persistent component of the system where sufficient storage or other dispatchable capacity is unavailable. This sustains long-term demand for fossil fuels (IEA, 2025a). The Hormuz crisis of 2026 confirmed this logic: Japan and South Korea temporarily subordinated their decarbonization commitments to immediate security-of-supply concerns (Seoul Economic Daily, 2026).

By the mid-2020s, no breakthrough had yet delivered a widely deployable, affordable, and scalable means of storing energy over long periods—whether through solid-state batteries, flow batteries, or superconducting magnetic systems. This is a techno-economic constraint, not an ideological verdict on renewables. Long-duration storage (LDES) accounted for only about 6% of global energy-storage installations in 2025, while global venture-capital investment in LDES fell by 72%—a sign that, despite expanding deployment, many of these technologies remained far from broad commercial maturity (Wood Mackenzie, 2026). The decline does not prove technological impossibility—markets respond to capital costs, regulation, and payback horizons—but it does mark a gap between early-2020s expectations and the actual pace of commercialization.

Whether the breakthrough comes by 2040 belongs as much to technological forecasting as to strategic planning. Until it does, the transition will remain slow and uneven, while gas and, in some markets, coal will continue to provide backup for decades.

A principal obstacle to the energy transition is therefore technological, not merely political. Until scalable long-duration storage becomes widely available, demand for dispatchable hydrocarbons will remain structurally embedded—regardless of political declarations.

The Last Wave of Decolonization and Resource redistribution

What a decade ago was largely an academic and activist argument—compensation for the colonial extraction of resources—had acquired a practical dimension by the mid-2020s. Developing countries—above all in Africa, the Caribbean, and Oceania—are increasingly conditioning their participation in the climate agenda, and access to their critical minerals, on concrete concessions: direct payments, debt forgiveness, technology transfer, a greater share of the value generated by resource extraction and processing, and revised rights over natural resources (UNCTAD, 2023). The shift reflects resource geography: many key inputs of the energy transition—including cobalt, lithium, graphite, rare-earth elements—are found in developing countries, many of them former colonies (UNCTAD, 2023; USGS, 2025a). The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) supplies roughly 70% of the world’s mined cobalt; Jamaica and Guinea hold some of the world’s largest bauxite reserves. In the absence of systematic Western engagement with demands for reparations, resource-rich states have the alternative of turning towards China or, potentially, Russia. China is already building a ‘resource network’ in the DRC, Chinese-owned or controlled companies account for most of the country’s cobalt production, while ‘infrastructure-for-resources’ agreements have further strengthened Beijing’s position (USGS, 2025a; IMF, 2024).

If several large reparations agreements were nonetheless reached—through, say, an international fund financed by a levy on ‘carbon-intensive jurisdictions’—climate-finance payments could flow directly to former colonies rather than through Western corporate intermediaries.

The energy transition is thus, paradoxically, becoming a catalyst of economic decolonization: by increasing the strategic importance of critical minerals, many of which are found in the Global South, it is strengthening producer states’ bargaining power and reshaping established channels of Western influence—two effects that strategic analysis often treats separately.

Old Institutions, New Alignments

By 2040, the 20th-century energy institutions will have been recast.

The International Energy Agency (IEA), created after the 1973 oil shock to coordinate cooperation among consuming countries, was built around oil security. Most recently, it coordinated the largest release of emergency oil stocks in its history: 400 million barrels during the Hormuz crisis, with the U.S. contributing 172 million (IEA, 2026f). Separately, its mandate has expanded beyond oil security to gas, electricity, the energy transition, and critical minerals (Hart, 2025). As its mandate has widened, so has criticism—from U.S. Republican lawmakers and the fossil fuel interests—of the IEA as an ‘advocate for the energy transition.’ The organization remains limited by the fact that the largest developing consumers—China and India as Association countries and Brazil as an accession country—do not have votes on its Governing Board.

OPEC+ faces slowing oil-demand growth and a widening divergence among its members’ interests: the Gulf states, with production costs in some fields below five dollars per barrel, have greater scope to compete for market share, whereas producers with higher costs or greater fiscal constraints, including Russia, Nigeria rely more heavily on quotas to sustain acceptable prices. Production agreements are becoming increasingly fragile as their economic basis weakens.

The most striking confirmation of this trend was the UAE’s decision of 28 April 2026 to leave OPEC and OPEC+ on 1 May 2026 (Al Jazeera, 2026a), which Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei described as a “sovereign national decision” (Al Jazeera, 2026b). This move has several dimensions. Materially, the UAE is OPEC’s third-largest producer, with stated capacity of 4.85 million barrels a day against a production quota of roughly 3.5 million, and plans to reach 5 million by 2027 (Al Jazeera, 2026b). Institutionally, the departure of a member since 1967, without prior consultation with Riyadh (Reuters, 2026a), breaks the unwritten rule that OPEC’s most important decisions are settled by agreement among its leading members. Politically, the move may indirectly align with U.S. interests, since additional Emirati production after Hormuz reopens would lower world oil prices and directly serve the Trump administration’s aims. The UAE’s exit came as the seven remaining participants in the voluntary production cuts agreed in early May 2026 to unwind them by a further 188,000 barrels a day (OPEC, 2026). A key member’s unilateral departure nevertheless risks eroding the organization, especially if others conclude that Abu Dhabi can benefit from their efforts to prop up prices without accepting comparable constraints.

In the short term, the decision’s market impact is limited. The UAE’s export capacity is currently physically constrained: most of its export terminals lie inside the blocked Strait of Hormuz, while the bypass pipeline to Fujairah is already operating at its limit. In the medium term, however, the result may be a “structurally weakened OPEC” (Reuters, 2026a). The main risk lies not in the UAE’s immediate volumes, but in the precedent: if a major member leaves, persistent overproducers may eventually reconsider their participation—Iraq within OPEC, Kazakhstan within OPEC+. Collective management of supply, backed by formal monitoring but ultimately dependent on reputational and diplomatic pressure, risks being eroded.

For Russia, the immediate physical consequences are limited by the closure of Hormuz, but additional Emirati supply, no longer constrained by quotas, may reach the market just as regional flows normalize. Discounts on Russian crude could swiftly revert towards pre-crisis as it competes more intensely with Emirati grades for Asian buyers. This would weaken Moscow’s pricing leverage, currently bolstered by the Hormuz-driven oil-price rally.

The SCO and BRICS+ may evolve into alternative platforms of coordination—not yet as counterweights to Western institutions, but as parallel mechanisms for settlements in national currencies, commodity pricing, and development finance. According to the IMF, the world economy is showing signs of fragmenting into U.S.- and China-aligned blocs, with a special role for non-aligned ‘connector’ countries (Gopinath et al., 2024). In energy, India is the paradigmatic case: it increased imports of Russian oil 22-fold in 2022, to 41 million tons (RBC, 2023) while emerging as a major exporter to Europe of petroleum products from refineries processing Russian crude (Reilly, Yenikeyeff, and Paik, 2026).

It acts as a safety valve, helping to prevent fragmentation from causing a full rupture; in doing so, it captures substantial commercial gains.

By 2040, the Western bloc may be shaped by IEA norms and coordination, the EU emissions-trading system, the EU carbon border adjustment mechanism, and broader climate standards. A looser Eurasian–Global South bloc may coalesce around BRICS, the SCO, bilateral settlements in national currencies, and competing technological standards. Neither bloc would necessarily be internally cohesive: the Gulf Arab monarchies, for instance, might form a pole of their own. Between the two blocs, a buffer of intermediary states may gain economic and political weight as fragmentation deepens.

The two blocs securitize energy according to fundamentally different logics.

In Europe, securitization is built on the perception of Russia as an existential threat, which makes the severing of energy ties an end in itself: the REPowerEU initiative, launched by Brussels in May 2022, and followed by the Commission’s 2025 roadmap, envisaged a complete phase-out of Russian hydrocarbons by 2027 (European Commission, 2022; European Commission, 2025). In effect, price and technology cease to be the deciding criteria: Brussels will accept more expensive and riskier supply, so long as it is politically homogeneous.

China’s energy strategy is built on supply diversification. In 2023, Xue Li of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences proposed capping each country’s share of Chinese oil imports at 20%, with a lower ceiling of 5% for the United States and each of its allies or close partners, while keeping Russia’s combined share of China’s pipeline-gas and LNG imports below one-third (Xue Li, 2023). Though never adopted as official policy, these thresholds capture the logic underlying Beijing’s negotiations over the Power of Siberia 2 project: no single supplier, however close, should become indispensable.

 By 2024, Russia already accounted for roughly 20% of China’s oil imports—the very ceiling Xue Li had prescribed. The same diversification principle explains Beijing’s caution towards Russian pipeline gas, and its markedly different posture on liquefied natural gas (LNG). Xue Li’s framework specified no comparable caps on LNG imports from the U.S. or Australia; indeed, it recommended increasing them. The logic is structural rather than political: a wider supplier network and larger traded volumes reinforce China’s bargaining position in the Asian gas market, giving Beijing leverage over regional pricing and a broader base for yuan-denominated settlements (Shi, 2024).

By 2040, Europe’s push for ‘geopolitically acceptable’ supply, and China’s model of ‘diversified leverage,’ may redefine the global gas market.

In the energy sector, global fragmentation is unfolding along two parallel tracks: the securitization of supply, where geopolitical acceptability takes priority over price, as in Europe; and an intensifying contest for low-cost resources as a source of competitive advantage, as in the U.S., China, and India.

From the Petrodollar to the Kilowatt-Hour

The linkage of oil to the dollar—the ‘petrodollar’ system, reinforced by U.S.–Saudi financial and security arrangements of the 1970s—underpinned demand for the American currency for nearly half a century. But the mechanism is now being progressively eroded. Some Gulf states have begun accepting yuan and rupees in payment for oil, and central-bank digital currencies (CBDCs) may accelerate the trend. Their momentum, however, slowed in 2025–2026, partly under competitive pressure from dollar-linked stablecoins: in 2025, the U.S. opted against a state CBDC, and instead promoted privately issued digital tokens backed by the dollar (White House, 2025).

The petroyuan has a genuine chance of becoming a partial alternative: China is the world’s largest oil importer, and yuan-denominated oil transactions involving Russia, Iran, and Venezuela as well as LNG deals, already occur. The institutional groundwork is already in place: yuan-denominated crude-oil futures have traded on the Shanghai International Energy Exchange since March 2018 (INE, n.d.). Should Beijing succeed in creating a Northeast Asian gas hub with yuan-denominated pricing, the dollar’s dominance in energy trading would be substantially undermined.

Behind the CBDC and the petroyuan, however, lies what several analysts already call the transition from the petrodollar to the electrodollar (Jakati, 2025; Kim, 2026). This transition reflects a deeper structural change in the global economy: in an increasingly electric, AI-driven system, the kilowatt-hour is becoming a fundamental measure of productive capacity, displacing the barrel of oil from its former central position. Every computation, performed by a neural network, has an energy cost. Unlike fiat money, which can be issued at will, and unlike cryptocurrencies, which are detached from the real economy, the kilowatt-hour is tied directly to productivity—measurable, divisible, universal, and resistant to politically-driven inflation: its value is set by physics, not politics (Kim, 2026).

The electrodollar does not require the wholesale electrification of transport and industry, where hydrocarbons will play a supporting role for decades. Rather, it relies on powering the ‘compute economy’ with electricity from stable nuclear, gas, hydrological, and geothermal sources, and thus does not hinge on breakthroughs in renewables or battery storage.

China was the first to begin building the state architecture of this system (Jakati, 2025; Girishankar, 2025). The average industrial power price in China is about $0.09 per kilowatt-hour—lower than in most major economies (China Briefing, 2025). Yet Beijing’s real advantage lies not in absolute price, but in differentiated pricing and subsidies that make electricity an instrument of industrial policy. Some energy-intensive, low-technology industries pay elevated rates, while data centers running domestic AI chips (Huawei, Cambricon) receive electricity-cost subsidies of up to 50%. In late 2025, these subsidies were expanded to help technology giants, such as Alibaba and Tencent, offset the higher power draw of still-less-efficient domestic accelerators (Wu, 2025). In effect, China spends its ‘electro-currency’ to fund its own AI industry and cut its dependence on foreign technology. By end-2025, China’s installed wind and solar capacity had reached 1.84 TW (NEA, 2026). It has created the infrastructure for an ‘electro-currency mint’ at an unprecedented pace.

The emerging Compute-Energy Standard is the AI era’s functional counterpart to Bretton Woods (Kim, 2026). In this scheme, the strategic reserves of states will be measured not in gold and Treasury bonds, but in gigawatts of constant, dispatchable-at-will generating capacity. The next step could be energy-backed stablecoins, in which the tokenized kilowatt-hour—produced by small reactors sited next to data centers—replaces Treasury bonds as the low-risk anchor of digital liquidity. McKinsey puts investment in data centers at $6.7 trillion by 2030, $5.2 trillion for capacity supporting AI workloads (McKinsey, 2025). This is no longer infrastructure spending in the classical sense but the construction of new electricity-intensive computational infrastructure as the material basis of economic power.

The geopolitical consequences invert those of the petrodollar. Petro-states exported dependence on the U.S.: to pay for oil, importers had to accumulate dollars. Electro-states offer the opposite: China already exports solar panels and wind turbines that turn buyers into ‘mini electro-states,’ reducing their dependence on imported fuels. The result is a contest among three models: an Atlantic ‘electrodollar,’ built on AI infrastructure and the prospective deployment of American SMRs; a Eurasian system coalescing around Russian nuclear projects, pipeline supply, and the Chinese market; and a Chinese model of ‘electro-states’ that exports above all the technological capacity to generate power. Which prevails remains open.

Global energy flows will follow this new monetary geography, reinforcing the fragmentation of the international financial system.

This is not a rhetorical flourish but a structural shift: in the AI economy, the kilowatt-hour becomes the real base currency, because it is a measurable input directly underpinning productivity. Whoever shapes the cost of electricity for global computation will hold leverage comparable to OPEC’s in the oil era. States that control cheap, reliable electricity gain monetary sovereignty of a new kind, whether or not they possess hydrocarbon resources.

Control over Critical Minerals

By 2040, the geopolitics of the energy transition will be determined primarily by access to lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and rare-earth elements. Such access is already highly concentrated. China dominates the global supply chain, controlling roughly 60% of rare-earth mining and 91% of the processing of magnet-grade rare earths—essential for EVs, wind turbines, and precision weapons. It also leads the processing of nineteen of the twenty critical minerals (IEA, 2026a; 2025b; USGS, 2025b). While the DRC supplies roughly 70% of global cobalt (USGS, 2025a), most of it is still processed in China (Kholodov, 2025). The West, in other words, has steadily exchanged oil dependence on OPEC for mineral dependence on Beijing; the new dependence is concentrated in a single power and spans the entire value chain, not merely the raw-material segment.

Arctic Gas and the Northern Sea Route

A new resource frontier is also opening: Arctic natural gas. Russia produced roughly 33 million tons of LNG in 2022 (OSW, 2023); a 2021 target had envisaged up to 140 million tons by 2035 (PortNews, 2021), but the Energy Strategy to 2050, approved in April 2025, revised the target down to a range of 110–130 million tons by 2036 (Interfax, 2025). The EU’s twentieth sanctions package went further than any one before it: for the first time, it barred the servicing of LNG tankers and icebreakers, targeting the existing fleet rather than merely future construction (Gijs, 2026). This compounded existing constraints. The South Korean shipyard Hanwha Ocean (formerly DSME) canceled its ice-class carrier contract for ‘Arctic LNG 2’, and fleet construction at the Zvezda shipyard has stalled due to shortages of key components (Reilly, Yenikeyeff and Paik, 2026). By mid-2026, sanctions and technical problems kept Arctic LNG 2’s annualized commercial deliveries near one-sixth of its full 19.8 mtpa design capacity; two trains had been completed, while the third was on hold (IEA, 2026b; Reuters, 2026b).

Russian Arctic LNG continues to flow to China, which is investing in Northern Sea Route infrastructure and seeking access to icebreaker technologies and Arctic navigation expertise as part of an emerging Russia–China Arctic axis. The White House’s high-profile 2025 effort to acquire Greenland attests to Washington’s understanding of the strategic value of Arctic positions.

Greater American control over Greenland would strengthen Washington’s position along emerging Arctic shipping routes and its ability to counter China’s growing role as Russia’s principal Arctic partner.

Taken together, these trends point to a broader American effort to shape China’s access to energy along key overland and maritime routes through pressure applied across multiple theatres below the threshold of open conflict—an effort visible less in public declarations than in force posture and defense planning (The White House, 2025; DoD, 2026). The underlying blockade scenario remains contested in American strategic literature: Collins argues that such an operation would have to be sustained for at least a year, while disruption to world trade and pressure from allies and neutrals would force Washington to lift it long before then (Collins, 2018).

With a comprehensive blockade difficult to sustain, pressure shifts to specific corridors.

The first corridor is the Northern Sea Route (Mishchenko, 2026; Reilly, Yenikeyeff and Paik, 2026). Following the 2014 sanctions, ExxonMobil suspended its Arctic offshore cooperation with Rosneft and withdrew from the joint projects in 2018, depriving the United States of a channel for applying its engineering expertise and influencing shelf-development standards. Although Beijing did not automatically fill the vacuum, the Western withdrawal made China a more important source of financing and equipment for Russian Arctic projects, as well as a market for their oil and gas; in 2018, Beijing also incorporated Arctic routes into its ‘Polar Silk Road’ concept. The second node is the Kuril Islands: an escalation of the dispute over them would threaten access routes from the Sea of Okhotsk. The third is the Baltic region, whose ports provide an alternative maritime route for trade with China, easing pressure on the overburdened Far Eastern railways. The fourth is Central Asia, where vulnerability lies less in infrastructure than in the stability of the transit states: destabilization in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, or Uzbekistan could severely disrupt pipelines flows to China without a direct blockade.

In response to such distributed pressure, Beijing and Moscow are already expanding their maritime security cooperation in the Arctic and their joint naval activity in the western Pacific. Should the Northern Sea Route become the principal corridor of the Sino-Russian energy axis, the U.S. would likely extend its strategic focus to the Russian Arctic theatre—a direction in which NATO is already moving by strengthening its presence in the High North.

Paradoxically, pressure meant to restrict China’s energy access may instead accelerate the militarization of the Arctic and the securitization of Central Asian routes. These routes are critical to the contest for the Northeast Asian gas market.

The Battle for the Northeast Asian Gas Market

The Northeast Asian gas market illustrates all the trends described above. Here four leading suppliers—the U.S., Qatar, Australia, and Russia—compete for sales to Japan, China, and South Korea, which together account for almost half of the world’s LNG (Petroleum Australia, 2026; Reilly, Yenikeyeff and Paik, 2026). The market is large enough to support a regional gas hub of a new type, with pricing decoupled from oil and some settlements conducted in yuan. Whoever establishes leadership in this market will acquire energy leverage over the world’s largest manufacturing economies, as well as substantial regional influence.

China’s position is twofold. On the one hand, Beijing is seeking to reduce its dependence on seaborne supplies through Malacca and Hormuz, to which end it needs gas from Central Asia, Russian pipeline gas, and Arctic LNG. On the other hand, China views Russian and Central Asian gas both as a benchmark for LNG contract negotiations and as a basis for establishing itself as a regional pricing and trading hub, potentially intermediating LNG sales to Japan and South Korea. For Moscow, such intermediation may weaken its direct access to these markets and risk relegating it to second-tier supplier status.

Despite the memorandum signed by Gazprom and CNPC in September 2025, the key commercial parameters of Power of Siberia 2, above all, the pricing formula, remain unsettled (Wong, 2026). Having lost most of its European market, Gazprom can no longer leverage competition between European and Asian buyers, sharply weakening its negotiating position. Even so, in March 2026, the draft of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) called for “preparatory work” on the central route of the China–Russian pipeline—widely interpreted as Power of Siberia 2—signaling political will to move forward, but not to pay any price.

Since the start of the Hormuz crisis, Japan and South Korea, key U.S. allies in urgent need of cheap gas, have faced a choice between alternative LNG at substantially higher prices and arrangements involving Russian Arctic LNG supplied via the Northern Sea Route, potentially through Chinese intermediaries. Despite pressure from Washington, Tokyo retains the Mitsui and Mitsubishi stakes in Sakhalin-2 and continues to import its LNG under a U.S. sanctions waiver that the Treasury renews every six months (The Japan Times, 2025). The situation exposes a genuine conflict of interests and could strain U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea and complicate their cooperation with the Quad and AUKUS (Reilly, Yenikeyeff and Paik, 2026).

As recently as early 2025, the market outlook to 2040 appeared benign: a wave of new U.S. and Qatari liquefaction capacity by 2030 suggested moderate oversupply, lower prices, and a gradual globalization of gas trade following the oil-market model, with regional price indices converging (IEA, 2026g; PwC, 2025).

Two events of 2025–2026 radically altered that trajectory. First, sanctions led the IEA to exclude Arctic LNG 2’s 27 bcm of annual capacity from its baseline global supply forecast (IEA, 2026c).

Second, Iran’s 2 March 2026 attack on Qatar’s Ras Laffan terminal prompted QatarEnergy to declare force majeure and suspend loadings. Further strikes on 18–19 March seriously damaged two of its fourteen liquefaction trains, with a combined annual capacity of 12.8 million tons, or 17.4 bcm. Repairs may take three to five years, while the North Field East expansion is expected to be delayed by more than a year (IEA, 2026c). The IEA now puts Middle East crisis-related supply losses in 2026–2030 at roughly 140 bcm—excluding constrained Arctic LNG 2 volumes and with the estimate still being revised upward. Together, these shocks have delayed the global LNG supply wave by at least two years.

The shift has structural geo-economic consequences. As of 12 June 2026, all LNG liquefaction FIDs taken that year were for U.S. projects (IEA, 2026b). The U.S. is moving from supplier of last resort to systemically important exporter, with all the political leverage that entails. Constraints on Russian and Qatari supply create a window of opportunity for producers in Canada, Mozambique, and Australia, yet none can compensate for the shortfall in the foreseeable future. American dominance brings its own tension: Henry Hub prices rose by more than half in a single year, to $3.52 per MMBtu in 2025, and the EIA expects a further rise from 2027 as domestic demand for data-center power climbs (EIA, 2026b).

Following the post-2022 pivot to Europe, 2026 brought Europe and Asia into direct competition for flexible U.S. cargoes.

However, U.S. energy-intensive industries and consumer groups are pressuring the White House to limit exports—through supply restrictions, political conditions on buyers, or direct quotas. In January 2024, the Biden Administration suspended decisions on new licenses for LNG export authorizations to countries lacking free-trade agreements with the U.S., citing climate and economic concerns. Trump rescinded the pause in January 2025, but the precedent showed how swiftly politics can redirect the export model. Such intervention risks undermining the American market model—and the buyer trust on which U.S. energy dominance rests. For Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan the emerging outcome is not a ‘surplus of cheap LNG’ but ‘expensive, predominantly U.S.-origin LNG,’ with Washington’s bargaining power over all three buyers sharply increased.

It is in this context that China’s strategy of establishing its own gas hub in Northeast Asia takes on particular weight. The contest is already intense: after China imposed a 15% tariff in February 2025, U.S. LNG deliveries to China fell to zero in March; the tariff rose to 125% in April (Bloomberg, 2025).

If the global supply architecture shifts decisively towards American dominance by 2030 while the Russian and Qatari alternatives remain constrained, a regional hub with yuan-denominated pricing could become increasingly important. It would serve not merely as a means of currency diversification, but as a channel through which Asian consumers could preserve some market autonomy from a U.S.-centered Henry Hub system.

By 2040, competition in Northeast Asia will therefore be not only among suppliers, but also between pricing models: the American ‘globalized’ model and the Chinese ‘regionally yuanized’ one.

On balance, the market may split into an Atlantic basin centered on Henry Hub and Europe, and a China-centered Asian bloc combining Russian pipeline gas, Arctic LNG, and settlements in yuan.

Scenarios for the Energy Order of 2040

“If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow and which will not,

Speak then to me.”

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, 1605

Based on the trends set out above, four scenarios for 2040 may be distinguished, using the established two-axis tradition of energy-order scenario analysis: the degree of international cooperation and the role of the state in markets (Andrews-Speed, van der Linde and Keramidas, 2014). The axes derive from the POLINARES model; the names and content of the scenarios, and the probability estimates, are the author’s own. The four quadrants are recast here in the terms of the 2020s—the electrodollar, AI, the nuclear renaissance, critical minerals—and each is assigned a probability of becoming the dominant configuration as of early August 2026 (Table 1). Elements of the scenarios are not mutually exclusive: reality will likely combine features of several.

Scenario 1: Managed Renewal. The major powers agree on a new architecture encompassing standards for critical minerals, climate finance, rules for trade in clean-energy technologies. Its probability of becoming dominant is low, around 10–15%, given U.S.–China mistrust and persistent hybrid pressure; only repeated large-scale crises might bring the major powers back to the negotiating table.

Scenario 2: A Chinese Energy Order. China consolidates its dominance in critical-mineral processing and the manufacture of clean-energy technologies, including nuclear reactors, while most developing countries become dependent on Chinese standards and finance. Unlike Scenario 3, this is a single, China-centered order rather than a balance among competing blocs. Western countermeasures reduce its probability of becoming dominant, but China’s structural advantage in key value chains keeps it significant, at around 25-30%.

Scenario 3: Fragmentation into Regional Blocs. The world fragments into competing energy blocs—a Western bloc comprising the U.S., Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Australia, and an Eastern one comprising Russia, China, Iran, and parts of Central Asia—with the transitions proceeding at different paces and by different rules. Between them lies a buffer perimeter of India, Türkiye, the Gulf states, and others that retain ties with both sides and extract rent by mediating between them, distinguishing this order from a bipolar ‘Cold War 2.0’. This currently appears the most probable outcome, with a 35–40% probability of becoming dominant: it requires neither a grand compromise nor systemic rupture, but represents the inertial continuation of current trends. India exports to Europe petroleum products refined from Russian crude; Türkiye buys Russian gas and nuclear technology alongside American LNG.

Scenario 4: Systemic Rupture. Overlapping crises—the closure of Hormuz, a clash over Taiwan, sabotage on the Northern Sea Route, destabilization in Central Asia, the cascading disintegration of both OPEC and OPEC+ after the UAE’s departure—fracture global energy supply chains. The low-carbon transition initially slows, even as highly exposed fossil-fuel importers gain a strong incentive to accelerate it later, and the international system enters a period of extreme uncertainty. The scenario’s probability of becoming dominant—around 25–30%, significantly higher than in early 2025—will rise further if hybrid pressure persists: each individual crisis may remain below the threshold of rupture, their cumulative effect may cross it. So far, however, the Gulf conflict has done more to accelerate fragmentation than to bring systemic rupture closer.

Which of the four prevails will depend less on technology, markets, or climate than on a handful of decisions made in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington over the next three to five years—above all, the pricing formula agreed for Power of Siberia 2, how assertively Beijing uses its critical-minerals leverage, and whether Washington politicizes its LNG exports.

Conclusion: An Order in the Making

Technology alone will not determine the global energy order of 2040: many of the necessary technologies already exist, while others may emerge in the foreseeable future. The order will be shaped by political decisions made today. Which states will be able to build an icebreaker fleet; through which straits tankers will pass; whether a gas hub with settlements in non-Western currencies can be launched; which nuclear platform will assume a dominant position in the Global South; whether an industrially scalable solution for long-duration energy storage will be found—these questions will be decided not only in technological laboratories but also in the offices of policymakers. The key question is how far the parties are prepared to go: whether they will use blockades of energy routes as an instrument of coercion or refrain from such escalation.

Energy has become one of the central arenas of strategic rivalry. Each principal player now operates under a constraint examined by this article. Russia, having lost Europe, relies on Asian markets even as the UAE’s exit from OPEC and OPEC+ threatens direct competition for the same buyers by 2027–2030. The U.S. must balance LNG exports against its own compute economy, as no previous administration has had to. China remains dependent on seaborne imports through Malacca despite gains in Arctic infrastructure, mineral processing, and nuclear construction. Japan and South Korea balance their alliance commitments and energy security. Africa and Latin America wield their resource leverage as the last wave of decolonization gathers force.

Restricting China’s access to energy resources may backfire, prompting Beijing to securitize its energy routes: expand its icebreaker fleet, strengthen its security presence in Central Asia, increase joint patrols with Russia in the Arctic, and deepen strategic ties with countries purchasing nuclear technology from Rosatom. This will not immediately terminate globalization, but it may consolidate a new Cold War with potential flashpoints in the Arctic, the Baltic, and Central Asia.

Ultimately, the outcome of this confrontation will be determined not by military force or volume of resources alone, but by countries’ capacity to build durable institutions, alliances, technological systems, and, above all, trust.

Today, trust is becoming scarcer than any mineral or energy source.

Every major player must find points of accommodation that make the new energy order viable rather than allow it to be fractured by conflict. The contours of this order are already emerging—unevenly and in fragments, but clearly enough to reveal the principal fault lines.

This article presents the main arguments of the author’s book, Глобальный энергетический порядок — 2040, forthcoming in December 2026.

For citation, please use:
Safranchuk, I.A., 2026. Diplomacy of Inequality and Imbalance. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 62–71. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-62-71

War and diplomacy are often contrasted as mutually exclusive alternatives, implying that military force’s growing importance presumes diplomacy’s systemic failure. This is hardly what we see today, when military force does not disrupt international communication, but rather triggers the explosive growth thereof, involving a wide range of parties. Recent events point to a collapse of the traditional model of diplomacy and—more broadly—to a transformation of the intellectual framework of military and diplomatic actions in international relations.

The End of Globalization-Era Diplomacy

By the end of the 20th century, the long-standing historical trend towards a common world system had gained incredible momentum. For several centuries, the most significant political, economic, and social phenomena—colonialism, major wars, even the post-1945 inter-bloc confrontation—led to a more intertwined world. Throughout the 20th century, the international environment grew richer and more complex. Various professional spheres were internationalized: ever more spheres of life acquired an international dimension. Interaction with the external environment (the international system) became a crucial task for all states.

Diplomats, as professionals in international communication, thus began to focus on shaping common norms and institutions so as to maximize practical benefits. Diplomats effectively found themselves in the same company as transnational businesses and NGOs, which might remain closely linked to certain jurisdictions, but whose interests were no longer determined by those of individual states.

The diplomacy of globalization focused on the international order’s normative and institutional codification.

Historically, this approach was contrasted with diplomacy pursuant of the balance of power or situational advantage. It existed among the ancient Greeks, who “recognized that the relations between states could not be managed merely by ruse and violence, and that there was some implicit ‘law’ which was superior to immediate national interests or momentary expediency” (Nicolson, 1941, p. 23). Yet its formation is attributed more to the Romans.

Today, the world order tradition is associated with the neo-liberal school of IR, which holds that the order should be based on widely accepted norms that reduce chaos and make interstate competition nonviolent. Although military force remains sometimes needed to maintain the order and impose it upon revisionists.

In recent years, the states, once regarded as guarantors of the world order, have come to be seen as its main revisionists. The crumbling of the international order has been widely discussed (see, e.g., Barabanov et al., 2018), but even though the world order’s recovery appeared unlikely, its degradation was expected to be gradual, as many of its elements were still observed, at least ritually.

Rules were increasingly manipulated to justify actions, and competition over ‘compromise’ wordings in international documents became a major sphere of ​​diplomacy. The question became: which is better—hypocrisy regarding norms, or their open rejection. The latter predominated by 2026, when taboos ceased to be observed even formally (Lukyanov, 2026), marking the collapse of the diplomatic paradigm that had prevailed for decades.

A New Version of Balance-of-Power Diplomacy

Despite states’ increasingly opportunistic behavior,[1] globalization- and order-based diplomacy is actually receding in favor of another historical model: the balance of power, characteristic of Medieval and modern Europe, where it was “aimed at preventing any single state from dominating others, influencing alliances and conflicts throughout history” (Debidour, 1891).

About a century ago, this diplomacy was considered discredited. Intellectuals perceived the First World War as a failure of the balance-of-power doctrine and the diplomatic maneuvering inherent to it. But there was a second argument for replacing balance with order: “there is no power which threatens Europe with domination… Russian communist domination… ended, I believe, when the Bolshevik hordes were defeated before the gates of Warsaw in August 1920” (Hoard, 1925, p. 264).

The balance-of-power doctrine gave rise to the realist school of IR, and neorealism developed intensively in 1975-2000, in deep opposition to ascendant neoliberalism. From the ‘opposition’, neorealists criticized the liberal order and predicted its failure. Now the time has come to test their own proposals.

Balance-of-power’s proponents have developed two main approaches. Kenneth Waltz’s defensive neorealism posits that most states seek a status quo and limit themselves to maintaining the balance of power. John Mearsheimer’s offensive realism asserts that nations seek regional hegemony. They share a disagreement with the neoliberal view of interdependence.

Neoliberalism’s founders initially drew attention to the conflictual elements of interdependence, but by the 21st century the paradigm saw it as facilitating cooperation.

Neorealists, in contrast, insist that interdependence exacerbates competition. Material interconnectedness obscures the balance of power, which must be understood similarly by all parties in order to reach agreement. The internationalization of many spheres of life makes them vulnerable to adversaries’ influence.

Defensive neorealism echoes Kant’s maxim on freedom: one state’s security ends where another’s begins. Implementing this maxim in a materially globalized world, where all interconnections can be drawn into a competitive struggle, is likely to yield a protracted and violent competition, not a balance.

Interest in securing stability within regional spaces may be growing in reaction to lengthy uncertainty. Offensive realism prescribes that a major power maximize power in its vicinity. This becomes only more pressing when a balance with other major powers cannot be struck. For their part, small and middle states may seek to mitigate risk by accepting a greater power’s patronage.

Such theoretical expectations appear logical, but are contradicted by recent events. Extensive international cooperation has granted small and middle states significant opportunities, which they are reluctant to give up, despite mounting risks.

In various parts of the world, large powers, economically and militarily dominant in their regions, are seeking regional hegemony (Safranchuk et al., 2025), but their striving for regional hegemony may be actively or latently disputed by smaller neighbors. Such neighbors fear that the more powerful states could use hegemony, if attained, to impose resolutions on various local disputes. Most small and middle states thus fear a regional hegemon more than a global one. For them, engaging with an extra-regional player is rational, as they can use its economic and military power to balance the regional hegemon. In exchange, small and middles states may be drawn into supporting the extra-regional power.

Forming regional systems, on the basis of something other than confrontation, may be slow, complex, and costly for the regional leader. It can be sped up by force, but this often enflames areas bordering the major power, worsening its position in the context of confrontation with other major powers.

The world’s still materially globalized nature also intensifies competition, making it more complex and multilayered, and obscuring the balance of power. Yet it also limits the use of force, making it impossible to achieve maximalist goals solely by military means. Both large-scale conflicts and prolonged limited-scale conflicts become too costly. Therefore, despite the growing role of military force, states’ default objective is still agreement, rather than a victory parade in the defeated enemy’s capital.

Today, agreement based on the balance of power is rarer than it was in previous periods when the balance of power dominated, since the balance has become more difficult to identify.

This means the likelihood of a protracted confrontation with the use of military force, sometimes fading, sometimes flaring up, but never completely stopping, as well as constant negotiations without achieving major agreements. A state’s mobilization potential (broadly defined) is still important in the event of an escalation, but its resilience is even more important, as the confrontation may drag on without any decisive battle demanding the short-term concentration of all resources.

The Nexus of International and Domestic Transformations

The international environment’s fundamental changes are intersecting with those underway in all large societies.

First. The balance between the internal and external is shifting. As the external environment’s importance for many years only grew, exploiting and reshaping it required maximal engagement with it. Now, the task is enhancing resilience to it (without isolating from it). The shift is from maximizing one’s influence on it to minimizing its impact on oneself. Whereas internal affairs were greatly influenced by the external, now foreign policy is becoming a natural extension of domestic affairs.

More fundamentally, in major powers, tension is growing between contemporary internal identities (which, if not abandoning traditional values, are significantly transforming them to meet the demands of modernity) and traditional geopolitical attitudes (fundamentally unchanged for centuries). This tension is heightened when states search for public support in lengthy standoffs that may look fruitless to nonprofessionals. Winning such support may prove to be a great challenge for major powers’ elite.

Second. Inequality and anarchy are more intractable internationally than domestically, as they are the default form of interaction between materially variegated actors. The doctrine of international order explicitly seeks to overcome inequality through collective work in the common rational interest. The balance-of-power doctrine is less explicit, but similarly seeks countries’ coexistence under conditions where they cannot force anything upon one another, and must respect each other’s treaties, borders, and interests (rights).

For more than two centuries since the French Revolution, democratization has proceeded both domestically and internationally. With it, inequality, of course, was not completely overcome, but equality became the indisputable benchmark. Societies built on codified inequality (the U.S. with racial segregation, South Africa with apartheid, and more) came to be seen as anomalies.

The liberal world order failed to achieve equality and stability as intended. Violent rivalry (now effectively permanent), without a fixed balance of power, can generate inequality and normalize its open manifestation: an actor’s acquisition and demonstration of superiority over others.

Domestically, inequality has long been associated with authoritarianism and been opposed by the human-rights movement (with its bias towards political rights and individual self-expression). However, technological developments are transforming issues of (in)equality and raising their importance in ostensibly democratic countries. Tech visionaries are trying to impose moral standards that normalize inequality, and are building technological-economic models to facilitate this (Varoufakis, 2023a, 2023b).

Perceptions of equality as the norm called for an order mandating it. Moreover, it was thought that equality begets stability. But the triumph (in principle) of equality not only reduced dissatisfaction and resistance, but also increased diversity (heterogeneity) as the circle of actors expanded. (Domestically, with the abolition of property, race, education, and other qualifications. Internationally, with decolonization and the growing ambitions of small and middle states.) As (domestic and international) society became both more equal and more heterogeneous, friction increased.

Limiting diversity is one way of establishing and maintaining order. It is not openly acceptable, but has nevertheless been employed, and not only by illiberal autocratic systems. At the turn of the 21st century, even the liberal thinker Fareed Zakaria noted that liberalism and democracy no longer go hand in hand, and that, if forced to choose, liberals would have to abandon democracy.

“Techno-feudal lords” now pose the question more directly, able to revive practices—at a new level of technological development—previously considered unacceptably unequal.

Equality as a basic value is deeply rooted in contemporary minds, and codified inequality seems downright archaic. But equality, originally an unconditional and permanent right, is evolving into a privilege to be acquired and maintained through interaction with others in the domestic and international systems.

This promises increasing differentiation of diplomatic practices depending on actors’ size and resources. Bilateral and multilateral agreements will also be more diversified, relying less on international law’s common denominator, but not rejecting it entirely. Modern diplomacy within international institutions (particularly the UN Security Council), where one must remain within the dogma of international law, is becoming formalistic and hollow, like the medieval practice of buying and selling indulgences.

Third. The international sphere is traditionally viewed as a battlefield of competition for relative advantages. But these are difficult to maintain in an unstable and unpredictable environment of confrontation, unclear balance of power, and powerless norms and institutions. Thus, to have a clear advantage on the international arena, states may need to obtain absolute advantages based on solid internal foundations: resources, technologies, ideologies, intellectual potential, and other assets that are completely controlled and that ensure greater efficiency compared to rivals.

These advantages must be kept under control, including through their basic physical protection from destruction or theft. Then one can decide whether they are better kept for oneself, or shared with the international community on one’s own terms.

 Currently, the latter seems to be the obvious choice, but is it not a relic of the diplomacy and mindset formed under globalization (seeking comparative international advantages, not absolute advantages for one’s own development)?

Paradoxically, the new version of balance-based diplomacy—historically and theoretically focused on the struggle for comparative international advantage—may now push (sufficiently large, populous, and advanced) countries to rely more on domestic development based on fundamentally new absolute advantages.

*  *  *

Structurally, the modern world is characterized by a combination of high-level material globalization (interconnectedness) and growing ideological disunity. Efforts to universalize liberal dogma, and thereby base material interconnectedness on ideological homogeneity, have proven futile. But the neorealist approach can work only given material deglobalization, which would ease rivalries, clarify balances of power, and delineate where the security sphere of one actor ends and that of another begins. While the world is moving in this direction of deglobalization, many countries are strongly resisting it.

Theories analyze and interpret history, but history does not repeat itself. As humanity develops, the solutions to its problems do as well.

Reality does not adapt to theories. And the new version of balance-of-power diplomacy will not be a replica of the past one, just as globalization was not a copy of previous attempts to normatively formalize and maintain order. The world must learn to function with dissonance between material connectedness and ideological disunity; there are no ready-made theoretical solutions for this.

With the crisis of the globalist model that dominated over the past decades, the nexus between the internal and external is not disappearing, but changing, becoming more complex, and shaping the profound transformations of modern society as it seeks to balance security, freedom, and development. Both internal and external factors are currently pointing towards more security agenda, less equality, and more non-inclusive development. Hence, the ideological-intellectual framework for action may change radically.

For citation, please use:
Kaspe, S.I., 2026. Why China Frightens: Beyond the Realm of Western Political Forms. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 138–167. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-138-167

“Through me, like Chinese torture,

a visceral fear took root”

Andrey Tourkine

(transl. by Stanislav Lvovsky)

“Do not fear’’

The New Testament

Disclaimer I[1]. This article is not about China. I am not a sinologist, and I would never dare write about China per se. This article deals exclusively with stereotypical perceptions of China prevailing in the West and Russia; and with what they convey not about China but about the West (and Russia) itself. This article criticizes these views from the Western (and Russian) perspective itself—for my lack of any other. It is not about what makes China so frightening (whether this is true is a big question); rather, it is about whom it frightens and why. I realize that the Chinese historical, linguistic, and political realities I touch upon are far more complex and ambiguous. I offer my deepest apologies in advance for possibly angering genuine connoisseurs of China. The risk is quite high. But I believe that even a superficial and amateurish approach can raise reasonable doubts about the validity of the prevalent stereotypes. So, I think it is worth trying.

China is perceived either as one of the biggest strategic challenges or the biggest strategic threats. About a decade ago, such views—explicit or only implied, having emerged earlier and causing controversy for a long time—became commonplace in the Western (primarily American) public discourse, including official documents, politicians’ speeches, expert discussions, media, and blogs. Assessments of the intensity and severity of the China challenge and/or threat may change both ways. For example, they were somewhat toned down in the latest U.S. National Defense Strategy (The 2026 National Defense Strategy), especially compared to its earlier versions adopted under Joe Biden and during the first presidency of Donald Trump. However, one should not overestimate the significance of such fluctuations or the instructive power and predictive value of strategies and concepts. Firstly, because the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China’s military capabilities and security policy (Annual Report to Congress 2025) presented just a month earlier, had had an opposite, rather nervous tone. Secondly, the 2026 Strategy firmly stated the U.S.’s intention to focus on protecting Homeland and Hemisphere.

The Iran problem was declared largely solved, to be further settled by regional allies, primarily Israel and the Gulf states. And what of it? A month later, Operation Epic Fury began.

Occasional attempts have been made to summarize ideas about the China challenge and the China threat, sometimes for making them more convincing (Gertz, 2013; Glenn, 2017; Han and Thayer, 2023) and sometimes to dismiss them as unfounded (Broomfield, 2003; Yee and Storey, 2004; Christensen, 2015; Gezgin, 2023; Zheng, Du and Xu, 2025). Clearly, the latter position is strongly backed by China itself, which only increases the suspicions of those who advocate for the former one.

Both positions—apprehensions about China and debunking skepticism—can also be found in Russia (see Blyakher, 2004; Blyakher and Grigorichev, 2015; Gelbras, 2011; Chikhichin, 2014; Pomozova, 2020; Kulintsev et al., 2020, pp. 139-142).[2] Since its very inception, then under the name of Rus, Russia has been part of Western civilization—as a unique, yet undeniable branch of the Christian religious and imperial (i.e., Roman) political and European cultural traditions. Russia is the West (albeit the ‘eastern West’), if only because it is not the East (not even the ‘western East’). No matter how broadly this category may be used, if anyone has peremptorily included Russia in it, he clearly did so out of sheer ignorance. In fact, even Eurasianists of all times and stripes cannot do without the root ‘Eur-.’ After all, for some time now, the collective West has been poised to incorporate not only quite Christian—but Orthodox—countries like Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Romania, but also Japan and South Korea—which is utterly bizarre, but nonetheless true.

After 2014, and especially after 2022, when China became Russia’s main ‘window on the world’ (or even ‘the only light in the window’), the fear of China subsided—at least it hardly appears in the Russian public realm (or it is not allowed there, including by those frightened, because it would be out of line at the moment). However, this does not mean that it cannot revive if the situation changes, and even with renewed vigor—if only because China’s presence in the Russian economy and everyday life has increased significantly over these years. Hence my further reasoning, which concerns not only global politics as such but also Russia’s role in global politics. It should show that although the alarmist point of view may not be entirely unfounded, it still is—in a very specific sense—beyond the bounds of rationality. This is precisely why both the rational arguments of its opponents and the contemptuous ridicule by alarmists miss the point and fail to produce the soothing effect. This is because the entire discussion, from both positions, indicates that there is some real difficulty, but it lies in a different realm.

Disclaimer II. Much of what is written below is about political languages, i.e., about the complex relationship and incomplete similarity between Western and Chinese concepts and terms. Not speaking Chinese myself, in treating the latter I have to deal solely with translations from Chinese. All the more reason to take most seriously Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper’s warnings about the danger of “uncritically adopting categories of practice as categories of analysis” (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000, p. 5). Yet many analytical categories are the products of practical categories’ rationalization; they continue to exist in parallel, and this makes drawing a strict and reflexive distinction between them in each case still more important. As for categories of practice, especially those that have also become categories of analysis, I follow the principles of the Cambridge school of the history of concepts (John Pocock, Quentin Skinner, John Dunn et al.), placing them in the methodological optics of comparative politics. Words matter. Words mean something. What exactly they mean is determined by the cultural, historical, and semantic context of their emergence and subsequent transformation. Cross-temporal and especially cross-cultural comparisons disregarding these contexts are incorrect and only complicate things. One can draw analogies between categories from different contexts or seek equivalents in one context for categories from another. But there can be no complete matches, even if some practitioners or analysts think otherwise. It is even worse if they do not think about this at all.

The first category (both practical and analytical), whose applicability to modern China is discussed—and questioned—below, is the category of empire.

Not an Empire

The fear of China would be more understandable, and the discussion about it more rational, if it were about another empire looming ominously over the world. This is how, at different times and in different parts in the West, the Ottoman Empire, the Romanov Empire with its ferocious Cossacks, the Third Reich, and the Soviet ‘evil empire’ (and in the Soviet Union, ‘American imperialism’) were perceived. The latter confrontation, or at least opposition, is reproduced mutatis mutandis even today, with roughly the same quality of argumentation.

But modern China is not an empire.

That is, some people proclaim it an empire (see, e.g., Terrill, 2003; Chua, 2009; Ford, 2010; Keane and He, 2024), directly or indirectly, referring to the centuries and millennia of its history and claiming that China has always been an empire and cannot be anything else. Indeed, Europeans (and, with more than a hundred-year delay, Russians) began to refer to China as an ‘empire’ shortly after they became acquainted with it—at the beginning of the modern era, thanks to Maximilianus Transylvanus (secretary to Charles V, the head of the Holy Roman Empire) who retold and published his conversations with members of Magellan’s expedition (Maximiliani, 1523), which had neither reached China nor even come close to it.

Gradually (not right away), this definition became firmly established. As far as I can judge, by reconstructing the logic behind the naming, there were three reasons for this.

First, the size of China somehow made it difficult to call it simply a kingdom, although Europeans did so for quite a long time.

Second, they were strongly impressed by the worldview that was completely different from their own—not Western- but China-centered. The political implication was that other authorities and people (and not only contiguous ones) were—if not practically, then potentially—subordinate (albeit not without exceptions, such as for the most hopeless barbarians) to varying degrees to the Middle Country’s (中國) supreme ruler, even if they were not yet aware of this because of their regrettable ignorance, or were already resisting it because of their regrettable wickedness.[3] This obviously evoked associations with Christian empires: the Holy Roman Empire (Pennington, 1993, pp. 8-37; Monateri, 2018, pp. 39-49), the Byzantine, but also Roman, Empire (Bréhier, 1970, p. 230ff), and the Third Rome (Medvedev, 1972; Sakharov, 1995; Kaspe, 2001, pp. 86-104). They all had more or less similar intentions and ambitions, and the actual state of affairs in all of them was never ideal.

Third, the legitimacy of the ruler of China, according to the titulature, was clearly sacred—not only was it 皇帝 (Huángdì) (where the second character 帝 means ‘heavenliness and divinity,’ which Europeans might not have known at first), but it was also 天子 (Tiānzǐ) meaning ‘Son of Heaven.’ This brought the same associations.

However, finding more or less suitable analogues (later presented as equivalents) to foreign-language self-designation and self-perception is a shaky foundation for substantive conclusions and qualifications. In practical policy, referring to China as an empire did not prevent the West, including Russia, from humiliating, offending, and exploiting it in every possible way.

‘Empire’ is not just a convenient word for criticism or praise (both uses are so effective, rhetorically and polemically, that it is impossible to purge them from the public language). And it is not just a label that can be attached to anything you like (fighting this bad habit is also hopeless). Within the bounds of science and sober analysis, ‘empire’ is a term—no more and no less. And terms should be used correctly.

Empire as a category of analysis, denoting a certain nature of politically relevant values (not their specific composition, but their scope, scale, and ambition) and a fairly defined (again, not in specific details but in the most general way) structure of a domination-subordination relationship in a large (sic!) space, legitimized primarily by imperial values of interaction between centers and peripheries. Whether China has ever been an empire in this sense is a historical question, and it should be left to historians. Scholars, including Chinese ones, answer it in different ways, either with extreme caution or outright negation (Nylan, 2007; Qin, 2007; Zhu, 2008; Han, 2025). But modern China (and this article is about it, not about the “good old times”) does not meet the analytical criteria of empire, except one: Chinese space is still large (a small empire is an oxymoron or a parody). Size matters, but still there is more to it than just size.

Imperial values are, firstly, sacred—in Durkheim’s interpretation: they are not necessarily religious in the strict sense (even the most secular ideologies can function similarly to religions, and the more radically they reject God, the more sacred they appear). Secondly, they are universal, i.e., they are openly offered and sometimes imposed on all possible recipients, transcending almost any local, linguistic, cultural, racial, ethnic, religious, and other similar barriers, without eliminating or destroying them, but rather integrating them into a broader framework. Thirdly, their own structure includes the imperative of creating a relevant universal order for “the shaping and sharing of power” (Lasswell and Kaplan, 1950, p. XIV) and not just the imperative of meditation, prayer, individual or communal piety, etc.

Chinese value system is definitely not a religion: China is the least religious country in the world (Hackett et al., 2025).[4] And it is definitely not an ideology:[5] for some time (short by Chinese standards) that was the case, but now there is almost nothing left of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, and even Maoism in Chinese ‘communism,’ except for the word itself. Whether Chinese values are sacred is harder to say because it is difficult to understand what they are actually about.

For the outside world, China projects a set of ‘all the good things’ with captivating and disarming consistency: peace, friendship, cooperation, prosperity, and things like that. Are Xi Jinping’s four Global Initiatives, along with his concept of a Community of Common Destiny for Mankind, anything more than that?

But values are not just ‘all the good things.’

Values are “various recipes or rules… which may help the actor make his choice” between different concepts of the good “either by narrowing the range of acceptable alternatives, or by helping the actor foresee the long-run consequences of the various alternatives” (Parsons and Shils, 1951, p. 71). This choice “always involves at least an implicit sacrifice, in that an actor cannot have all of what are in one sense potential gratifications, and choosing one involves a ‘cost’ in that it excludes alternatives. The payment of this cost is the disciplinary element” (Ibid, p. 73). So, for a value-based choice to be rational (which is not the same as the costs/benefits balance: after all, it also includes moral reason and value-rational action), it is necessary to clearly articulate and present alternatives that are more specific than ‘everything good’ versus ‘everything bad,’ recommended societal solutions, and the cost of following or disregarding these recommendations. Western societies address the dilemmas of freedom versus equality, freedom versus security, human rights versus state interests, individualism versus collectivism, justice versus mercy, tradition versus progress, and so on, in different ways; but they address precisely these dilemmas. There are of course original Chinese values and value alternatives—as ‘things in themselves,’ rather than ‘things for us.’ However, they can hardly be translated, if at all, into the languages of other cultures, especially Western ones.

Chinese values are to some extent intelligible for external viewers, as they are not entirely hermetic. Moreover, in the distant past, Chinese cultural models had a significant influence on many East and Southeast Asian countries (primarily those which widely used the Chinese system of writing), especially on their elite groups and upper classes. However, they never became universal. Therefore, China’s potential for inclusion, and even more so for assimilation, has always been limited to the same geographical area. Now, however, this potential is virtually exhausted (there is little progress even with the Tibetans and Uyghurs).

It is precisely these specific features of China that severely limit the possibility of its geographical, cultural, and political expansion. This is particularly true of imperial expansion, which does not eliminate cultural diversity but, on the contrary, preserves it (and sometimes even promotes it, divide et impera): within a general, umbrella framework of unconditional demand for loyalty to the empire, the combination of imperial and local identities, and participation in the imperial turnover of resources of all kinds—coercive, material, symbolic, and communicative (Lagroye, 1987; Burbank and Cooper, 2010; Kumar, 2017; Heijmans and Rose, 2023). Virtually anyone could become and becomes a Roman, a Byzantine, a Russian, a Soviet, an American, a European, etc., by meeting certain conditions and undergoing certain personal, ancestral, or group transformation. Moreover, virtually anyone could and can, albeit with greater effort, become a functionary in any of these empires, reaching the highest levels of status and power. But one cannot become a Chinese, no matter how hard one may try (and few wish to do so). Some people do make their way into the elite without being Chinese, but only for a few symbolic, propaganda-oriented, show-case positions (the current the CCP Central Committee purposely includes 10 representatives of national minorities, the CPSU Central Committee had a similar practice). But it is simply impossible to acquire real significant power this way.

Structurally, the modern Chinese political order is not imperial, either. According to Charles Tilly, an empire implies ‘indirect rule’, including: “1) retention or establishment of particular, distinct compacts for the government of each segment; 2) exercise of power through intermediaries who enjoy considerable autonomy within their own domains in return for compliance, tribute, and military collaboration with the center” (Tilly, 1997, p. 3). Moreover, the very possibility of creating and effectively operating such a system of domination and subordination on a large territory is ensured precisely by the empire’s value universality and cultural inclusiveness. The rule of the Chinese Communist Party does not meet any of Tilly’s criteria—it is as direct as it can be.

What is a Threat?

Naturally, there is no need to be an empire in order to pose a direct and explicit threat—it can be just a state. But in this case, a threat must be convincingly demonstrated and proven. What threat does China pose? True, it has significant military potential, including nuclear missile capabilities (it would be surprising if it were otherwise). But all data concerning its actual size, as well as talks about its rapid buildup in recent years, are purely speculative. Even if they are accurate (although even the most optimistic estimates suggest that China’s nuclear arsenal is 8-9 times smaller than the U.S.’s), China’s defense doctrine categorically rules out “first use of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances” (China’s National Defense, 2019). (It is worth noting that only India has a similar unconditional self-imposed ban).

Why, against whom, and under what circumstances can a country use its nuclear arsenal? In the case of the U.S., the UK, France, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, the answer is obvious. In the case of China, this question goes unanswered. China is not a member of any military-political blocs, whether global or regional, and is not trying to create them. As for its territorial claims, they are limited to Taiwan (which is only natural), the waters around several uninhabited islands in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, as well as a few insignificant, sparsely populated patches of lands on the borders with Bhutan and India, disputes over which have been frozen. China has no colonies, dominions, or protectorates, and it does not seek to possess any (Laos and Cambodia’s pro-Chinese orientation is a qualitatively different, much milder type of relationship).

The risk of China seizing technological leadership and, consequently, of all other countries falling irreversibly behind it, is also non-existent. True, the Chinese ability to adopt Western technologies, improve and replicate them on a colossal scale is impressive. But China has not given the world anything revolutionary new since the time of the Four Great Inventions (the compass, papermaking, printing, and gunpowder; let’s not forget the pressure cooker), i.e., since the Middle Ages. The most advanced chips are still created by American fabless firms with production facilities located anywhere, including China (mainly in Taiwan). However, these are no longer cutting-edge innovations but mass production. And the development and production of machines for manufacturing such chips (extreme ultraviolet photolithographs, EUV) have long been monopolized by Dutch ASML, not even an American company; and its monopoly will definitely hold in the foreseeable future. The situation is similar in Big Pharma, other high-tech industries, and aircraft building. China has no full technological sovereignty, and the West is doing its best to prevent Beijing from gaining it. As a matter of fact, no country, including the U.S, has such sovereignty, which is by no means equal to leadership.

China’s religious or religiously-motivated expansion, unlike Islam and radical Islamism, is impossible because of the complete absence of inclusive and proselytizing religiosity. Massive projection of soft power through everyday practices is also impossible. Unlike the Greco-Roman, European, or American way of life, Chinese lifestyle does not exist as a single attractive whole and is not borrowed by anyone. Chinese food is popular in the Western world, but this is it (one can hardly say the same about alcohol). Chinese cinema is a niche product; music (unlike South Korean K-pop) is not in demand at all.

As for clothing, ordinary Chinese wear jeans and sneakers, and the most impressive parades of classic European suits and ties are not in Europe but at Chinese Communist Party congresses.

What remains? Only quantitative parameters: territory (fourth place, after Russia, Canada, and the U.S.), population (second in the world after India), GDP (also second in the world, a third smaller than that of the U.S.), industrial output (first place), share in global trade (third place after the European Union and the U.S.), and trade balance surplus (first place, far ahead of Germany and Russia). The figures are impressive, of course; and they clearly worry some people. However, there are still no objective grounds for panic or existential fear. Global capitalism can deal with such competitive challenges, which lie exclusively in the economic sphere, in its own way. In the 1970s and 1980s, during a period of its rapid growth, Japan also raised similar concerns in the West (manifest in mass culture of that time, particularly in cyberpunk), but they quickly died down.

The Problem of Form

So, is the irrational fear of China an inexplicable, phantasmatic delusion, or a perfectly explainable manipulative intent, a dishonest tool of global competition? Would it be more reasonable to dismiss it scornfully? Hardly so. On the contrary, it would be more reasonable to treat it with utmost attention.

Irrational fear cannot be dismissed because it always signals some deep-seated problem within the frightened person. If there is smoke outside, then something is surely burning inside. Naturally, the frightening object needs attention not only when the fear it evokes is exaggerated or has a traumatic origin, but also when it is impossible to explain why it becomes a trigger—as in the case of trypophobia (fear of any cluster of small holes) or lachanophobia (fear of any vegetables). Fortunately, this is not the case with China, and one can hypothesize about the causes of the fear of China. In fact, something prevents the West, despite all the simple observations above, from recognizing China as an ordinary state among other states, from calming down, relaxing, and possibly even enjoying interaction with it.

So, let us take a break from China and turn our attention to the West. The political history of the West is the history of political forms. It is hard to say definitively what a political form is—explicit definitions are rare.[6] However, if such different authors as Carl Schmitt (1923; 1928), Sheldon Wolin (2004 (1960)), Claude Lefort (1986), Étienne Balibar (1997; 2002), and Pierre Manent (2001) (and their numerous followers and interpreters) built their most important intellectual constructs around the concept of political form, then they surely did it for a reason. Without delving into irrelevant details and discussions, we can say that political form is an analytical category that permits working with broad ideal types, each pointing to “a particular way of being in the world expressed in corresponding cultural values and practices,” as well as a derivative “distinctive and pervasive way of life” (Wolin, 2004, p. 557). This refers, of course, to modes of political existence and images of political life. Importantly, these modes and images are believed to be essentially differentiated, i.e., having, on the analytical level, distinct shapes and clear contours.

Those who use the category of political form deal with it in different ways. Some deal with ideal types, which most often include: a tribe (with reservations, as only a proto-political proto-form), a city (polis), an empire, and a state (not always but most often equated with a nation). Others explore their numerous subvarieties, classified according to as different bases and criteria as possible: ‘forms of government’ (a concept narrower than ‘political form’), political systems, political regimes, types of legitimation of power, variations in territorial organization, the degree of homogeneity/heterogeneity, the degree of subordination/autonomy/sovereignty in relation to other polities, etc. Still others consider the outstanding ability of all these forms and sub-forms to combine, recombine and hybridize: elements of tribalism and leaderism can easily be found in the most modernized polities; sometimes states mature inside empires and then blow up the imperial shell, and “modern state … appears then to be a city that is deliberately and artificially spread out and diluted” (Manent, 2001, p. 77); sometimes empires themselves create states, both in their core and on their periphery; sometimes states build their own empires (Martin, 2001; Kaspe, 2007; Miller and Berger, 2014; Osterhammel, 2014; pp. 403-418). Some even speak of the global capitalist Empire, whose insatiable tentacles have ensnared and subjugated all states and nations around the world (Hardt and Negri, 2000, as well as their numerous epigones).

All of this is extremely important and useful. Moreover, this essentially constitutes the only way available to the West (because, this is precisely what makes it the West) for interpreting the political world and taking political action in it—a modus intelligendi, a modus operandi, and ultimately a modus vivendi.[7] Moreover, in the course of Westernization (which is just another but less correct name for modernization and globalization), all non-Western polities, which underwent a deep internal transformation in the process, were placed in the same categorial framework, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes forcibly, but always painfully. It is quite telling that the most representative global organization, conceived as an unquestionable supreme authority for resolving any disputes (what has become of it is another question) is called the United Nations, not any other way. This means that, to be its member, one must be a nation or at least present oneself as such. A nation (equated with a state) is—genetically and exclusively—Western political form. This process has produced countless and most bizarre artifacts and mutations.

Not a State?

China has also gone through several dramatic waves of Westernization. However, attempts to define the political form of modern China by fitting it into the generally accepted categorial framework have proved futile. Well, since almost anything can be called a ‘state,’ then let China be one, too. After all, in European languages, the words state, государство, държава, państwo, stato, Etat, Staat, állam, valtio, etc., acquired their current meaning only after long semantic adventures (Skinner, 1989; Harding, 1994; Kharkhordin, 2002). Against this backdrop, the history of the Chinese 國 (guó) is no less, but also no more, surprising. But what kind of state is this? The simple answer is a republic, of course—the People’s Republic of China. But what about the fact that the literal translation (which comes with its own flaws but is nonetheless not entirely useless) of “中华人民共和国 (Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó)” is “Central Splendid People’s Shared Harmony Country”?[8] Is this really a res publica?

Modern China is not a democracy, no matter how one tries to fit it into this category, interpreting in the minimalist or the broadest way. And it is not a dictatorship or totalitarianism—let bygones be bygones. It is neither a monarchy, nor a tyranny, nor an aristocracy, nor an oligarchy, nor a polity (stricto sensu, as an ideal of balance and moderation achieved through the rule of the middle strata and classes, and not as a receptacle of all possible political forms), and it does not fit into the Aristotelian matrix. The ideal of a ‘mixed government,’ which inspired Polybius, Cicero, and Niccolò Machiavelli, does not apply to it either.

One may probably say that the Chinese regime is authoritarian (out of desperation and simply because all other options have proved wrong). But that would mean saying nothing—the concept of authoritarianism is so broad that in addition to the classic, more or less obvious monarchies, tyrannies, dictatorships, and totalitarian regimes, it can also encompass the Roman principate, Bonapartism, Kemalism, Peronism, Chavismo, Orbanism, Erdoganism, and whatever else one might name. Moreover, modern China cannot be classified as a personalist regime either. Xi Jinping’s heading China for the third time (in 2022-2023), despite the supposedly traditional limitation of two five-year terms, gives no reason for such conclusions. This is not a tradition; on the contrary, it is a novelty and an incipient trend: such a limit existed de jure only from 1982 to 2018 (and even then only for the post of President of the PRC, not for the position of General Secretary of the CCP), and de facto it was observed only twice by Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, in 1993 and 2003, respectively. The ‘hybridity’ label is also unsuitable: it is completely meaningless unless it is shown and proven what exactly has been crossed with what (which has already been identified and classified) and in what proportion in a particular regime. This will not work for China.

Turning to typologies based on other criteria is of little help, too. China is clearly not a confederation or a federation. But it cannot be unequivocally called a unitary state either, as 47% of its territory is occupied by five autonomous, albeit mostly nominally, regions (Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang Uyghur, Guangxi Zhuang, and Ningxia Hui). And there are also the special administrative regions of Hong Kong (Xiānggǎng) and Macau (Àomén), which have a special status.

Perhaps China is simply a nation-state? Well, if a ‘nation’ and a ‘state,’ as has already been noted above, have become almost synonymous, let it be so. But even if this is the case, it is no less strange as a nation than it is as a state. “Nation-states, by their very nature, strive for the ideal of cultural and linguistic homogeneity” (Kende, 1991, p. 24). In other words, in order to be considered nation-states, they must approximate (quite closely, in fact) this ideal. The ideal of homogeneity is a product of modernization, for which the necessary condition is “sustained, frequent and precise communication between strangers involving a sharing of explicit meaning, transmitted in a standard idiom and in writing when required” (Gellner, 1983, p. 34). However, there is no need to reduce modernization to the formation of industrial society, as Ernest Gellner did, since its non-economic motives can—and often are—no less significant. Incidentally, nationalism, as “a political principle which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent” (Ibid, p. 1), is certainly not justified solely by economic considerations. Sometimes there is no industrial society yet, but nationalism is already there. However, the mere statement of undeniably observed facts is important.

At first glance, China matches this ideal almost completely: the Han people make up over 91% of the population, while the other 55 officially recognized ethnic groups account for less than 9%. It would take Taiwan, with its approximately 23 million inhabitants (which would add less than 2% to the total Han population) for the political and national borders (i.e., the area dominated by Han culture) to match each other. However, upon closer examination, the picture does not appear so simple.

Omitting many details and oversimplifying things: the Han language is a collective term for ten main dialects, which in turn are further divided into approximately two hundred varieties. They share a common written, hieroglyphic basis, but their phonetics, vocabulary, and in some cases even grammar are so different that verbal communication (i.e., Gellner’s “sustained, frequent and precise communication between strangers”) between residents of northern and southern regions, as well as between southerners from different areas, is often a problem. The official language is pǔtōnghuà, also known as Standard Mandarin, based on the Beijing version of the North Chinese language and classical literature and created only in 1911, after ‘the Xinhai Revolution, under the name of guoyu, literally meaning ‘state language” and renamed pǔtōnghuà (literally meaning ‘common tongue’) in 1949, after the establishment of the PRC. Pǔtōnghuà reigns supreme in the public sphere (and even beyond in the North), but in everyday life, only about 80% of Chinese on average speak it across the country, and only half of that in some rural areas in the South. The political goal of “promoting the common language—Pǔtōnghuà—used nationwide” is stated in the 1982 Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (while also stipulating that “all ethnic groups shall have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages”). The Law “On Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress,” adopted in March 2026 by the National People’s Congress, adds little to the long-established approach, mainly systematizing previously introduced measures and staying in line with one of Xi Jinping’s favorite metaphors: the peoples of China should be “packed tightly together like pomegranate seeds.”

The pomegranate seeds are enclosed in a strong shell and uniformly colored red; but grinding them into homogeneous puree is neither proposed nor implied here. Therefore, the Chinese approach to the unity-plurality dilemma differs markedly from that which was practiced in most European and Europeanized nation-states.

As a rule, the latter was eliminated, while the former was imposed by all possible means, ranging from mild to quite repressive (this topic has been researched so thoroughly that, for the sake of space, let me omit references to specific studies).

Modern nation-building cases are structured in a similar way. The Chinese authorities would probably like to do something of the kind at the “software” level; one can harbor any suspicions and make any assumptions on that score. But the “hardware” does not permit it. Pǔtōnghuà functions more as an oral extension of the traditionally written lingua franca, which Chinese characters have always been since ancient times: today, its role is comparable to that of Latin, Greek, Russian, English, and to some extent Spanish and French (in certain ways Arabic) in some empires. And at the same time, as shown above, modern China is not an empire.

There are, however, more nuanced ideas about the nation and the nation-state. For example, Alfred Stepan proposed distinguishing between a ‘state-nation’ and a ‘nation-state.’ He uses the term ‘nation-state’ for what Paul Kende and other representatives of the French tradition refer to as ‘état-nations’—it is not hard to get used to it, especially since he defines this political sub-form strictly in line with Gellner. Per Stepan, a ‘state-nation’ is a combination of “attachment to more than one cultural civilizational tradition within the existing boundaries,” “recognition and support of more than one cultural identity, even more than one cultural nation,” “two or more official languages are allowed,” “federal system… de jure, or de facto, asymmetrical,” “salient and are recognized and democratically managed ethno-cultural-territorial cleavages,” “autonomist parties [that] can govern in federal units and are ‘coalitionable’ at the center. Non-violent secessionist parties can sometimes participate in democratic politics,” “multiple but complementary (political) identities,” “obedience to the state and identification with institutions, neither based on a single national identity” (Stepan, 2008, p. 4). Obviously, this model is irrelevant to Chinese realities. And it is clear why: Stepan associates it exclusively with democracies, classifying India, Switzerland, Canada, Belgium, and Spain as ‘state-nations.’ However, he does the same with ‘nation-states’ (Brazil, Austria, U.S., Germany, Australia, Argentina) (Ibid, p. 13). There are no non-democracies in his sample, simply because he did not deal with them. So, China does not fit this category, either.

The last attempt. China undoubtedly belongs to the category of one-party systems. The fact that, in addition to the Communist Party of China, there are officially eight other parties (and Hong Kong has its own party subsystem) should not mislead anyone: this well-known tactic has been used more than once by other one-party regimes, and the leading role of the CCP has been repeatedly declared in the Constitution. But what kind of party is this—中国共产党 (Zhōngguó Gòngchǎndǎng)? Resorting once again to a literal translation and keeping in mind its flaws, it is the Party of the Common Property/Joint Production of the Middle Country.[9] ‘Dǎng’ can be considered a fairly accurate equivalent of the word ‘party’—in ancient China this term was used for court political factions vying for influence and power. The history of many European political parties and those shaped along European lines also began with various factions, groups, and cliques, and it took time for them to turn from partes (Lat.) of the elite into parts of a politically organized society in toto and per se. But is ‘common property/joint production’ really the same kind of communism that was visualized in its birthplace, i.e., in the West, by its apologists, adherents, and advocates? Or was it, and still is, a “dream of something greater” which is not reducible solely to the ownership-production relationship? And, most importantly, what kind of state does this party rule? Under Mao, the answer was clear—totalitarian, of course. Now, there is no totalitarianism in China.[10] Incidentally, there is no common property/joint production either. Once again, this makes it obscure for us.

The Problem of the Formless

Hence the first part of the hypothesis.

In fog, as we know, all objects lose the clarity of their outlines and the discernibility of their size; they become shapeless and unrecognizable. This is what makes fog frightening—we cannot understand what is happening around us, properly determine the nature of an object, the distance to it, or the nature and scale of a potential threat. This is why the formless frightens us.

The formless rarely becomes a subject of individual reflections. And it is easy to understand why: How can it be an object, and how can one think about it separately from other objects? This question puzzled even Plato: “And would you feel… about… such things as hair, mud, dirt, or anything else which is vile and paltry; would you suppose that each of these has an idea…? Certainly not, said Socrates; …I am afraid that there would be an absurdity in assuming any idea of them, although I sometimes get disturbed, and begin to think that there is nothing without an idea; but then again, when I have taken up this position, I run away, because I am afraid that I may fall into a bottomless pit of nonsense, and perish” (Παρµενίδης 130c, 130d).

Aristotle simply dismissed this question, thinking that (to put it bluntly) everything has a form, and formlessness is nothing more than an abstraction. So, Georges Bataille’s diagnosis is quite accurate: “Formless is… a term that serves to bring things down in the world, generally requiring that each thing have its form. What it designates has no rights in any sense and gets itself squashed everywhere, like a spider or an earthworm. In fact, for academic men to be happy, the universe would have to take shape. All of philosophy has no other goal: it is a matter of giving a frock coat to what is, a mathematical frock coat. On the other hand, affirming that the universe resembles nothing and is only formless amounts to saying that the universe is something like a spider or spit” (Bataille, 1929, p. 382).

It is noteworthy that both Plato and Bataille, as well as the authors inspired by Bataille, describe the formless as something repulsive, dirty, and vile (see Bois and Krauss, 1996; Woodard, 2011; Alliez and Gordon, 2016). The dirty and vile, in turn, not only repel but can also frighten: “There are evil and impure powers, productive of disorders, causes of death and sickness, instigators of sacrilege. The only sentiments which men have for them are a fear into which horror generally enters” (Durkheim, 1964, p. 409; see also Caillois, 1988 and many other studies). The opposite is also possible—something that for some reason is frightening is also believed to be inherently repulsive, which further legitimizes its isolation, sanitation, and elimination. In any case, there is a connection between disgust and fear, whatever its direction may be. After all, it is no coincidence that the Abrahamic tradition says so much about the “unclean, or impure spirit,” one of whose favorite tactics is to poison and weaken the souls of the tempted with fear.

Statements about the formless are, to put it mildly, interdisciplinary in nature. Again, this is not surprising: it is formless precisely because it does not fit into any disciplinary framework, not even a psychological one. Psychologists do not analyze the fear of formlessness, but it is treated as a symptom of generalized anxiety disorder (van Hoyer, der Heiden and Portman 2011). This kind of fear is irrational, structureless, and absurd; it is not caused by any specific object. It is something else. However, it seems reasonable to assume that anxiety and horror instilled by the formless may themselves turn out to be formless.

Wolin is perhaps the only one who tried to talk about the formless in the language of political theory. Unfortunately, his attempt can hardly be considered satisfactory. Some twenty years ago he made vague (and it is precisely this vagueness that is most frightening) warnings about the threat of “formless forms” looming over the world (Wolin, 2004, p. 559). But he never explained what this oxymoron means and what the formless is in his examples—the American superpower and Islamic terrorism. And that is a pity. Because the second part of the hypothesis suggests that China is frightening not so much because it cannot be fitted into any of the known political forms, but because the West itself is becoming increasingly formless.

For several decades now, the West has been experiencing a growing sense of uncertainty about itself, about the stability and legitimacy of its political forms, about its own right to not just impose something on anyone but even to have any kind of political form, let alone defend it, about its own right to be the West, and ultimately, about its own right to be. It was the Left who spread this uncertainty, which is now turning into a sense of guilt. The Right seek to bring the West back to its roots, but they do so, firstly, rather clumsily, and secondly, instead of treating the disorder they demand a crude, unanesthetized amputation of the affected organs and tissues, often failing to notice that by doing so they call for cutting away what was generated by the West itself in the course of its own natural and legitimate evolution, rather by an exogenous infection.

Russia, despite its specific situation, is faced with similar predicaments. It is impossible to restore the communist regime (in any form, from extremely harsh to a more moderate one). It is impossible to restore the Orthodox monarchy. It is impossible to call itself an empire for a multitude of domestic and foreign policy reasons, and also because it would simply be counterfactual. It is also impossible to position itself as an ordinary, unremarkable state ‘like all the others’ for roughly the same reasons (but also because it would be very undesirable). The centauric notion of ‘state-civilization,’ much trumpeted lately, does not solve the problem. Firstly, it is hardly suitable for external use, as it will only baffle friends and anger enemies. Secondly, it combines the incompatible: unlike ‘state,’ ‘civilization’ is not a political form, but a notion from a different realm.

It is sometimes claimed that this two-part definition was coined by Lucian Pye, and specifically in relation to China. The truth is that Pye, who was born in China, worked there, and studied it closely, did indeed write something similar. But, in fact, he wrote the following: “China is not just another nation-state in the family of nations. China is a civilization pretending to be a state. The story of modern China could be described as the effort by both Chinese and foreigners to squeeze a civilization into the arbitrary, constraining framework of the modern state, an institutional invention that came out of the fragmentation of the West’s own civilization” (Pye, 1990, p. 58). The very title of his article—China: Erratic State, Frustrated Society—makes one doubt that being a ‘state-civilization’ is such a good thing. Moreover, now, three and a half decades later, it would be wrong to describe the Chinese political order as unstable, and there is no reliable information about the actual degree of frustration in Chinese society. The term ‘civilization-state” (precisely this way, not in reversed order; recalling Stepan’s logic, we can assume that substantively these are not the same things) was popularized by Martin Jacques, the author of the ground-breaking alarmist bestseller When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (Jacques, 2009), which was met with controversy in academic circles, including Chinese ones. Unreliable ground, undesirable analogy.

China is undoubtedly exotic and enigmatic. But it is by no means marginal. In any configuration of a multipolar world, whether desirable or undesirable, regardless of how many centers it will have (in fact, it would be very useful to at least try to estimate their number in advance, even if only roughly), China will be one of them.

It cannot be ignored, and there is no point in even hoping to crush it—it is far from being a spider or a worm. The fear is rooted not in specific inconveniences caused by China, such as its economic expansion being relatively more effective than the Western one (because it lacks the value component, i.e., does not require its partners to meet additional value-based (political, humanitarian, environmental) conditions. After all, capitalism must be capable of competing even under less-than-favorable conditions, and the West has long been quite good at turning a blind eye to the antics of “its own sons of a bitch.” The fear is rooted in China’s sheer existence that defies the very notion of political form and all its variations. But from the Western perspective, only the form—and nothing but the form—can withstand the offensive of the formless.

No, China is not destroying Western political forms by exerting direct pressure from above—it lacks resources for that, and this course of action is not characteristic of it. China is sort of seeping into them from below, eroding their foundations (causing the supporting structures to shift, sway, and crack), while at the same time reconnecting their life-support systems to itself—the “Made in China” label keeps spreading around the entire material world. However, there is a limit to how long a metaphor can work, and in China’s case that limit seems to have been reached. It has played its part by indicating that it is precisely the obscurity and indeterminacy of the danger emanating from China—in the West’s political language—that makes it ontological and existential.

Mutatis mutandis draws this feeling from the well-known Yellow Peril mythologeme of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in which, however, hostility, rejection and aggressive xenophobia were directed not only at the Chinese but also at the entire ‘yellow Mongoloid race,’ including the Japanese, Tibetans, Koreans, Vietnamese, the half-forgotten Mongols themselves, the hallucinatory Huns, etc., in general, any ‘slant-eyed’ people (see the multifaceted review by Kuo Wei Tchen and Yeats, 2014). The difference is that back then, the Yellow Peril, at least when associated specifically with China, was not linked to the Chinese political order at all: “The classical version of the ‘Yellow Peril’ concept viewed Chinese migration as a kind of natural disaster, a tsunami sweeping over Russian territory. The point of origin (the Qing Empire) was merely a sea—an incomprehensible, threatening, but by no means organized force” (Blyakher and Grigorichev, 2026, p. 133).[11]

Intriguing and convincing are the parallels drawn between Sinophobia and anti‑Semitism of that time, often depicted as interacting in a mutually cumulative way. Such descriptions even include the conspiracy theory claiming that Jews and Chinese “play the same game” (see Dyatlov, 2012; Renshaw, 2016). After the nearly simultaneous establishment of the State of Israel (1948) and the People’s Republic of China (1949), both anti‑Semitism and Sinophobia became largely focused on them. As for Israel, illustrative examples would be superfluous. As for China, in the early 2000s, many in Russia believed that every Chinese “is part of a single, organized, and externally controlled mechanism of secret takeover” and that a “conscious political process is unfolding, directed by forces hostile to Russia” (Blyakher and Grigorichev, 2026, p. 135).

The tall tales about countless hordes of Chinese, who had allegedly already flooded all Russian lands east of Lake Baikal and were just waiting for a signal from the center, are similar to Trump’s delusions about Chinese submarines purportedly cruising around Greenland and waiting for a signal from the center—the same center. Little has changed. Both Jews and Chinese, even not suspected of being Israel and China’s sleeper agents and fervently denying it, frighten the West by their omnipresence and ability to creep into all cracks of Western societies, economies, and political forms.

What’s Next?

Theoretically, there are several options for overcoming the fear of China (which, in fact, is coming from China at a superficial glance only).

Firstly, China might suddenly adopt a political form that the West would see as distinct. However, it is completely unclear what form exactly that would be, why China would do this, and under what circumstances anything like this might happen. Most importantly, this would in no way resolve the crisis and stop the weakening of the West’s political form (but certainly not China’s). In fact, this would make things even worse. Secondly, the West might suddenly improve and expand its own(!) political language, understand and accept China as it is, i.e., “stop worrying and start living.” But this would be very hard to do, and nothing suggests that. Thirdly, the West may suddenly perk up, regain faith in itself and its political forms, strengthen them, and prepare to repel the looming threat of the formless. This is possible but highly doubtful—what is lost is lost; you cannot put toothpaste back into the tube. Fourthly, the West may develop an entirely new political form, more resilient to challenges. It seems that present-day ‘techno-fascists’ (or rather, those accused of ‘techno-fascism’), such as Peter Thiel, Alexander Karp, and a few other lesser-known figures, are dreaming of something like that. However, there is no solid reason to expect them to be anything more than yet another sect of dreamers and eccentrics, of whom the West has already seen quite a few. And for whom, apart from freaks (and not even all of them), can this dystopia be attractive? Is there anything else on the menu? Fifthly, the degradation of Western political forms may become irreversible. This will not turn the West into China, of course, but it will no longer be the West as we know it, and there will be nothing left to talk about.

Under all scenarios, we will have to live with the fear of the formless (except for the last one, because it is not about life but about death). In the foreseeable future, this fear will remain a constant cause of stress for both the ruling elites and ordinary people in the West. The types of stress reaction are well known: “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn” (Walker, 2013). The choice is limited and not a pleasant one. Yet the heroes of bygone times, who made the West as we know it, were smart and agile enough not to get stuck in such reactions (any of them taken separately is a sure path to defeat), but to masterfully combine and alternate them. Reason, skill, and faith—has there ever been any hope for anything else? Besides, it is said: “Do not fear.”

For citation, please use:
Shlykov, P.V., 2026. Trump and Erdoğan: Pragmatic Partnership and a New Architecture of Türkiye-U.S. Relations. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 72–95. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-72-95

By the mid-2020s, Türkiye-U.S. relations had slid into a state of “chronic instability” (Taşpınar, 2024). The traditional model of strategic alliance within NATO, based on shared values and mutual obligations, had given way to a purely pragmatic, transactional model, based on personal agreements and selective cooperation. This led to the fragmentation of the bilateral agenda and the erosion of institutional trust.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025 increased the importance of the leaders’ personal relationship for U.S.-Türkiye relations. Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership styles appear similar in many respects, including a preference for personal diplomacy and a distrust of the traditional foreign policy bureaucracy. The Turkish authorities have even coined the concept of ‘leader diplomacy’ (lider diplomasisi) as a tool for overcoming international isolation and advancing national interests (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Iletişim Başkanlığı, 2023). This approach has produced tactical flexibility and quick agreements, but the exclusion of the foreign policy bureaucracy has made relations highly volatile (Ovalı, 2020, pp. 23-45).

The “bromance” between Erdoğan and Trump, based on their perceptions of each other as strong leaders, had a direct impact even during Trump’s first term. Trump often publicly spoke warmly of Erdoğan, kindling Ankara’s hopes that personal agreement could lead to breakthroughs like the termination of U.S. support for the Kurdish YPG in Syria and the return of Türkiye to the F-35 program (from which it was excluded after purchasing Russian S-400 air defense systems (Atlantic Council, 2025)). However, such things often ran up against consensus, laws, and policies in the U.S. Congress and military (Tan, 2025), and personal affections did not prevent harsh U.S. sanctions after Türkiye’s detention of American Pastor Andrew Brunson.

Türkiye’s status of an “indispensable but difficult” ally (Michalski, 2026) has kept Türkiye-U.S. relations in a state of ‘managed instability’. Aware of their mutual strategic dependence, the two countries pragmatically managed their often divergent interests (Ülgül, 2019). Türkiye has NATO’s second largest army, retains critical importance on NATO’s southern flank, and is an important hub for operations in the Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean, and Middle East.

Yet Ankara, capitalizing on its strategic position, seeks to establish itself as an autonomous regional center of power. Its influence has increased significantly after the latest developments in Syria and the South Caucasus. Türkiye positions itself as an independent mediator (e.g., in the Ukraine conflict) and strives to become an energy and logistics bridge between East and West.

Ankara has used its autonomy and diversified external relations (in-deepening cooperation with Russia, application for BRICS membership) to win maximum preferences from Washington (Gisclon, 2025). Türkiye is not giving up on the alliance, but using it to ensure the country’s foreign-policy and economic interests, which often diverge from those of the U.S.

To understand the volatile relations between Türkiye and the U.S. over the past decade, it is useful to combine role theory and the concept of asymmetric alliance. These highlight the crisis’s ideological and structural causes.

The extensive literature on Türkiye-U.S. relations is dominated by chronological narratives (Oğuzlu, 2011, pp. 981-998), and by structural descriptions highlighting the allies’ unequal power and deprivation of a common (Soviet) threat (Güvenç and Özel, 2020, pp. 523-544). Constructivist studies, on the contrary, are few: works applying role theory to Türkiye and the U.S. mostly analyze individual cases and leadership styles (Çuhadar et al., 2021, pp. 1-27; Özdamar, 2024, pp. 41-59), or focus on Ankara’s role identity without comparing it to the U.S.’s (Bozdaglioglu, 2003). But it is precisely role theory that helps capture the deep ideological and identity-based factors of discord.

Role theory contends that a state’s behavior is largely determined by the role that its elite believes it plays (Holsti, 1970, pp. 233-309), its ‘appropriate’ functions and responsibilities in the international system (Breuning, 2024, pp. 233-252). The Arab Spring and especially the Syrian conflict led to the U.S. and Türkiye developing fundamentally incongruent roles.

Based on Holsti’s terminology, this article examines national role concepts (elite discourse within a state about its ‘appropriate’ functions and status), actual role performance, and role prescriptions (the expectations of allies, great powers, and regional players). Incongruity between the three leads to ‘role conflict’ and ‘altercasting’—attempts to impose a desired role upon a partner (Çuhadar et al., pp. 1-27; Valockova, 2026, pp. 1-30; Malici, 2006, pp. 127-149). This framework eschews simplistic explanations that attribute turbulence in bilateral relations solely to structural asymmetry or leaders’ ‘chemistry’, and helps avoid confusing role with function or observed behavior, as is typical in empirical research.

National role concept is not merely a state’s objective position in an international structure (e.g., Türkiye’s status as ‘NATO’s southern flank’), or the sum of its foreign policy actions; it also includes the subjective meanings ascribed by the elite to its country’s activities. Role performance, in turn, is not equated with a role as such, but is viewed as one of its manifestations, along with the elites’ discourse and external prescriptions. This paper aims not to assign a particular role to Ankara or Washington based on their behavior, but to identify discrepancies between what the elites declare, what they do, and what significant ‘Others’ expect from them—discrepancies that generate conflict.

The Barack Obama administration built its foreign policy discourse around the idea of “renewing American leadership” (Obama, 2007, pp. 2-16), intended to restore the moral authority and strategic efficiency of the U.S. after its interventions in the 2000s. In practice, this turned into selective engagement: while proclaiming its readiness to lead, the U.S. simultaneously sought to minimize its direct military presence in the Middle East, delegating regional stabilization to its allies. In terms of role theory, it would be appropriate to describe this as the position of a ‘reserved leader’ or ‘leader-manager’, diverging from the original concept of ‘energetic leadership’ due to domestic fatigue from wars. This strategy vividly manifested itself in Obama’s 2013 decision not to launch strikes punishing Assad for using chemical weapons, but instead to implement a Russia-brokered compromise by which Syria would sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its stocks. This approach, which Obama called a triumph of common sense over political pressure, but his critics blasted as indecision, allowed the U.S. administration to use Syria’s Kurdish forces as the main proxy for fighting ISIS, thus making tactical successes without using its own troops on the ground.

At the same time, the Turkish elite, inspired by Ahmet Davutoğlu’s ‘strategic depth’ doctrine, began to define the country’s role as ‘regional leader’ and ‘defender of the region’s oppressed Muslim communities’. Ankara sought an active, leading role in the reconstruction of the Middle East, viewing the fall of the Assad regime as an opportunity to increase its influence and form a friendly government. Ankara’s proactive foreign policy stood in stark contrast to Washington’s cautious and restrained strategy (Shlykov, 2023, p. 142).

The role conflict between Türkiye and the U.S. was aggravated by the failure of ‘altercasting’. In Syria, Washington persistently guided Ankara to act as a disciplined ally, supporting the U.S.’s anti-ISIS strategy despite its use of YPG proxies. Ankara, in turn, expected its senior partner to militarily depose Assad. In defense procurement, Washington required Türkiye to act as a loyal NATO member, buying only NATO-compatible weapons. By purchasing Russia’s S-400, Türkiye instead sought to establish itself as a sovereign player, free to choose military-technical partners.

In each case, the sides’ incompatible roles and expectations deepened mutual misunderstanding.

The asymmetric alliance concept complements the analysis of the role dissonances between Türkiye and the U.S., highlighting the structural imbalance in their relationship. Historically, the alliance was based on the U.S.’s protection of Türkiye from the Soviet threat, in exchange for Ankara’s provision to Washington of its crucial strategic position (Morrow, 1991, pp. 904-933). However, after the end of the Cold War, the common threat weakened, revealing power-asymmetry and interest-divergence (Güvenç and Özel, 2020, pp. 523-544).

The bilateral alliance has undergone several phases: the classic ‘asymmetric model’ (1947-2000); a brief period of ‘exemplary partnership’ when Obama acclaimed Türkiye as a successful synthesis of Islam and democracy (2009-2012) (Shlykov, 2018, pp. 34-59); transactionalism and crisis (present day). Under Trump, relations have been reduced to one-off deals and ultimatums (Pastor Brunson, S-400), exposing the erosion of the alliance’s regulatory framework (Gürsoy, 2021, pp. 139-142).

The proposed synthesis requires a preliminary reconstruction of the roles that the parties applied to themselves and each other at different stages of interaction. For the U.S., the role concepts in the 2000s-2020s changed from a ‘global liberal leader’ (with its characteristic willingness to intervene and democratize) to a ‘reserved leader’ embodied by the Obama administration, which oscillated between ‘renewed leadership’ rhetoric and a pragmatic desire to shift the burden of regional stabilization onto allies. This eventually gave way to Trump’s blatant role of a dealer in ‘transactional nationalism’, which reduces allied commitments to one-off deals.

Türkiye’s own role conception has evolved from that of a loyal ally and a bridge between the West and Islam (early 2000s) to a much more ambitious self-identity. The doctrine of ‘strategic depth’ formalized Ankara’s claim to the status of a ‘regional leader’ and ‘defender of the oppressed’, which, along with the ideological framework of neo-Ottomanism and pan-Turkism, contributed to the adoption of the concept of a ‘strategically autonomous central power’ with its own civilizational mission.

This evolution was marked not only by rhetoric, but also by tangible steps such as the diversification of arms purchases, independent military interventions, and the institutionalization of ‘leader diplomacy’.

The crises of recent years—from the Syrian conflict and U.S. support for the YPG, to Türkiye’s acquisition of the S-400 and exclusion from the F-35 program—are symptoms, not causes, of the discord. The root causes lie in a role conflict and the asymmetry of the alliance that has lost its consolidating common threat (Özdamar, 2024, pp. 56-57). The foreign policy behavior of the two countries is largely a derivative of their elites’ new national role concepts being shaped by the changing balance of power and the regional agenda.

Türkiye-U.S. Relations in the New Millennium

The traditional foundation of Türkiye-U.S. relations, laid during the Cold War, is their military-political alliance and relatively consistent distribution of roles. The U.S. acted as a ‘leader of the free world’ guaranteeing the security of the entire Western camp, while Türkiye accepted and generally shared the role of a ‘loyal ally on NATO’s southern flank’, whose key function was to contain the USSR (Atmaca, 2014, pp. 19-34; Oğuzlu, 2025, pp. 736-752).

However, in the early 2000s, this model began to falter. In 2003, Türkiye refused to provide its territory for the invasion of Iraq, violating Washington’s role prescription (Çelikaslan, 2021, pp. 670-678) and exposing the countries’ diverging interests in the post-bipolar world.

Simultaneously, Türkiye’s foreign policy paradigm was undergoing a conceptual transformation. When Ahmet Davutoğlu took office as foreign minister in 2009, his concept of ‘strategic depth’ was formalized as a doctrine. Neo-Ottomanism—responsibility for the former Ottoman territories, with which a historical and civilizational legacy is shared (Mehdiev, 2016, pp. 32-39; Druzhilovskii and Avatkov, 2013, pp. 73-88)—and pan-Turkism became increasingly apparent in Ankara’s foreign policy discourse. Türkiye’s role was transforming from a ‘bridge’ between East and West, and junior partner in the global system, into an active independent ‘central power’ and ‘regional leader’ with its own civilizational mission and multi-vector foreign policy (Shlykov, 2023, pp. 140-141). Initially, this shift did not antagonize the U.S.: President Barack Obama’s 2009 visit to Ankara and rhetoric of ‘exemplary partnership’ (The White House, 2009) reflected Washington’s hopes that Türkiye’s combination of Islamic identity, democracy, and market economy could make it a ‘bridge’ and a positive example for its neighbors (Shlykov, 2018, pp. 34-59). Nevertheless, the unconditional alliance, based on a common Cold War threat, was over.

The Arab Spring and especially the Syrian Civil War widened the Washington-Ankara divide. The U.S., ‘leading from behind,’ sought to combat ISIS and avoid a large-scale military intervention (Shlykov, 2019a, pp. 184-229). Washington thus allied with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up mainly of YPG (Gürçay, 2019), regarded by Türkiye as the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Türkiye, in contrast, sought to overthrow Assad, prevent the strengthening of Kurdish autonomous entities near its borders, and support Sunni rebel groups (Eksi & Erol, 2018, pp. 15-45). The year 2014 became the tipping point, following the start of the U.S.’s open military cooperation with the YPG, which Ankara considered a direct threat and a betrayal of allied obligations. Mutual trust had been undermined earlier—by the Obama administration’s abandonment of its own ‘red lines’ after the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack, which Ankara viewed as weakness and indecision (Anadolu Ajansı, 2017).

The domestic political situation in Türkiye also added to rising tensions. Official Ankara blamed Fethullah Gülen’s movement for a coup attempt in July 2016, and persistently demanded his extradition from the U.S.. Washington’s refusal, and support for Kurdish forces, sparked strong anti-American sentiment in Turkish society and elites.

Another factor contributing to the crisis was the arrest of American pastor Andrew Brunson on charges of espionage, links to the Gülenist movement, and participation in plotting the failed 2016 coup (Anadolu Ajansı, 2018). The U.S. viewed this as hostage-taking for the purpose of political bargaining. Despite Washington’s diplomatic demarches, the Turkish authorities were in no hurry to release him. In August 2018, Trump admitted the failure of diplomatic efforts, imposed tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum to 50% and 20%, respectively, and threatened to “destroy” the Turkish economy if the U.S. demands were not met. Within a day, the Turkish lira lost 20% of its value (The Financial Times, 2018), and Ankara was forced to give in. On 12 October 2018, the Izmir High Criminal Court released Brunson. Although the conflict was formally resolved, it had profound and long-lasting consequences. Türkiye faced severe economic problems. Inflation, which had already been quite high, exceeded 20% by the end of 2018, and continued to rise in subsequent years, reaching its peak in the fall of 2022: over 85.5% per official data (TÜİK, 2022), and over 185% per independent expert estimates (DİKEN, 2022). The lira’s collapse triggered a recession, devalued citizens’ savings, and ushered in economic instability that has persisted throughout the 2020s.

But the most significant transformations were geopolitical. Despite Washington’s warnings and threats of sanctions, Ankara held to its decision to buy the S-400, the first batch of which was delivered in July 2019, and thus proved willing to bear significant material and strategic costs for the sake of independence in security matters (Shlykov, 2023, pp. 134-158). Washington viewed this as a threat to NATO’s security, expelling Türkiye from the F-35 program and imposing CAATSA sanctions against it in 2020. This was the prologue to Türkiye’s shift towards an increasingly multi-vector policy featuring rapprochement with Russia and the pursuit of strategic autonomy. It also exposed accumulated grievances and discordant priorities.

Sanctioning a NATO ally achieved its immediate goal but had a strategic cost, eroding the bilateral alliance and pushing Türkiye towards alternative partners, thus radically changing the balance of power in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean.

The fragility and volatility of Türkiye-U.S. relations were also vividly highlighted by Türkiye’s autumn 2019 Operation Peace Spring in northern Syria, aimed at creating a “safe zone” and neutralizing the YPG threat (Akturk, 2020). This was made possible by Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria’s border areas, made after a 6 October conversation with Erdoğan (T24, 2019). The American troops deployed in the region together with the Syrian Kurdish forces as part of the fight against ISIS actually served as a deterrent. Ankara interpreted their withdrawal as the removal of a key obstacle to its planned military operation. For the Turkish leadership the designation of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (in their eyes synonymous with YPG) as a terrorist organization by both the U.S. and the EU created specific role expectations of the U.S. (Aktürk, 2020). However, in the U.S., this was criticized as a strategic mistake and a moral betrayal: the YPG had been the Pentagon’s main ally on the ground in the lengthy, successful campaign against ISIS. Under criticism from influential Congressmen of both parties, diplomats, military experts, and key European allies, the Trump administration named the Turkish operation a “bad idea” that Washington “does not support” (AP News, 2019). On 14 October 2019, Trump imposed “targeted sanctions” (USDT, 2019a) against Türkiye’s Ministry of National Defense and Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, and against Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, and Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez. Trump also (again) raised tariffs on Turkish steel to 50%, threatening to “swiftly destroy” Türkiye’s economy if it continued its fighting in Syria (Hürriyet, 2019b).

The sanctions proved to be short-lived. On 17 October 2019, a U.S. delegation, led by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, secured Turkish agreement to a 120-hour pause in hostilities, allowing Kurdish forces to withdraw from a 30-km strip along the Turkish-Syrian border (TRT Haber, 2019). Once Ankara confirmed a “permanent ceasefire,” the 2019 sanctions were lifted almost instantly. Speaking at the White House on 23 October 2019, Donald Trump lauded the Turks for their efforts and “instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed” on Türkiye (Hürriyet, 2019a). On the same day, the U.S. Treasury officially removed the agencies and ministers from the sanctions list (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2019b). Such a rapid removal of sanctions, accompanied by Trump’s public thanks to Erdoğan and even SDF Commander Mazloum Kobani highlighted the pragmatic underlying motives for the American actions: the strategic goal was not to punish Türkiye but to achieve a quick, media-acceptable settlement that would allow the U.S. administration to proclaim its mission to “end the endless wars” successful.

Per role theory, such dynamics was not just a manifestation of pragmatism but a natural result of interaction between two incompatible national role concepts. The Trump administration, acting within the framework of ‘transactional nationalism’, was not interested in altercasting Türkiye and returning it to the role of ‘disciplined ally.’ Rather, Washington permitted a one-off exchange: regional autonomy for Türkiye in exchange for Trump’s proclaiming a quick victory and putting an “end to the endless wars.” This confirmed the bilateral relationship’s normative erosion, and revealed that when the roles of ‘transactional nationalism’ and ‘autonomous central power’ conceptually collide, interaction degenerates into a series of ad hoc agreements that defer the crisis but do not resolve the fundamental role conflict.

All this led Ankara to realize, by the end of the 2010s, that its choice of strategic autonomy was correct. This manifested itself not only in rapprochement with Russia (S-400, cooperation within the Astana format on Syria), but also in independent military and diplomatic interventions in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh (Shlykov, 2023, pp. 134-158). The good personal relationship between Erdoğan and Trump could not overcome structural contradictions. Their relationship was clearly transactional and inconsistent: short-term detente (as in Syria in 2019) was followed by new sanctions and mutual recriminations.

Biden’s administration marked a new period of disaffection. Washington returned to value-oriented rhetoric, criticizing democratic regression and human rights violations in Türkiye. The U.S. officially recognized the Armenian Genocide and barred Ankara from the Summit for Democracy (Kirişçi, 2021). Bilateral relations hit the lowest point in decades, with disagreements over Syria and the S-400 remaining unresolved.

Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine provided a new context for the deterioration of Türkiye-U.S. relations. Despite its NATO membership, Türkiye assumed a position of non-binary balancing: it rendered military assistance to Kiev (supplying Bayraktar combat drones), mediated a grain deal and POW exchanges, but refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow, maintaining important economic ties with Russia. The role of direct intermediary increased Türkiye’s strategic importance to the West’s eyes and paved the way for selective pragmatic cooperation.

In the early 2020s, Türkiye pursued rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, indirectly aligning itself with U.S. interests in regional stability (İnat & Duran, 2023, pp. 79-101). And it pragmatically used Sweden’s application for NATO membership to force the U.S. Congress to approve the sale of modernized F-16s.

The evolution of Türkiye-U.S. relations over the past two decades has been determined by a set of interconnected factors: fundamentally changed role concepts, a new balance of power in the Middle East, authoritarian trends in Türkiye, and the shifting alignment of non-regional actors. The main cause of disagreements was the changing perception of the two countries’ elites about the role of their countries in the international system.

Türkiye evolved from a ‘loyal ally’ within the transatlantic system to a ‘strategically autonomous regional power’ pursuing an independent policy and seeking a leadership position in its neighborhood. The U.S. moved towards ‘selective engagement’ after the interventions of the 2000s, seeking to minimize direct military commitments in the Middle East and refocus on strategic rivalry with China.

The weakening of direct American influence in the Middle East after 2011 created a vacuum into which regional powers, including Türkiye, eagerly plunged. Using its military and diplomacy, Ankara became a key player in Syria, Libya, and the South Caucasus. This new position clashed with Washington’s traditional model of relations, in which Türkiye was subordinate.

Türkiye’s post-2016 authoritarian drift provoked systemic criticism by the American establishment, especially Congress, which made bilateral relations hostage to the domestic human rights agenda (Cumhuriyet, 2021). On the other hand, growing polarization in the U.S. led to inconsistent foreign policy: the Trump and Biden administrations often steered opposite courses. Türkiye thus turned towards non-Western partners. Russia became Ankara’s alternative partner in security and energy, and co-guarantor in the Syrian settlement (The “Asian Turn”, 2024). Türkiye began to view China as an important source of investment and a potential partner in multilateral formats (Koldunova et al., 2023), raising concern in Washington (Süsler, 2025, pp. 175-196; Öğütçü, 2025). The European Union, despite Türkiye’s frozen accession process, continued to be its key economic partner (Bashirov, 2020, pp. 165-184), creating a complex system of checks and balances in Turkish foreign policy.

Trump’s Second Term

Trump’s 2024 reelection led to a radical revision of Türkiye-U.S. relations. The return of Trump’s ‘America First’ pragmatism coincided with fundamental changes in the Middle East, primarily the fall of Assad. This combination allowed Ankara and Washington to restart their dialogue, moving from confrontation on many key issues to a pragmatic, if complex, partnership. In 2025-2026, their relations transformed along four main vectors: Syria, defense cooperation, Türkiye’s strategic mediation in regional conflicts, and economic ties.

The key factor that determined the new dynamics was the completely new situation in Syria after the fall of the Assad regime at the end of 2024. Türkiye had established itself as the dominant power, exercising control over key territories through loyal Syrian armed groups (Strategic Comments, 2025). The Trump administration, seeking to further reduce its direct involvement in the region, by mid-2025, had almost completely ended its support for the SDF, and instead begun mediating the SDF’s integration into the Turkish-influenced Syrian state structures (Lister, 2026), along with the militant prisons that had been under SDF control (FDD, 2026).  In northern Syria, the Turkish army and Ankara-influenced local administrations were left in charge of security and the fight against ISIS. The focus of U.S.-Türkiye cooperation shifted to humanitarian aid, return of refugees, and post-war reconstruction, with Türkiye playing a leading role. Washington de facto recognized Ankara’s sphere of influence in exchange for Ankara taking full responsible for stabilizing.

Türkiye showed flexibility on the most difficult and symbolic issue—the S-400s. Ankara jumped at the American idea that the S-400 systems were “inoperable.” The main option, discussed since September 2024, was the systems’ non-operational storage under joint control, presumably at the Incirlik airbase (Gazete Duvar, 2024). (In December 2025, Erdoğan even offered Putin the S-400s’ return in exchange for compensation (Bloomberg, 2025b).) Washington showed readiness to make a deal: U.S. envoy Tom Barrack said that “Trump and Erdogan’s close relationship has led to the most fruitful conversations on this topic in nearly a decade” (Bloomberg, 2025a). Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that Trump had already ordered the lifting of the CAATSA sanctions (Haberturk, 2025). And yet, in the summer of 2026, the U.S. Congress cast this gambit into doubt, insisting on the S-400s’ total removal from Turkish territory. Ankara then began seeking to resell the S-400s to a third party: either the UAE or Qatar, as obliquely confirmed by Russian and U.S. officials (Kommersant, 2026). But Moscow’s ability to veto any resale, and the risk of secondary sanctions for any third-party buyer, have seemingly derailed this option, too. Now Türkiye has hired a U.S. consulting firm for $2.4 million to lobby for its readmission to the F-35 program (Sözcü, 2026).        

Trump’s second term has been marked by even greater U.S. recognition of Türkiye’s unique mediating role, transforming it from a problematic ally into an indispensable partner.Trump publicly commended Erdoğan as one of the few leaders capable of constructive dialogue with both Moscow and Kiev (Yeni Şafak, 2025). Türkiye brokered a new round of direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul in 2025, leading to a large POW exchange and lay the groundwork for ceasefire discussions. Türkiye proposed an ‘Istanbul 2.0’ format, coordinated with Washington (Özdemir, 2024).

Even more revealing was the invitation of Türkiye to join Trump’s Board of Peace (Anadolu Ajansı, 2026), which has a UN mandate to manage Gaza after the war. Türkiye joined as a founding member with a seat on the Executive Board, and views the BoP as a chance to end the humanitarian catastrophe and strengthen its own influence (Yeni Şafak, 2026).

This symbolized Washington’s willingness to include Türkiye among the key architects of the Middle East’s new order, despite Ankara’s historically strained relations with Israel.

Economic issues also underlie the new stage of Türkiye-U.S. relations. At their meetings in 2025, Trump and Erdoğan repeated an ambitious goal of bringing bilateral trade to $100 billion (Anadolu Ajansı, 2025b). Its actual volume reached $35 billion in 2024 and continues to grow. Turkish Trade Minister Ömer Bolat, in December 2025, noted that the two countries are working on a roadmap to achieve the $100 billion goal, focusing on energy and defense (Anadolu Ajansı, 2025a). Türkiye’s accession to the Minerals Security Partnership (aimed at diversifying critical mineral supplies away from China) further integrates Ankara into Western economic alliances. And the U.S.’s increased LNG exports to Türkiye have improved the latter’s energy security by diversifying its supplies and suppliers (Dost, 2025).

Yet enhanced cooperation in some areas has not ended structural competition in all others, producing ‘competitive cooperation’. In post-Assad Syria, despite Washington’s recognition of Ankara’s leading role, the two sides continue indirect struggle over the configuration of new institutions. Türkiye seeks to ensure the dominance of loyal forces, while the U.S. is trying to retain some of its influence through the Arab tribes and NGOs that formerly comprised the SDF, pushing for the transition to be more inclusive.

The U.S. remains skeptical of Türkiye’s strategic autonomy vis-à-vis non-Western countries. Although Ankara does not view BRICS+ or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as an alternative to the U.S., Washington views Turkish cooperation with such organizations through the lens of its global rivalry with China and Russia. Türkiye’s application to become a BRICS+ Partner, its conduct of settlements in national currencies, and its expansion of energy cooperation with Moscow (including in its role as a gas hub) have repeatedly raised concern in the U.S. Congress and various agencies, notwithstanding Trump’s personal attitude.

A latent conflict has also emerged over Türkiye’s position in parallel imports and financial transactions that circumvent U.S. sanctions against Russia. The U.S. Treasury’s institutional logic has sometimes clashed with Trump’s pragmatism and personal promises. This has not upset the overall rapprochement, but has limited it to a situational partnership.

In general, Trump’s second term has seen a reset of Türkiye-U.S. relations, driven by Trump’s pragmatism and Türkiye’s increased regional weight. Their ties have evolved from a transactional relationship and crisis management to more complex cooperation. Seeking to minimize its own obligations and costs, Washington delegated key powers to Ankara to stabilize the situation in Syria, and recognized Türkiye’s indispensable role as a mediator in conflict resolution. Türkiye demonstrated flexibility in solving the S-400 problem and joined U.S. economic initiatives. This pragmatic personal partnership has allowed the two countries to resolve numerous institutional and ideological contradictions, leading to a more sustainable dialogue between the two NATO members.

*  *  *

The analysis of Türkiye-U.S. relations during Donald Trump’s presidency permits drawing a number of conclusions that are important both for understanding the current state of relations between Ankara and Washington, and for conceptualizing the transformation of allied ties in a polycentric world.

The transformation of Türkiye‑U.S. relations over the past decade can be described as a change in the nature of interaction within an increasingly fragmented asymmetric alliance. A key factor in this transformation was the change in the parties’ role prescriptions and corresponding expectations regarding the ally’s permissible behavior. Türkiye moved away from a predominantly instrumental role in the U.S.‑centric security system and consistently asserted itself as an autonomous regional actor capable of utilizing its position within the alliance to pursue its own interests. The U.S., while continuing to view Türkiye as a strategically important partner, demanded allied solidarity from Ankara and urged it to limit its autonomous behavior whenever it ran counter to American strategic objectives.

During Trump’s first and second terms, the sets of mechanisms used by Washington in relations with Türkiye differed: in 2017–2021, personal partnership went along with U.S. Congress’s attempts to block agreements and the imposition of sanctions on Ankara, whereas after 2025, Washington partially recognized Türkiye’s regional autonomy and the need to redistribute responsibilities, primarily on the Syrian and mediation tracks.

Trump’s first term demonstrated the dual nature of personal partnership: it simultaneously enhances the parties’ ability to reach short‑term agreements and increases the dependence of bilateral relations on the political will of the leaders. During Trump’s second term, Türkiye’s increased regional autonomy and role in regional processes forced Washington to take Ankara’s position into account when determining its policy in the Middle East and in other regions. However, there was no complete alignment of the two countries’ strategic objectives.

By the mid‑2020s, the U.S.-Türkiye interaction has developed into a competitive cooperation, where structural and role‑based contradictions combine with expanded situational cooperation. Its key features are:

• Increased role of direct agreements between the top leaders in resolving bilateral disputes, with institutional mechanisms remaining important. This ensures tactical flexibility but makes relations more volatile.
• The U.S.’s partial and situational recognition of Türkiye’s increased regional autonomy and its significance in addressing regional security issues and in mediation, including in Syria, Ukraine, and the post‑conflict settlement in Gaza;
• The parties’ preparedness to seek situational compromise on contentious issues on the bilateral agenda and reduce the role of rigid ideological and institutional constraints in order to achieve a practical result;
• Managing the persisting role conflict in new ways. This helps keep the alliance afloat, but does not eliminate the fundamental contradictions.

The current phase of competitive cooperation is characterized by disagreements over regional security, relations with Russia, the U.S.’s role in Middle Eastern processes, and the international order. Partnership on specific issues coexists with competition for influence, diverging role expectations, and each country’s desire to retain the ability to independently chart its foreign policy course.

Current contradictions can be described as managed instability, in which personal partnership serves as one of the main mechanisms for solutions. Direct contacts between Trump and Erdoğan expedited political decisions, reduced the severity of certain crises, and reached situational compromises, notwithstanding significant differences in the positions of the states’ institutions. But personal partnership could not replace the institutional mechanisms of allied interaction, and thus should be viewed only as a compensatory mechanism that helps to temporarily overcome the consequences of institutional disfunction, but does not eliminate its structural causes.

Moreover, agreements reached between the leaders remain dependent on a broader institutional and political context. Syria, sanctions pressure, Türkiye’s purchase of Russian S‑400 systems, and the ensuing restrictions on military‑technical cooperation showed that personal partnership can ease a conflict but does not eliminate differences in role prescriptions and interests.

While participating in Euro‑Atlantic institutions, Türkiye at the same time expands room for foreign policy maneuvering, viewing relations with the U.S as an important, but not the only, direction of its foreign policy. This policy does not fundamentally change the asymmetric nature of bilateral relations; rather, it reveals the adaptation of interaction to the changed roles, capabilities, and expectations of the parties.

Viewing relations solely through the lens of material asymmetry or mismatching interests is insufficient. The asymmetry of opportunities imposes structural constraints on interaction; as a result, political behavior depends on the roles that the parties prescribe to themselves and to each other. As Türkiye’s role prescriptions changed, its autonomy increased, while the American expectations of its ally’s behavior continued to be guided by the previous hierarchical logic.

Personal partnership, situational agreements, and pragmatic cooperation enable the parties to maintain interaction despite remaining contradictions, but they do not make them more stable or predictable. The further evolution of Türkiye‑U.S. relations will depend on Washington and Ankara’s ability to reconcile their changed role prescriptions with their alliance’s institutional mechanisms and to consolidate political agreements.

Further research may show whether the experience of Türkiye-U.S. relations can be used for studying the transformation of other asymmetric alliances.

For citation, please use:
Frolov, A.L., 2026. Russian Arms Exports Before and After the Special Military Operation. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 120–132. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-120-132

On 4 November and 1 December 2025, Rosoboronexport and the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS) marked their 25-year anniversaries, offering a good opportunity to assess Russian arms exports’ past, present, and post-SMO future.

The Overall Situation

The SMO has strengthened many of the external and internal factors influencing Russian arms exports. Sanctions pressure on Russian exports began well before 24 February 2022. During the 1990s and 2000s, U.S. sanctions were primarily aimed at preventing the export of Russian military technologies to countries seen as threating U.S. interests. After 2014, European countries joined these restrictive measures, which led to the loss of the small European market that remained as a legacy of the USSR, largely as a means for Russia to repay Soviet debts to former Warsaw Pact allies. By 2022, Russian supplies to Europe were reduced to sporadic, targeted cooperation with companies repairing Soviet-era military equipment under license.

Despite Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s ban on military and dual-use exports to Russia, some continued, albeit at much lower levels. Furthermore, despite France’s high-profile refusal to transfer two already-built Mistral-class universal landing ships (the Vladivostok and the Sevastopol), it continued to supply military equipment to Russia, worth about €152 million in 2015-2019 (Rapport, 2025). At the end of 2014, Greece signed a contract with Russia for the purchase of spare parts for the Tor-M1 and Osa-AKM air defense systems, acquired in the 1990s from Russia and in the 2000s from Germany (RIA Novosti, 2014). However, as early as 2023, the Greeks announced plans to terminate the contract (TASS, 2023a).

Yet Russian export’s main problem was not the decline in its relationship with Europe—that was in any case doomed as Soviet equipment aged and the Soviet debt was paid off. Rather, Russian export was seriously challenged by Trump’s August 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

The law targeted Russia with sanctions, including entry bans, property and asset freezes, restrictions on “special crude oil development projects,” and restrictions on doing business with companies on the sectoral sanctions list. Of relevance here, CAATSA authorizes the President to impose sanctions on entities (in the U.S. or anywhere else) conducting “significant” transactions with the Russian defense sector. This immediately affected existing contracts (e.g., S-400 air defense systems to Türkiye) and planned ones (e.g., S-400 systems to India or Su-35 fighter jets to Indonesia).

Payments were made difficult, forcing a transition to payments in national currencies that was completed in late 2021. As Rosoboronexport head Alexander Mikheyev noted at the time, “traditionally, we denominate all transactions in dollars for ease of calculation. In actual operations, Rosoboronexport has moved almost 100% away from settlements in U.S. dollars” (Kommersant, 2021). He cited deals with India, settled in rubles and rupees. “Furthermore, we are actively making use of offset agreements today. This is a normal practice now, a global market trend,” he added (Ibid).

Thus, although CAATSA created obstacles for Russian exports, it provided time to prepare for the unprecedented sanctions that followed the start of the SMO.

New difficulties emerged immediately after the start of the SMO. In February 2025, Rosoboronexport head Alexander Mikheev acknowledged that several unnamed customers had been forced to “make a pause” (Vesti, 2025).

The SMO also affected internal factors. In the 1990s, exports significantly exceeded state defense orders, effectively keeping the defense industry afloat. This began to change with the 2011-2020 State Armament Program, although exports continued to support the defense industry’s modernization in this period. And 2022 saw a sharp increase in government procurement.

In the summer of 2022, Deputy PM Yuri Borisov stated that 74% of defense output was planned for domestic needs, with only 26% for export (TASS, 2022). Statistics on state defense procurement are no longer public, but official statements indicate that it is growing. On 19 December 2023, President Putin stated that production of armored vehicles, other vehicles, basic weapons, and critically important weapons had multiplied in 2023 by factors of 3, 4.5, 2.7, and 7 (Natsionalnaya oborona, 2024).

This growth was achieved due to both production optimization and a reduction in exports: in 2023, arms exports amounted to only $6 billion, compared to $14-15 billion typical of the late 2010s (1TV, 2024).

Exports were also rendered more opaque. This trend began in the late 2010s, but since 2022, virtually all information on new contracts and deliveries (including absolute figures) has been classified. Individual transfers become known thanks to the information released by foreign partners. And this, too, is increasingly scarce, as countries importing Russian weapons and military equipment are keen to avoid EU and especially U.S. sanctions. Some key foreign customers have tightened their security. Publications have become scarce, making assessment of current Russian arms exports extremely difficult for independent experts.

Institutional and Personnel Changes

However, Russia’s arms export system has not fundamentally changed in 2022-2026. CSTO members can still buy directly (not through Rosoboronexport) and at domestic prices, while all other countries must turn to Rosoboronexport for everything other than spare parts for already delivered equipment. There has been no return to the multi-exporter system of the 1990s. Rosoboronexport’s role as an intermediary has only strengthened as the Ministry of Defense reduces its supplies to Syria, certain African countries, and Central Asia (where some countries received equipment for free).

The most significant development was the issuance of new regulations, on 11 May 2024, transferring the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation from the MoD to the Presidential Administration. (Notably, Sergei Shoigu resigned as Minister of Defense the following day.) Yet this had no apparent impact on the Service’s operations, or the career of its director, Dmitry Shugayev, who remains at the helm, having replaced Alexander Fomin in 2017. (Fomin himself was Deputy Defense Minister from then until mid-October 2025 (Vedomosti, 2025), overseeing issues of military-technical cooperation.)

The Value of Orders, Contracts, and Deliveries

One of the only things that remains publicly, albeit irregularly, available is the order book of Rosoboronexport and Russia in total (including service contracts and supplies to CSTO members). New contracts are also summarized sporadically, often for a six-month period.

As of mid-2024, Russia’s order book amounted to $60 billion (of which Rosoboronexport accounted for $55 billion). As this was stated to be a 10% increase over 2022, the figure for 2022 would have been $54 billion. By mid-February 2025, Rosoboronexport had signed additional contracts worth $4.5 billion with 15 countries, and this figure increased to $7 billion by May. For comparison, in 2023 Rosoboronexport signed contracts worth $12 billion, below the previous decade’s annual average of $13-14 billion.

Less is known about deliveries. Rosoboronexport’s deliveries equaled $5.4 billion in the first half of 2022, and were expected to reach $11 billion by the end of the year, but probably did not do so. In 2026, after a rather long period of official silence, President Putin announced that 2025 had seen the delivery of arms sold for $15 billion (Kremlin.ru, 2026) (and likely worth even more).

a https://www.vedomosti.ru/business/news/2024/08/12/1055189-portfel-eksportnih-zakazov

b https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6a15611f9a79475d3d15e2a7

c https://www.interfax.ru/russia/856687

d https://www.interfax.ru/business/944500

e https://tass.ru/ekonomika/22794221

f https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/26302697

g https://www.interfax.ru/business/944500

h https://www.interfax.ru/russia/1071438

i https://www.interfax.ru/russia/856687

j https://www.interfax.ru/russia/994478

k https://www.alta.ru/external_news/127469/

Thus, the order book has been growing steadily, potentially due to both the signing of new contracts and the delayed fulfilment of earlier ones. The order book’s rapid growth in 2025-2026, combined with deliveries in 2025 worth at least $15 billion, indicate new contracts worth $25 billion in the last eighteen months—a near-record for Russia.

Additional information is available on miscellaneous aspects. As of November 2023, aircraft sales accounted for just over $22 billion, slightly less than half of Rosoboronexport’s total order book, including combat helicopters at approximately $5 billion (TASS, 2024). In 2023, 30% of deliveries went to Africa, with which $5.2 billion in new contracts were signed (Interfax, 2023). Pending orders from India reached $10 billion in February 2023 (TASS, 2023b).

Russia and Its Competitors

The above figures allow comparison of Russia’s arms exports with those of its competitors. The world’s traditional leading exporters are the U.S., Russia, France, Germany, and China. (South Korea and Türkiye have recently joined them, but are excluded from this analysis as their sudden growth is likely situational and will take time to consolidate.)

The U.S. is essentially unrivaled in the global arms market. In the 2024-2025 fiscal year, it signed a record $331.2 billion in sales, directly and through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program—a 3.9% increase over the 2023-2024 fiscal year (US DoS, 2026).

There has been no official report on French arms exports for 2025, but 2024 saw new contracts at €21.6 billion and deliveries at €8.2 billion (Rapport, 2025). In 2025, new contracts decreased slightly, with Defense Minister Catherine Vautrin estimating them at around €20 billion (20minutes, 2026).

According to official British data, in 2025, the British defense industry signed the largest volume of new contracts in almost 40 years: £20 billion, half from a contract with Norway for five Type 26 frigates (Gov.UK, 2025).

China does not release official export data, but SIPRI (2026) estimates Chinese exports in fifth place (SIPRI, 2026).

Thus, Russia is in fourth place  for new contracts in 2025, but second in deliveries, notwithstanding all the difficulties of recent years.

The Content of Exports

Even less is known about what is actually being exported. Open sources report:

• the transfer of two Project 11356 frigates to India (Bmpd, 2025a);
• the beginning of deliveries of Yak-130 training fighters to Iran (Irinin, 2025), and possibly of Su-35 fighters (Kommersant, 2025a) and Mi-28NE attack helicopters (LiveJournal, 2026), too;
• the beginning of deliveries of Yak-130 training fighters and Su-57E fighters to Algeria (Topwar, 2025; Valagin, 2026);
• continuing deliveries of Su-30SM/SM2 fighters (Bmpd, 2025b) and Mi-35M attack helicopters (TASS, 2025) to Belarus;
• completed deliveries of Su-30SME fighters to Myanmar (Armiya.az, 2025).

In 2022, Rosoboronexport unveiled plans to export approximately 200 helicopters. New electronic warfare and air defense systems, as well as ground forces equipment, have also turned up in foreign militaries. For example, Saudi Arabia received 39 Pantsir-S1M anti-air missile systems worth $2.3 billion under a 2021 contract (Bmpd, 2025c), and Ethiopia acquired Linza armored ambulances (Tekhnosfera Rossiya, 2026).

Information on new contracts derives mainly from publications based on leaked corporate documents of uncertain authenticity. If these documents are to be believed, a large package of contracts was concluded for the supply of aircraft to Algeria (14 Su-34E and 12 Su-57E), Iran (48 Su-35), and Ethiopia (six Su-35) (InoSMI, 2025).  A contract was signed with China for 20 Il-78MK-90A tanker aircraft (Global Defense News, 2025), and with India for 12 additional Su-30MKI fighters (Overclockers.ru, 2023). And after the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in 2026, Iran ordered 21 Mi-171 helicopters (Vedomosti, 2026).

In 2025, media reported on India’s negotiations with Russia on the purchase and localized production of S-400 missiles worth $1.2 billion (Kommersant, 2025c). And in 2026, Vietnam ordered BrahMos missiles from India; though the missiles are manufactured in India, they are Russian-engineered, and most of their components are supplied to India by Russia (Interfax, 2026).

Thus, even relying exclusively on public information, it is clear that the sharp increase in domestic demand has not undermined Russia’s exports, and it has started selling new-generation equipment that was not available to foreign customers before 2022.

Paradigm Shift

By the early 2000s, Russia had established a cautious approach to arms exports, in which it carefully avoided the sharp edges of global politics, complied with disadvantageous international regimes like the Missile Technology Control Regime, and voluntarily refrained from exporting platforms that might spark undesirable concern in the West or elsewhere. For instance, sales of S-300PMU-1 air defense systems to Iran, and of Iskander-E tactical missiles and MiG-31E fighters to Syria, were canceled, as they might have provoked a negative reaction from Israel.

Exports were also limited by domestic production capacity and by the exclusion of innovative products from sale. For instance, Russia was long absent, for various reasons, from the drone market.

Since 2022, the situation has changed significantly. On the one hand, arms exporters, especially in the early years of the SMO, had to compete with state procurement and grapple with ever-growing sanctions. On the other hand, military cooperation with Iran and North Korea has sharply increased, with the former’s imports from Russia growing qualitatively and quantitatively, apparently due to the use of various payment arrangements. Additionally, Russia has become a world leader in aerial, ground, and sea-based drones. Some of these, like the Lancet loitering munition, have received export certification and are already being marketed globally.

The Missile Technology Control Regime may continue to seriously deteriorate in the future, especially given its de facto violation by Western countries’ transfer of equipment and technologies to Ukraine.

Future Prospects

The future of Russian arms exports hinges on the SMO’s course and conclusion. Clearly, the end of hostilities will lead to a reduction in state defense procurement, at least in certain sectors. This will return the defense industry to the position it held in the 1990s, when it was forced to drastically reduce capacity utilization relative to the Cold War. Exports will again become the main source of profit, especially given their typically larger profit margins. Conveniently, many delayed export orders are available to pick up capacity to be freed by reduced MoD orders.

Rosoboronexport’s unique experience in operating under severe sanctions will also be beneficial. If Western publications are to be believed, in 2025 more Russian aircraft were ordered than in any previous year—including (more expensive) next-generation aircraft. Significantly, China has returned as a major customer.

Russia’s leadership is counting on foreign customers noticing the effectiveness with which virtually all of Russia’s modern weapons are being used in the SMO. In March 2025, Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of the Security Council, stated: “After the completion of the Special Military Operation, believe me, there will be many queuing up for our weapons. They have proven reliable in combat and have been perfected.” Foreign buyers will be “interested in air defense systems, attack drones, and modernized armored vehicles, such as the S-400, S-500, and Pantsir” (Kommersant, 2025b).

Yet regaining ground in the global arms market will be difficult, given the heavy presence of traditional Russian competitors, primarily France, and the emergence of new ones like South Korea and Türkiye. China, too, will certainly increase its role in sectors traditionally filled by Russia, raising the bar which Rosobonexport and defense manufacturers will have to cross.

Nevertheless, the trends of 2022-2025 and the stability of Russia’s order book suggest that Russian exports after the SMO may reach a comfortable $13-15 billion annually, and $20 billion in the medium term. Russian exports will be supported by the obsolescence of old Soviet and NATO arms, by rising prices for Western weapons, by Ukraine’s exit from the group of significant military-industrial powers, by increased military budgets (including among Russia’s traditional partners), and especially by Russia’s unique offerings of drones, protective gear, medical equipment, electronic warfare and other systems.

For citation, please use:
Lukyanov, F.A., 2026. An Exception, Not the Rule. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 5–8. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-5-8

Thirty-five years ago, in autumn 1991, the Soviet Union was living out its final months. Its all-consuming crisis was obvious. An attempted coup in Auguast had accelerated its downward spiral. Yet its disappearance from the map, at the end of the year, was still unimaginable.

The Soviet Union was one of the two pillars of the post-1945 world order; its dissolution triggered a global restructuring that is still underway. The United States’ attempt to govern the world through de facto hegemony has failed. The transformation of the world order continues, and nobody can say what model will emerge or whether a stable balance will ever be established.

For the Russian Federation, as for all former Soviet republics, the USSR’s collapse called for forming a new political consciousness. This process turned out to be much more complex and painful than it seemed at the outset, when people thought that everything would sort itself out anew, once statehood was declared. The situation in Ukraine is another manifestation of self‑determination, including for Russia, which is using the Special Military Operation to determine its borders beyond the (very specific) logic of Soviet territorial divisions, and to take a place on the regional and global stage that is different from that of the ideological, authoritarian Soviet superpower.

Russia rightfully takes pride in its centuries-old unbroken statehood, which has taken various forms (including the unusual Soviet one) and overcome all sorts of hardships. Each stage was not an automatic continuation of the previous one, but an adaptation to domestic and international changes. All countries combine continuity and innovation in different ratios over time, but this is especially sensitive and complex in a country as large and heterogeneous as Russia.

The historical journey of Russia’s ever-changing statehood continues, with the next destination not yet in sight.

One enduring consequence of the USSR’s disintegration is the unwillingness of Western (primarily European) states to seriously discuss issues of mutual interest (above all, security) with Russia. This attitude grows out of the precedent from 35 years ago, when it turned out that a dangerous and powerful adversary can simply give up and dissolve.

Nowadays, the West claims that the Cold War could not have ended any other way. The Soviets had lost the strategic competition to the “free world” and were doomed to leave the historical stage. However, at the time, until almost the very last moment, no one expected the end to be so swift and radical. Naturally, the Western community, which had been opposing the Kremlin for decades and saw it as an existential threat, did not object. Even the most ardent anti‑Soviet activists could hardly believe in such a happy ending.

The crisis of the Soviet system had begun a couple of decades before its collapse, and it increasingly fell behind as the Soviet leadership failed to grasp the changes in global trends. But the USSR’s death was probably not inevitable, and it certainly could at least have been delayed. It is impossible to say for sure that the Soviet Union would have survived under a different policy, but, in hindsight, it is clear that the late Soviet leadership’s efforts to stop the decline only accelerated it as their impulsive reforms deepened internal contradictions and triggered a historical rupture that even their opponents had never dreamed of.  

Was this malice or error? The anniversary will prompt a new round of disputes. I share the view that the tragedy was caused by the Soviet leadership’s unfounded idealism, incompetence, and ignorance—not by its enemies’ guile. But those enemies eagerly claimed credit, and became full of themselves.

Today, when Western capitals reject compromise with Moscow and call for inflicting a strategic defeat upon it, they clearly expect history to repeat. Believing that Reagan’s early-1980s escalation of the Cold War set in motion the USSR’s eventual collapse, they now hold that further escalation will overstrain Russia, aggravate its internal situation, and initiate its collapse like forty years ago. The main thing is to drive hard and force Russia to accept Western terms. And that is exactly what they are trying to do.

One could explain at length how things are different: in Russia, in the economic system, and around the world. But all of this is secondary.

Above all else, the West must be made to understand that the Soviet collapse was a tragic but isolated and unique episode. Russia’s adversaries will not receive any gifts like they did in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Both the Russian leadership and society must learn the lessons of the collapse. The leadership must understand the danger of taking ill‑considered action and ignoring challenges, and Russia’s society must understand that internal conflict never leads to common success. Then Russia’s foes will have to admit that 1991 was an exception, not the rule—and that Russia is not going anywhere.

For citation, please use:
Timofeev, I.N., 2026. The Persian Gulf: Seven More Lessons. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 133–136. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-133-136

At the outset of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, I identified seven key lessons from the new conflict: sanctions tend to be followed by military force; pressure on Iran will be prolonged; concessions to the attacker are ineffective; the leaders of an attacked country are primary targets; internal unrest encourages external intervention; support from friendly countries is important for the attacked nation but does not resolve its fundamental problems; and the balance of power ultimately remains the primary means of resolving security issues—meeting force with force is a crude but effective way to halt escalation. The conflict’s low-level prolongation now permits seven more lessons to be drawn.

Lesson 1: Major powers may retreat.

Recent history offers numerous examples of this: the USSR and then the U.S. retreated from Afghanistan; earlier, the U.S. had retreated from Vietnam. In the recent Gulf crisis, the U.S. and Israel inflicted serious damage on Iran but failed to crush it, and further escalation through a ground operation was apparently deemed too risky. The result was a retreat from the goal of total victory and a shift towards diplomacy—which brings us to the second lesson.

Lesson 2: Diplomacy works, and compromises are possible.

The 20th century was filled with wars ending in crushing defeats. World War I ended with the collapse of at least four empires. World War II resulted in the complete defeat of the Axis powers, whose sovereignty remains constrained to this day. The Cold War ended with the USSR’s political defeat and collapse. Various subsequent military operations led to disintegration or regime change in attacked countries like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Cases in which conflicts are resolved through diplomatic compromise, in the spirit of the 18th or the 19th centuries, have become quite rare. The confrontation with Iran, however, is restoring the old school of diplomacy. Clearly, the conflict’s underlying causes remain unresolved. Nevertheless, the parties have reached at least a temporary solution through negotiations and concrete concessions [as of 29 June —Ed.]. They were forced to view each other as legitimate and fundamentally equal negotiators despite their vastly different capabilities.

Lesson 3: Loss of tolerance determines outcomes.

The level of losses and the willingness to absorb them are among the most important factors in a conflict. Here again, the 20th century features two extremes: the world wars, with massive losses on both sides, and local conflicts (e.g., Vietnam), where the weaker side has greater resolve, and even the relatively light losses suffered by the stronger side press it to terminate the war.  The present Gulf crisis reflects the latter model. The U.S. and Israel are unwilling to accept increased losses—such as those that would result from a ground operation—without sufficient confidence in success.

Iran, by contrast, has demonstrated a firm determination to absorb losses.

Neither civilian casualties, nor the assassination of several dozen senior officials, have shaken Iran’s resolve to defend itself.

Lesson 4: Margin of safety matters.

Consider the 20th century once more. The great powers entered the First World War with low margins of safety, unready for the hardships and costs ahead. The Second World War began between mobilized military camps, expecting and prepared for war. In the Cold War, both sides gradually accumulated margins of safety, until détente made the Soviet economy’s war-readiness unnecessary, and it fell as if through an open door. After the Cold War, the military machines of former adversaries shrank significantly. Even the U.S.—the largest military power to emerge victorious from the Cold War—has been unable to quickly restore previous military production levels.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, however, has been preparing for war since 1979. Its survival in the current conflict is due in no small part to the specific organization of its armed forces, security services, and economy. In ‘normal’ peacetime, such a system may seem excessively costly, unbalanced, and cumbersome; but under extreme conditions, it proved functional. It should be noted that Israel, too, lives in a state of constant military mobilization, having built its own militarized economy—albeit on different principles. Armed-camp states are re-entering world politics. China is working to improve its resilience. Western countries are gradually moving in this direction as well. Russia and Ukraine have been forced to become armed camps, given their conflict; Ukraine has seemingly already reached the peak of its militarization, while Russia’s reserve for further growth remains considerable.

Lesson 5: Nuclear weapons have many effects but provide no guarantees.

The fear of Iran becoming a nuclear power is one significant and long-standing reason for its containment by the U.S. and Israel. If Iran already possessed nuclear weapons, as North Korea does, such a bold attack on it would hardly have been possible.

And the attack has, at least, probably delayed Tehran’s transformation into a nuclear power.

Yet neither the U.S. nor Israel has considered using their own nuclear weapons—tactical or strategic—to escalate or to defeat Iran. Such a step would not only provoke international condemnation, but might not even lead to victory. Iran might very well remain resilient and governable even after several nuclear strikes destroying cities and infrastructure. Indeed, its resolve might reach a qualitatively new and unpredictable level.

Thus, nuclear weapons can theoretically be used, but even if they cause enormous damage, they will not necessarily defeat the adversary—especially if it has spent decades preparing to repel an attack. This creates uncertainty. On the one hand, the political significance of nuclear arsenals is devalued in some (but not all) types of conflicts. On the other hand, the temptation to use them simply to inflict damage increases. The very design of nuclear deterrence may change, given the revolution in military affairs.

Lesson 6: information war has a large scale but limited results.

Modern information technologies provide enormous opportunities for propaganda and moral-psychological influence on the enemy. The conflict in the Persian Gulf was clearly asymmetrical—the U.S. possesses greater informational capabilities, given its control over global media and technological leadership. This may have helped undermine the situation in Iran on the eve of the war, but it still did not play a critical role. Numerous images of attacks on Iran failed to break the will to resist. Conversely, Iran’s informational impact on the enemy was also limited.

The effectiveness of AI-generated fabrications is so far limited by their low quality. Nevertheless, propaganda is becoming increasingly important in other conflicts, particularly the Ukrainian one.

Lesson 7: Exit strategies are not as simple as entry strategies.

A military campaign is easy to start; it is much more difficult to end—especially when initial goals remain unachieved. This is precisely the situation in which the U.S. found itself after it had failed to crush Iran with bombing. Retreat and compromise have a high price and entail domestic political risks. The public and political opposition may see negotiations (let alone actual concessions) as a sign of weakness. The U.S. has shown that it may back down if the cost of escalation proves excessive—but with the matter left open, and potentially subject to violent revision at an opportune moment. Exit from the conflict has become a formidable diplomatic and technical challenge. The U.S. and Israel did not crush Iran and are now seeking a timely exit from the war. Iran has survived and is trying to avoid the war’s disastrous prolongation. Time will tell how successful they will be.

This article is an edited version of the paper written for the Valdai Discussion Club, https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-persian-gulf-seven-more-lessons

For citation, please use:
Malkov, A.Ye., 2026. Nuclear Weapons + AI: The Mathematics of Fatal Inevitability. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 104–119. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-104-119

“…the only thing worth discussing, on the threshold of imminent catastrophe, is how to avoid it.”

Stanisław Lem, Science Fiction and Futurology. 1970

In modern geopolitics, Chekhov’s gun is nuclear-armed, and AI increasingly threatens to pull its trigger. We are entering the zone of mathematical fatality, where an encounter between a self-teaching algorithm and a world-destroying system becomes not just probable, but inevitable.

Classical Cold War strategic deterrence depends on actors’ unconditional rationality and on mutual assured destruction (Schelling, 2007, pp. 305-306). Its stability has traditionally derived from there being enough time to verify a threat and make a considered political decision. The resilience of automated systems, and the risk of accidentally destabilizing nuclear parity, were considered in detail in the first decade of this century (Arbatov et al., 2010; Kokoshin, 2003, p. 36). These studies showed that the rigid determinism and predictability of control algorithms are the core of nuclear deterrence. Today, however, international relations are marked by a different sort of determinism: the flood of AI systems into the major powers’ defense industries (Atabekov, 2023).

This article assesses the systemic risk arising at the junction of two very different realms: the absolutely determined architecture of nuclear parity, and the stochastic (probabilistic) nature of modern neural networks. Most contemporary studies focus on tactics—the details of drone or cyber attacks. This paper considers the critical vulnerability of top-level strategic decision-making. The problem is not just the shortage of time for a human to think, but also the conceptual incompatibility of nuclear parity’s rigid logic versus neural networks’ stochasticity, opacity, and propensity to hallucinate. Integrating a probabilistic algorithm into a system in which an error can threaten civilization is systemic nonsense.

Murphy’s Law in the Age of Algorithms

The world’s two largest nuclear powers, Russia and the U.S.,[1] have entered a new round of the arms race, with the military application of AI.

Russia’s 2025-2034 armament program is its first with a separate section on AI. First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov explained that: “The Special Military Operation shows that decisions to use new armaments and…equipment must be taken within not just minutes, but seconds. Ensuring such efficiency is impossible without transferring some functions from military personnel to the machine” (Vedomosti, 2023). President Vladimir Putin has outlined the main guidelines for AI development in the military-industrial complex: “It is necessary to produce and use secure domestic AI…in complex automated military control systems… Countries that quickly put these technologies into operation, particularly in the military domain, will have huge advantages on the battlefield” (Interfax, 2025).

A U.S. Department of War memorandum, issued on 9 January 2026 (Secretary of War, 2026), lists the following guiding principles of the AI-first strategy:

• Speed Wins. The risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment.
• AI Model Parity. The latest civilian AI models must be deployed in the military within 30 days of public release.
• Wartime Approach to Blockers. The U.S. will establish a monthly “Barrier Removal Board” with authority to waive non-statutory requirements and move obstacles up the chain of command for immediate resolution.
• Out with Utopian Idealism, In with Hard-Nosed Realism. AI models which incorporate ideological “tuning” (diversity, equity, inclusion, and social ideology) are not to be employed in the DoW. The Department must not use models with policies that may limit lawful military applications.

AI’s integration into control of the strategic forces is presented as a panacea for the ‘human factor’—slowness, emotions, and fatigue. However, in the context of the nuclear triad, Murphy’s Law—anything that can go wrong eventually will—makes an ‘impossible’ event just a matter of time and the system’s accumulated entropy.

For decades, classical nuclear deterrence has rested upon political actors’ unconditional rationality and their possession of time sufficient to assess a threat and make (or not make) a fateful decision. But these assumptions are now being undermined by a dangerous technological symbiosis.

Firstly, the world’s leading powers are adopting AI—increasing public and private budgets, and promoting ‘sovereign AI’ (Stanford HAI, 2025)—not because it has proven reliable, but out of fear of losing the race. Accidents are seen as less dangerous than falling behind.

Secondly, hypersonic weapons (due not to their speed, but to their late detection and low interceptability) have cut decision-making time to a few minutes, squeezing out the slow ‘biological mind.’ Under time pressure, humans turn from agents into bottlenecks, whose elimination is necessary for military planners to maintain parity (Secretary of War, 2026). Humans thus voluntarily delegate the final decision to a machine whose logic they do not fully control.

Thus, in trying to eliminate human errors, we are creating systems whose errors are inherently unpredictable and potentially terminal.

The Architecture of Hallucinations—The ‘Black Box’ On Combat Duty

The greatest cognitive trap at present is the perception of AI as a digital analogue of the human mind. In politics, this is a critical mistake. A neural network does not understand the context of world politics, it operates with mathematical weights and correlations that have nothing to do with cause-and-effect relationships.

While the human mind tries to understand why something happens, deep learning tries to identify what it usually coincides with (Goodfellow, Bengio, and Courville, 2018). In the nuclear context, this creates the risk of false patterns, of sunlight’s refraction or birds’ migration matching the parameters of a ballistic missile’s thermal footprint.

The advantages of human engagement in decision-making can best be illustrated by the story of Stanislav Petrov, who recognized an attack warning as mistaken. AI, devoid of intuition and optimized to minimize misses, is likely to classify such an anomaly as a confirmed launch.

Algorithmic logic versus human doubt
(two cases from the past)

Stanislav Petrov’s right to doubt

In September 1983, the Soviet early warning system, including Oko satellites and Dniester over-the-horizon radar stations, detected the launch of five American Minuteman intercontinental missiles. Any algorithm would take this as an unambiguous signal to retaliate (Dvorkin, 2019). But Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov decided to classify the signal as false, relying not on sensors but on the intuition that “a few missiles is not a full-scale attack” (The Man Who Saved the World, 2014).

A neural network trained to minimize misses would have given 100-percent confirmation. Only the human ability to ignore protocol and consider the geopolitical context (Why did they launch only five missiles?) prevented a nuclear apocalypse. AI is incapable of questioning its own input data.

Chesley Sullenberger’s Miracle on the Hudson 

In 2009, after losing both engines due to a bird strike, Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger glided his Airbus A320 with 150 passengers onto the Hudson River. During the subsequent investigation, computer simulations showed that, theoretically, the aircraft could have reached the three nearest airports: LaGuardia, Newark, and Teterboro (NTSB, 2016). However, the simulations did not consider the time needed to evaluate the situation, or human stress. If Sully had tried for one of the airports, but hesitated for even a moment, the plane would have crashed in New York’s densely populated neighborhoods. Sullenberger chose a less efficient option and proved to be right. Though, if the plane had been under full AI control, it would perhaps have successfully landed at the airport.

The term ‘black box’ (UM-Dearborn, 2023) refers to the opacity of the process by which neural networks reach a specific decision: the input data and final answer are visible, but the ‘logic’ is hidden inside billions of mathematical weights and complex relationships. Decisions in politics, and especially defense, normally have to be based on a clear (if perhaps cognitively or emotionally distorted) rationale. But if, for instance, AI recommends raising the readiness level to DEFCON 2 (the U.S.’s second-highest alert level, preceding a nuclear strike), there will be no real understanding of why it has done so.

The term ‘hallucination’ describes AI generation of false, factually incorrect, or absurd but statistically convincing results, driven by a search for patterns where there are none. AI does not understand the physical essence of a missile launch, it only compares incoming signals with learned patterns. If it detects ‘noise’ (e.g., abnormal reflection of sunlight by high-altitude clouds), it may interpret this as a 100-percent match to a ballistic missile’s thermal footprint, requiring more serious action than an unusual chatbot message.

Moreover, such errors are made with utmost confidence, as AI lacks mechanisms for intuitive doubt. For instance, the Pentagon’s tests of Project Maven (a target recognition AI) have demonstrated 60 percent accuracy (versus 84 percent for human operators). AI is highly sensitive to landscape and weather conditions, and systemically reported false positives with absolute certainty (Deeplearing.AI, 2024; Scharre, 2023). In a nuclear deterrence system, AI hallucinations could trigger cascading escalation.

Particularly dangerous is algorithms’ vulnerability to adversarial manipulation (SciForce, 2020). Unlike a human, who sees the big picture, AI analyzes the world through microscopic mathematical indicators. Thus, ‘adversarial attacks’ can manipulate AI using subtle changes to data inputs (e.g., satellite images or radar signals) that are invisible to the human eye but fatal to the machine. Imagine digital noise that a human operator would identify as radar clutter, but that—for AI—transforms a civilian airliner into a cruise missile. Even more insidious is ‘data poisoning’: imperceptible patterns fed into AI during training, which will cause it to err at the crucial moment (Shafahi et al., 2018).

Thus, an AI-based nuclear defense system becomes a tool of manipulation: an adversary can dictate a false reality to the algorithm, forcing it to see a threat where there is none, or blinding it to a real one.

Time Pressure in Arms Race 2.0

While Cold War strategic deterrence relied on ‘long minutes’ (an ICBM’s flight time was 25-30 minutes), today’s maneuverable hypersonic systems reduce decision time to 5-12 minutes. Data verification takes more time than a missile needs to hit a command post.

For clarity, let us compare classic ICBMs (Smirnov, 2002; Ruzhany Strategic, 2025) (as exemplified by the Russian heavy missile Voevoda (although Voevoda, to be replaced with Sarmat, falls behind Yars systems by the number of deployed carriers and the total number of warheads, this heavy ICBM—due to its colossal mass and destructive power—remains the classic core and main power component of a hypothetical retaliatory strike) and the American Minuteman III missile (which make up the basis of the two countries’ ground forces), SLBMs (Bulava and Trident II, as the main covert strike capabilities), and guided hypersonic units (Avangard and the American Dark Eagle systems) as the latest nuclear delivery vehicles.

There is also an important conceptual difference: while Russia’s triad remains focused on classic kinetic-energy weapons, the U.S.’s ‘integrated deterrence’ doctrine aims to combine nuclear forces with non-kinetic components like cyber operations and space-based electronic warfare (Ves Mir, 2023). In reality, such convergence only blurs the nuclear threshold and complicates algorithmic threat analysis, increasing the U.S. system’s risk of false alarms.

Thus, states are faced with a fatal choice: accepting the risk of a decapitation strike, or delegating retaliation to algorithms capable of responding within milliseconds. To keep up with their opponents, countries rush to integrate insufficiently tested AI into their strategic analysis and early warning systems. Beta versions are good for testing arcade games, not for planning missile attacks. In the nuclear realm, Silicon Valley’s motto—move fast and break things—acquires a literal and apocalyptic meaning.

In a bid to maintain parity, countries introduce AI at all control levels. We are witnessing a transition from ‘human-in-the-loop’ (humans remain directly involved in decision-making) to ‘human-on-the-loop’ (humans do nothing more than formally approve  AI’s decisions). However, this threatens to generate psychological inertia, when “humans overtrust the system, and don’t intervene when they should” (Ghai, 2023). Such ‘automation bias’ means that an operator, with mere seconds to make a decision, may defer to a machine that he sees as smarter than himself and is more likely to press the ‘start button’ as suggested by the AI since the fear of giving a belated response outweighs doubts about the data’s accuracy (Cummings, 2004).

AI also creates the risk of a ‘flash war.’ Like stock-trading bots triggering a ‘flash crash’ (Canonico and McNeese, 2019), two early warning system AIs may launch a self-sustaining escalation cycle.

If one AI interprets the other’s actions as preparation for an attack, and increases its own level of readiness, the other AI will take measures of its own. This cascading feedback could reach the point of no return faster than the heads of state can pick up the hotline telephones.

One more challenge is the growing gap between new technology’s complexity and the degree to which it is understood in the top echelons of government. Political leadership and military command often see AI as a highly efficient but linear tool—a kind of computer that simply processes data faster than a human. They are unaware of the systems’ nonlinearity, hallucinations, opacity, and lack of ethical filters. Such ‘delegation without understanding’ is only aggravated by the ‘asymmetry of competencies’ that exists between developers and the government (Unal and Richard, 2024) and may turn technological modernization into an unpredictable process where political will becomes hostage to algorithms.

From the Clear Algorithms of Perimeter to the Black Box of Neural Networks

Nuclear deterrence was automated as protection against a decapitation strike, but rigid Cold-War-era procedures and opaque AI algorithms create qualitatively different risks. The risk of automation is well-illustrated by the 26 September 1983 incident, when Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov classified an attack warning as false, displaying the sort of ‘creative insubordination’ that a machine cannot.

In the 1980s, the Soviet Union did create an automated system called Perimeter (known in the West as the ‘Dead Hand’) (Thompson, 2009), which guaranteed a retaliatory strike (Arbatov et al., 2010) in the event of a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. But Perimeter had nothing to do with AI. It was the pinnacle of deterministic programming: detection of nuclear explosions by pressure and radiation sensors, the loss of communication with the General Staff, and a preliminary command to activate the retaliation regime—if all jointly present—would prompt the launch of a command ballistic missile (15A11) that would in turn activate the entire surviving nuclear arsenal (Missilery.info). It was an absolutely transparent ‘if/then’ approach, with no room for interpretation of data, in stark contrast to modern AI (Esin, 2017).

AI will not wait for physical confirmation of an explosion. Its predictive analytics process huge amounts of data: satellite movements, activity at air bases, the tone of media statements, cyberspace operations, etc. Even if its response criteria are strictly limited, generative analysis can independently form a false causal relationship. The rigid ‘if/then’ is replaced with a flexible ‘this probably is.’

In 1983, Stanislav Petrov could classify the alarm as false because its claim—a launch of several missiles (not a massive attack)—was legible. But the logic behind AI’s warning may be opaque, and the data upon which it is based will be too voluminous to be analyzed by a human operator.

AI’s ability to ‘learn’ makes it unpredictable.

While Perimeter could not be deceived—there either is or is not an explosion—a neural network can be misled by specific input data, whether to make it hallucinate the outbreak of war, or conversely to disguise real aggression as civilian activities or natural phenomena.

With the advent of AI in the nuclear arms sphere, the vulnerability of the system is changing fundamentally, and new gaps are appearing. Additionally, while analog systems have a physical gap separating them from the outside world, modern AI needs to be constantly fed extensive data, making it vulnerable to cyberattacks and interference with the data.

Apocalypse Probability Approaching 1

While earlier we considered technical failures and drawbacks, here we will turn to systems and probability theories. The main argument against integrating AI into nuclear arms is not that a machine can make a mistake, but that such a mistake becomes mathematically inevitable over a sufficiently long period of time—and that the ‘sufficient’ amount falls as computing speed rises.

Complex-systems theory has a concept of ‘normal accidents’ (Perrow, 1984). In ultrasophisticated and closely integrated systems, such as the global nuclear deterrence network, disaster is embedded in the design itself. AI only makes things worse. One country’s AI reactions to the actions of another country’s AI may trigger a cascade of automatic reactions, cause a nonlinear exponential escalation, and leave no time for de-escalation.

Any non-zero probability of a false positive (e.g., 0.01% per year), when extrapolated to a period of several decades, inexorably tends to 1. The risk seems manageable over a 10-year stretch, but when it extends to 50 or 100 years, the probability that a chain of random factors (a solar flare, a specific bug in the code, political tension) will come together in one point becomes frighteningly high.

Unlike humans, who are capable of ‘creative insubordination’ (Petrov in 1983; Arkhipov in 1962 (Babakin, 2002)), AI is deprived of free will, a biological survival instinct, or inherent ethical constraints. It is a hostage to its optimization function. If mathematics dictate a strike, it will be delivered.

The main danger of AI is that it creates the illusion of control. Politicians and generals may believe that the ‘smart system’ has calculated all the risks. However, history shows that disasters occur precisely when thought to be least likely (Chernobyl, Fukushima, 9/11 in the U.S.) (Taleb, 2015).

AI In the Military Sphere: Has the Point of No Return Been Passed?

AI’s possible integration into the nuclear arms sphere is not just another technical modernization but a fundamental challenge to the entire classical theory of deterrence. Previously, stability was based on reasonable actors’ fear of mutual destruction, but now we may entrust the fate of civilization to “digital roulette.”

Several recent examples confirm the danger of AI’s military use:

1. In a test that was increasingly presented as a mere ‘thought experiment’ as attention to it mounted, a U.S. Air Force AI-controlled drone decided to eliminate its own operator, who was restricting its behavior in ways that the AI saw as obstructing the achievement of its objectives (U.S. Air Force, 2023). This incident illustrates that AI is constrained by nothing but its input objectives. For AI, task completion will always be above human security because the algorithm is devoid of basic human moral principles and is unable to grasp the unacceptability of destroying allies.
2. The U.S. fed outdated intelligence data to a target-selection AI, which failed to consider changes in the landscape (the construction of a dividing wall between a military base and a school), and whose output was not double-checked by humans. Deprived of the ability to doubt, the U.S. military killed about 180 people at an Iranian girls’ school (Barnes et al., 2026).
3. Israel’s Lavender AI generated targets lists during the Gaza conflict with little or no human involvement (Abraham, 2024). The system analyzed the data profiles of millions of people, assigning them a militant-proximity rating based on indirect indicators. Operators had about 20 seconds to verify each target, which was just enough to formally approve the machine’s choice. As a result, in pursuit of quantitative indicators, the algorithm began to pass death sentences with a 10% error rate.

These examples can be extrapolated to the Russia–U.S.–China nuclear triangle. The theory of strategic stability has traditionally assumed that only Moscow and Washington have automated control systems, global early warning systems, and massive retaliatory capabilities (Arbatov et al., 2010). But this dualism is deteriorating. China’s military doctrine declares a transition from ‘informatized’ to ‘intellectual’ warfare (Kocherov, 2024), and Beijing is rapidly building its own strategic-level AI.

In a real crisis, if American algorithms interpret Chinese naval maneuvers as preparation for a strike, all three powers’ early warning systems will inevitably lock up in a single feedback loop, producing a ‘flash war’, i.e., almost instantly dragging a conventional conflict across the nuclear threshold, with no time for leaders to use classical diplomatic channels.

These examples prove that when algorithms get a chance (albeit indirectly) to affect the lives of real people, any mathematical error turns into a humanitarian disaster. In the nuclear context, the price of such an ‘error’ is the end of history.

What Is to Be Done? Conclusions and Suggestions

Calls are growing to limit AI in WMD control systems, implement emergency shutdown methods (ELN, 2024), keep humans in the loop (Klare, 2024), and otherwise use AI responsibly (UNIDIR, 2025).

Risk can be reduced in the following ways:

1. START-analogous controls on nuclear AI. However, lines of code are much harder to verify than physical systems are. And controls might create a dangerous temptation to covertly implement autonomous systems in the pursuit of a first-strike advantage.
2. Keep humans in the loop. The only real safeguard today is a ‘physical gap’ and the unconditional presence of humans in decision-making. Humans should always have the last word. AI-issued recommendations should never automatically lead to a missile launch. However, as noted above, such measures may not be sufficient, as a person may trust AI in a stressful situation, capitulating to the authority of the machine and turning the final check into a formality.
3. Hotlines 2.0. Communication channels are needed not only between presidents, but between technical specialists who can quickly identify an algorithmic error and stop a cascading escalation.

However, all of these measures have limitations, and the high stakes call for the strictest of mutual control mechanisms.

1. Total algorithmic transparency. States must come to a firm agreement that using opaque (AI) algorithms in critical nodes of the early warning and control systems is tantamount to preparing a surprise attack. Any code in these loops must be testable, linear, and rigidly deterministic.
2. Conscious technological conservatism. The only reliable shield against uncontrolled escalation is physically isolated control and verification loops. The modernization of automated command and control systems, and their full digitalization by the leading powers, should not automatically allow probabilistic algorithms to make strategic decisions. Today, technological conservatism in control systems is not a sign of backwardness, but a conscious choice for reliability and survival.
3. Institutional taboo. An international regime is needed that bans ‘combat AI’ in strategic forces, just as biological weapons are forbidden. This is not just a matter of ethics, but a matter of human survival.

The mathematics of fatal inevitability warn us that, if we completely entrust the protection of humanity to algorithms, the world will cease to be human even before the first missile hits. We should return the ‘right to doubt’ into a world that is too quickly accustoming itself to digital infallibility.

For citation, please use:
Tsygankov, A.P., 2026. Russia’s Identity Formation in the Mirror of Trump’s America. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 194–205. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-194-205

The U.S. has traditionally held a prominent role in Russian IR discussions. Some even see this role as excessive: the Cold War ended 35 years ago, the world has ceased to be bipolar or Western-centric, and its decentralization is only accelerating despite the West’s best efforts to reverse it.

And yet, despite the civilizational distinctiveness of the U.S. and the broader West, they remain the ‘significant Others’ in relation to which Russia defines its values and development path. Lingering expectations of a new partnership with Donald Trump, and practical steps to end the conflict in Ukraine attest to this continued importance. (In the recent past, such expectations were linked to the “spirit of Anchorage,” although the “spirit” turned out to be yet another promise that Trump will not or cannot keep.)

Russia’s persistent hopes of getting along with the U.S. are not surprising, given their deep historical roots. Such hopes were expressed in the correspondence between Alexander II and Abraham Lincoln. They were pursued throughout the Cold War by Stalin and Roosevelt, Kennedy and Khrushchev, Nixon and Brezhnev, Reagan and Gorbachev. The post-Soviet period also saw numerous attempts by the Russian leadership to establish cooperation with the U.S. For Russians, the U.S. is significant because it has often been a role model in technology, music, cinema, domestic and international politics, and other spheres. Russians are well aware that the U.S. differs in national character, development path, goals, and historical destiny—differences that in some cases can generate rivalry and even military conflict. But Russians also sense a similarity and even kinship between Russia and the U.S.: two great peoples with the same Euro-Christian roots and—as Alexis de Tocqueville observed—the ability to determine world history.

The crisis of Russians’ search for identity (and the variety of positions on the matter) is illustrated by their extraordinary focus on (and varying attitudes towards) the U.S. and Trump in particular.

Hopes for building a partnership with the U.S. are high, emanating partly from within the Kremlin itself. They are opposed by calls to contain the U.S.’s global ambitions, pursue a Eurasian alternative to the West, and reduce Russia’s intellectual dependence on the U.S. This article discusses Russian experts’ arguments, Russia’s intellectual dependence on the U.S. (and vice versa), its possible evolution, and ways to overcome it.

RUSSIAN DEBATES IN THE AMERICAN MIRROR

The search for national identity is complex and unceasing, a “daily plebiscite” (Renan) that pits different positions against one another and generates images of the future. But each country’s history contains periods of crisis when these debates intensify, revealing disagreement on crucial issues.

Attitude towards the U.S. is one such issue, regarding which the differences among Russian experts are deep and sometimes irreconcilable. This may signal a national identity crisis. After the USSR’s collapse, such crises transformed the value system: first from communism to liberal democracy, then to the integration of statism and civilizational independence. Each time that Russia sought outside support, it looked primarily to the U.S. Its turn to democracy in the 1990s was praised there, but statism, civilizational independence, and foreign policy autonomy met with hostility in the U.S. liberal establishment. Following ‘regime change’ in liberal America (Haberman and Swan, 2026), the perception of Russia in U.S. political circles is also changing; by recognizing or rejecting Russian values, the U.S. participates in Russia’s quest for identity.

Russian values are the subject of constant debate in Russia itself. Its status as a unique civilization is rejected by some, and is interpreted in various ways, depending (inter alia) on the apparent prospects of reestablishing cooperation with the West. The over-four-year conflict in Ukraine has contributed to a new identity crisis in Russia, which itself will affect relations with the West (of which those with the U.S. are incomparably more important, partly because of the U.S.’s own major influence on the European countries).

States are seeking strategies to navigate the ongoing transformation of the global order, and Russian discussions about the U.S.’s international role are part of that search. 

Various studies have examined Russia’s desire for U.S. approval (Radchenko, 2024; Foglesong, Kurilla, and Zhuravleva, 2026).

Many Imperial and Soviet politicians advocated for partnership with the U.S., insofar as this served Russian interests. Equality in relations became a particularly sensitive issue during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union needed recognition as a responsible superpower safeguarding international security. Almost all Soviet leaders, including Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev, initially sought cooperation with the West but failed, leading to the Cold War (Stalin), the Cuban Missile Crisis (Khrushchev), and a new eruption of the Cold War (Brezhnev). Vladimir Putin similarly sought to build cooperation with the U.S. on the basis of anti-terrorism, but eventually realized the need to contain and resist the West’s global expansion, as he declared at the Munich Security Conference in 2007.

Russian schools of thought regarding the U.S. reflect various understandings of Russia’s own national identity, which is a complex system of historically-established values.[1] The first such school, to which many experts on IR and the U.S. adhere, asserts the possibility of cooperating with the U.S., despite its differences with Russia. Second, since Soviet times, there has been an influential school advocating broad opposition to the U.S. on everything ranging from arms control to regional conflicts to political systems. Third, there has always been a smaller camp in favor of moderate isolation from the West, alongside situational, tactical, short-term cooperation with it.

Analysis of these three positions, since the Soviet collapse, shows the possibilities and limits of Russia-U.S. cooperation.

PARTNERS AND TRUMPISTS

Supporters of partnership believed that, despite the U.S.’s liberalism and rhetoric of ‘rules-based order,’ cooperation with it was necessitated by the U.S.’s international weight and Russia’s international vulnerability. Some claimed that the liberal world order has no viable alternatives (Kortunov, 2019), and that globalization would survive Trump’s 2016 election. They positioned Russia not only as a great power, but also as a natural part of the (Western) civilization that initiated globalization. Russia’s future depended on establishing partnership with the (rest of the) West.

Traditionally, this school had emphasized adapting, wherever possible, to the U.S.’s rhetoric of liberal values and globalization. Trump’s election made this unnecessary because of his extremely critical view of liberalism and global openness. The supporters of reliance on mutual interests in solving security problems were joined by those who strongly believed that the liberal world order was falling apart and called for cooperation based on shared values: Trump’s harsh criticism of liberal values and populist-nationalist ideas were close to Russian civilizational values. Some even suggested forming a global conservative alliance against liberalism (Drobnitsky, 2017).

Trump’s 2024 reelection reignited Russian hopes for cooperation. Although such hopes had been crushed during Trump’s first term, some Russian politicians and experts took heart from Trump’s increased independence from mainstream politicians and officials. By 2024, many bilateral issues had piled up and needed resolution: the Ukraine conflict, nuclear arms control, Russian diplomatic property, airspace restrictions, sanctions, joint development of energy and mineral resources, the space program, etc.

Trump was seen as providing an opportunity to resolve the conflict in Ukraine almost on Russia’s terms, and more broadly to rebuild the entire international system based on a Russia-U.S. partnership. Trump still arouses considerable interest and positive emotions.

His ‘supporters’ in Russia place their hopes not so much in leaders’ personalities, as in the fundamental alignment of the geopolitical interests and conservative values of Russia and the U.S.. Part of Russia’s governing elite believes that the high stakes demand at least attempting to build a relationship with Trump, regardless of the complexities of his character. Hence officials like Kirill Dmitriev (2026), head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, speak of seemingly fantastical multi-trillion-dollar cooperation projects.

The partnership and restructured international order would make Russia a key member of the transatlantic community, alongside the U.S. and Europe. But its partnership with the U.S. would be particularly close, cemented by conservative values (Ioffe, 2025). Even before Trump’s reelection, such projections were made by Vladislav Surkov, former deputy head of the Presidential Administration. In the article The Birth of the North, he portrayed Russia as the Third Rome, capable of uniting the other two—the U.S. and Europe (Surkov, 2023).

Irreconcilable critics of the liberal West, like Alexander Dugin, remain committed to the normative commonality between Russian civilization and the American Right of Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson. In a conversation with the latter during his April 2024 visit to Moscow, Dugin spoke, in particular, about the lack of value differences between Russian and American conservatives (Balasyan, 2025; Dugin, 2025). This view took hold in the Russian foreign policy community due to the conflict with the Biden-led U.S. and its liberal European allies. Proponents of value-based convergence believed that criticism of liberalism would make Russia attractive to influential forces in the West and beyond. They argued that the values of traditional America were bringing it closer to Russia, and that partnership with the West could be enhanced through strengthened ties with conservatives and the Alt-Right—Russia’s “natural allies” (Moiseev et al., 2023).

CRITICS’ ARGUMENTS

As hopes for each of Trump’s terms were dashed, arguments for cooperation lost their appeal. Meanwhile, its opponents are diverse, variously favoring global containment of the U.S., Eurasianist isolation, and pragmatism.

Opponents of U.S. hegemony and liberal world order formulated their main arguments in opposition to the Yeltsin-Kozyrev policy of strategic partnership with the West. Yevgeny Primakov (1996) criticized their Westernizing, U.S.-centric approach, explaining that “a multipolar world is approaching” and Russia’s interests require containing the U.S.’s global ambitions in alliance with China and India. His followers insist that the liberal order disregards Russia’s interests and is in terminal decline. Therefore, Russia should do everything possible to accelerate the transition to a new world order that will grant it a place worthy of a great power, on a par with the others, as in the post-Napoleonic Vienna system (Nikonov, 2019). This means decisively defeating Ukraine and strengthening ties with the rising powers of the Global South.

In this view, Trump seeks not partnership with Russia, but the preservation and strengthening of U.S. global hegemony. The U.S. is not approaching Russian values; rather, it and the other Anglo-Saxons are defined by individualism and the colonial exploitation of other nations (Karaganov, 2026).

Indeed, after Trump’s attack on Venezuela, his war with Iran, and his rift with Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Megyn Kelly, and other representatives of the Alt-Right, the idea of a Russo-American unity of values has lost its appeal.

Trump increasingly appears to have launched a world war for global domination against all those who dare form an international or regional order challenging U.S. hegemony.

According to Dmitry Trenin (2026), such a war “is already underway: ‘hot’ in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and ‘cold’ in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also being fought—through special operations and economic blockades—in Latin America. This war is echoing in Africa and the Arctic. The nature of this new world war is determined by the U.S.’s desire to contain, by way of a large-scale global counteroffensive, the growing influence of China, Russia, and the World Majority countries, and to regain its position, if not as a global hegemon, then as the main power in the world.”

The isolationist-Eurasianist position is different. It supports the American conservatives’ orientation towards traditional values and doubts that Trump will succeed in his hegemonic pursuits. Yet it remains unclear whether conservative values will prevail in traditionally liberal America. Regardless, according to these views—greatly influenced by Samuel Huntington and Vadim Tsymbursky—the future belongs to regional civilizations with clearly-defined borders: Eurasia, liberal Europe, Asia, and others (Mezhuev, 2022). Russia, as Eurasia’s representative, needs to draw a clear civilizational and geographical boundary with Europe and start building its own world, while maintaining dialogue with the isolationist Right in the U.S..

Finally, the pragmatist skeptics of cooperation with the U.S., aware of Russia’s vulnerabilities and possible Western pressure, are focused on searching for internal and regional resources for the country’s development. In this respect, they are close to the Eurasianists, who also want Russia to rely more on its own resources. But the pragmatists do not seek the isolationist regional civilization favored by the Eurasianists (and in some sense analogous to the project of American isolationists). Rather, the pragmatists see the international system’s transformation as a lengthy and open-ended process in which Russia should maintain significant foreign policy flexibility.

Some of the pragmatists call for drawing lessons not from the Congress of Vienna, but from the great power rivalries in the late 19th century (Bordachev, 2017). Pragmatists’ reports are distinguished by their pessimism, describing a world that is disintegrating, and whose rules of behavior are being deliberately destroyed in the absence of any suitable replacement (Valdai Club, 2019). Given this, Russia should try to enhance its own capabilities in order to protect itself from international instability. Notably, until the conflict with Ukraine, this focus on internal resources was considered by pragmatists a priority for Russia.

THE FUTURE OF RUSSIAN (AND AMERICAN) IDENTITY

Russia’s interest in the U.S. is the result of a long history of relations, and is bound to persist even in an increasingly decentralized world. It is surprising not that Russians wish to understand the development of the U.S. as one of the modern world’s leading powers, but that they placed so many hopes in Trump, viewed by some as almost the last chance to solve Russia’s problems.

Such significant Russian support for Trump, especially in the early days of his presidency in 2016 and 2024, raises questions: he has never appeared capable of thinking systematically or fulfilling commitments, and his pursuit of immediate financial and other benefits (through the application of however much pressure is necessary) makes him appear more like a character from The Inspector General or Dead Souls. The hopes placed in Trump deserve separate study, all the more so because recent historical experience would seemingly caution against them. Russia remembers that other post-Cold-War attempts to cooperate with the U.S. ended in disappointment. The Yeltsin-Clinton, Putin-Bush, and Medvedev-Obama ‘resets’ all ended in failure, leading not to serious dialogue based on mutual respect for each other’s positions, but to attempts by the stronger party to impose its interests, culminating in international crises in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

The renewed placement of hope in the U.S. indicates a new stage in Russia’s self-identification, which may end in a new deep disappointment. To avoid this, Russia’s national interests should be its experts’ priority, and natural curiosity regarding the U.S. must not give way to chasing after its approval or recognition.

While on the subject of the U.S., it is worth noting that the U.S., too, has experienced featured tension between the pursuit of national interests and the pursuit of international status. In particular, after WWII, the U.S. opted for a policy regarding the USSR that prioritized the containment of global communism over the pursuit of national interests.

Both sides of the debate, headed by George Kennan and Paul Nitze, called for containing the USSR.

Kennan advocated political deterrence, featuring both negative and positive stimulants (the latter requiring gestures of reconciliation and a certain level of trust between the countries). He held that the U.S. should focus more on itself, husbanding its political system, industry, and military. He opposed the militarization of relations and anything that might provoke the USSR, such as intelligence operations or attempts to force Soviet troops out of Europe. In his view, this category included all of Truman’s major policies from 1948 onward: the establishment of NATO and an independent West Germany, the deployment of U.S. troops in post-war Japan, and the creation of a hydrogen bomb (Gaddis, 2005, 70). Kennan held that attempts to politically benefit from nuclear weapons would only lead to an arms race. These positions changed little in the following years. After the Cold War, Kennan was one of the first to warn that NATO’s eastward expansion would lead to a crisis in relations with Russia.

Such thinking proved too complicated for Nitze, who replaced Kennan as Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department, as well as for Truman and Secretary of State John Dulles. They made military deterrence and the internal undermining of the Soviet Union into the core of U.S. containment. Running contrary to Kennan’s empathy, such positions intensified the Cold War, leading the U.S. to automatically interfere in Europe beyond preventing communism’s spread. The confrontation between ‘democracy’ and ‘totalitarianism’ became central to the U.S.’s agenda, helping, in Dulles’s view, to reinvigorate U.S. foreign policy and restore its sense of mission in the world (Foglesong, 2007, p. 125). Even on nuclear issues, Dulles was more radical, supporting preparation for their offensive use.

Despite Kennan’s efforts to convince the Truman administration to define U.S. global interests independently, the opposite approach prevailed. Known as the Truman Doctrine, this approach postulated the priority of countering communism worldwide by all available means, while Kennan upheld a concept based on self-reliance through an advanced political system, industrial capabilities, and a strong army.

Needless to say, such Trumanite thinking still exists in the U.S.. The country has become unmoored, intellectually dependent on its international status and on the struggle against external enemies, foremost China and Russia. The U.S. and the broader West still largely define themselves through opposition to Russia (Tsygankov, 2019; Slezkine, 2025). This will take years, perhaps decades, to change.

Russia, too, likely faces many years ahead of pondering over its national interests and values, of efforts to overcome its intellectual dependence on international status. Status does open the way to various political, economic, and other projects, but obsession with it can generate fundamentally irrational zigzags in relations, bringing ‘distant friends’ and ‘close enemies’ into reality (Foglesong, Kurilla, and Zhuravleva, 2026). Such zigzags include Russia’s attempts to rapidly join the West, followed by its turn towards irreconcilable confrontation with it.

Russia has a future without Trump and strategic partnership with the U.S.. Recognition of this could become a basis for reflecting on Russia’s national interests and values. Russian interests will be determined by the Russians themselves, based on long-term goals and without regard for other powers.

As for pursuit of external recognition of Russia’s identity, psychological literature confirms its importance, but it should not substitute for identity-formation itself. Russia may need to abandon Western centrism that cannot account for Russia’s own interests. As international relations become increasingly decentralized, the search for international recognition of identity and status should be decentralized, as well. Many countries have a similar vision of the global future, growing influence, and the ability to support Russia in its effort to build a new world order.

For citation, please use:
Toloraya, G.D., 2026. What the Iturup Shock Means for Asia. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 96–102. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-96-102

The Russian President’s visit on 13 August to Iturup Island, which Japan regards as one of its Northern Territories, marked more than just a bifurcation point in Russia’s relations with Japan. It is entirely possible that future historians will date the emergence of a new geopolitical configuration in Asia from this very event.

Until now, Russia has not been directly involved in the growing confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region, which at the start of the 21st century was primarily shaped by the standoff between the two ‘architects’ of the world order—China and the United States. The U.S.’s bloc (the principal force in the region) and relatively neutral Asian states all regarded Russia as a static factor in the Pacific, lacking any real independence, only seeking to carefully support China.

That may now change. If Washington interprets Russia’s shifted approach to Japan not as an isolated episode, but as evidence of Moscow’s intent to assert its status as a great Pacific power, the U.S. may well respond to the challenge in precisely that theater. In that case, the consequences of Putin’s visit to Iturup would extend far beyond the Russo-Japanese territorial dispute.

Possible Bilateral, Regional, and Transregional Effects

Russo-Japanese relations are not the subject of this article. Suffice it to say that they have entered a new era. The old strategy of both sides—one that left room for negotiations on a peace treaty—has ended. Japan’s last illusions about a diplomatic resolution of the territorial dispute have now been shattered. Russia’s move was evidently intended to punish Japan for its anti-Russian policy and also to demonstratively close the territorial question forever. Russia has, in a sense, borrowed a page from North Korea’s diplomatic playbook: its hardline statements about the impossibility of denuclearization were initially rejected categorically, but have since gained ever-wider acceptance and become an established reality.

The grounds for Russia’s symbolic move were actually provided by Tokyo itself, which has escalated its anti-Russian policy regardless of its own limited capacity to inflict meaningful damage on Russia. Beyond sanctions and bilateral restrictions, Tokyo has been further integrating itself into U.S. and allied plans for the Asia-Pacific region, where new military-political blocs and potential threats to Russia’s east are forming. At the same time, Tokyo’s confidence in U.S. support, should tensions with Russia escalate, has diminished, leaving its position even more exposed. Russia’s ‘punishment’ of Japan also makes an example of it for other Asian states trying to play both sides with respect to Russia, underscoring Russia’s resolve to take measures that would prove painful for them.

Our short-term goals regarding Japan have been achieved, the lesson has been successfully taught. But if even the minimal potential for normalizing relations with Japan is lost, this is unlikely to help Russia in the Asia-Pacific or advance its ‘Turn to the East’ in the long run. It is also unclear whether Japanese policy and diplomacy—distinguished by a particular stubbornness, even to a fault—will ever, even in the distant future, be able to abandon the territorial claims. Will there ever be a possibility of relations free of that shadow?

Today, Japan is not merely intensifying its rhetoric about Russia’s “illegal occupation,” but coming to see Russia as a military adversary.

After all, for the Japanese, the Northern Territories are not merely a historical issue, but part of their country’s present and future national security. The perception of Russia as a direct threat on the northern axis has become firmly entrenched.

Japan’s response may entail the (gradual, long-term) buildup of military pressure, reversing its previous ‘southwest shift’ towards China. Japan will probably station additional forces (including anti-air and anti-ship formations) on Hokkaido, increase the number and scale of exercises in the north, intensify radar and satellite surveillance of the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, and increase aircraft patrols and monitoring of Russian aviation activity. In other words, Japan may increase the density of reconnaissance and strike capability on its northern axis, though without shifting to an offensive configuration. And it will do so alongside its allies. This will degrade the security of Russia’s Far East and require a response.

A more dangerous step towards escalation would be Japan’s development of long-range missiles (formally justified, of course, as defense against North Korea and China). The future could see a broader deployment of cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, other long-range strike assets, and unmanned reconnaissance-strike systems.

Questions of Transregional Military Balance

Even before Putin’s visit, earlier in August, Russia had conducted major Pacific Fleet exercises. And the visit was followed by missile drills involving surface ships, a submarine, and coastal batteries.

This predictably provoked Japanese protests, but the U.S. might actually be the intended audience. Moscow certainly benefits if the situation is not ‘Russia against Japan,’ but rather ‘Russia consolidating its position in the Northwestern Pacific in the context of the U.S. military presence.’ But where might this lead?

Deeper U.S. involvement in confronting Russia in the Pacific could have far-reaching geopolitical consequences. Obviously, the U.S. is presently occupied elsewhere. But if ‘appeasing’ Russia in Europe fails, or after the next administration takes  power, the U.S. might station more ships in the Sea of Japan and the northern Pacific; it might increase exercises, reconnaissance flights, and other cooperation with Japanese aircraft and vessels; it might demonstrate its ability to operate (especially in the form of antisubmarine reconnaissance) in the immediate vicinity of Russia’s Far Eastern defense zone, thereby threating Russia’s strategic deterrent forces.

Thus, quashing the territorial dispute and consolidating the Kurils’ status may ultimately increase Russia’s military burden across the entire Northwestern Pacific.

We must also be prepared for a spiral of regional tension. If Tokyo were to demonstrate the ability to militarily resolve the territorial dispute (practicing deployments to Hokkaido, defending remote islands, countering an amphibious landing, etc.), Russia will strengthen its forces not only on the islands but across the Far East as a whole, which will itself trigger a response, including from the U.S.. And that response might include the deployment of U.S. missiles, which would qualitatively change the situation by directly threatening Russia’s Far East, and which would require a substantial response. In sum, Japan and the U.S. might escalate as follows: (1) diplomatic protests; (2) new sanctions; (3) intensified reconnaissance around the Kurils; (4) Japanese military exercises on Hokkaido; (5) U.S.-Japanese exercises; (6) increased American naval presence; (7) deployment of new long-range Japanese missiles; (8) temporary deployment of U.S. strike systems; (9) a permanent U.S. missile presence.

It is also notable that, amid doubts about the U.S. nuclear umbrella’s reliability, speculation has arisen regarding Japan’s possible hosting of others’ nuclear weapons or development of its own.  Russian officials have warned of the catastrophic consequences of moving in this direction.

Regional Consequences and Conclusions for Russia

Russia’s old multivector policy in the Asia-Pacific—in which Russia could offset dependence on China through relations with other powers like Japan and South Korea—has been definitively destroyed. In the medium term, this will lead the developed states of East Asia to perceive Russia as a tough and independent power, but an unpredictable partner.

Current events could accelerate bloc-building and the consolidation of Western influence in the Asia-Pacific region. In Japan, the current discourse increasingly links the Russian threat with the Chinese and North Korean ones.

Washington may try to use Russia’s rapprochement with North Korea to bring Tokyo and Seoul closer together.

Tokyo, Seoul, and Washington have already begun trilateral policy coordination. In July 2026, the three states’ foreign ministers met twice within a fortnight—first on the margins of the NATO summit in Ankara, and then on the margins of the ASEAN meetings in Manila. Cooperation now extends beyond countering North Korea. Discussions cover economic security, critical mineral supply chains, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and nuclear energy. The alliance is being reshaped into a “highly practical union focused on advanced technologies and economic security.”

Russia’s reaction to the strengthening of the trilateral alliance has been sharply critical. Sergei Lavrov called U.S. actions in Asia “destructive,” accusing Washington of militarizing Japan and attempting to turn other countries against Russia and China. Russia has warned against drawing the EU and NATO into Asian affairs, or creating an Indo-Pacific analog to NATO.

A more active role for Japan, in the collective West’s military-political structures in the Asia-Pacific region, will almost certainly provoke a response from China and North Korea. Moscow will then be faced with the need to strengthen strategic cooperation with them. This will allow our opponents to again drag out the tired old idea of ‘two geopolitical triangles’ in Northeast Asia.

Russia’s hardline stance on the Kurils is generally convenient for China. China itself has territorial disputes with Japan, and takes an extremely negative view of any attempt to revise WWII’s outcome in Japan’s favor. But the deterioration of our relations with Tokyo restricts our room for maneuver and ties us even more closely to China.

On the whole, South Korea and other U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region will read what has happened in Russo-Japanese relations as a negative signal. Seoul is watching Russian military activity in the Far East closely, especially as it coincides with deepening cooperation between Russia and North Korea. While South Korea is not obliged to take Japan’s side, the North Korea factor will make it sympathetic.

In Southeast Asia, the reaction is likely to be more pragmatic. For Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and other states, Russia has traditionally held appeal precisely as an alternative center of power. They are therefore unlikely to automatically endorse Japan’s interpretation of the territorial dispute.

Yet Russia’s demonstrated willingness to resolve territorial and military-political issues by force could lead some Asian states—especially those that have territorial disputes with China—to perceive Russia as a less predictable partner.

In short, while Russia has gained strategic weight in the Asia-Pacific, it may have lost space for diplomatic maneuver. At the present stage of the global conflict, such a tradeoff would appear justified, but Asian diplomacy is accustomed to thinking in much longer stretches of time. Russia must not give the impression that its range of options is shrinking, but rather bolster its reputation as a reliable and predictable long-term partner.

This article is an edited version of the paper written for the Valdai Discussion Club, https://valdaiclub.com/about/experts/georgy_toloraya

For citation, please use:
Gabroussenko, T.V., 2026. The Disaster of Abandoning Socialism: North Korean Discourse on Perestroika and Post-Soviet Reform. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 168–193. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-168-193

THE OFFICIAL NARRATIVE ON PERESTROIKA

In 1991–1994, Perestroika emerged as the central motif of the speeches and discussions of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. (In North Korea’s unique political landscape, leaders’ speeches serve as authoritative narratives that can be taken as indicative of scholarly discourse nationwide.) Both leaders viewed the Soviet Union’s collapse as a man-made catastrophe—an entirely avoidable event caused solely by the Soviet elite’s shortsighted and treacherous actions in the course of Perestroika. (Called Kaep’yǒn (개편), meaning ‘reorganization/restructuring’, and always accompanied by quotation marks with a negative connotation.) But the father and son focused their criticism on different aspects of Gorbachev’s sweeping reforms.

Kim Il Sung’s Retrospective Assessment

Kim Il Sung—then retired from active governing and mainly busy with writing memoirs and corresponding with friends and former colleagues—saw Perestroika through the lens of longstanding disagreements with the Soviet leadership.

Kim Il Sung was quite negatively disposed towards Mikhail Gorbachev, but did not blame him exclusively for the USSR’s downfall, which he attributed to the protracted erosion of its foundational principles since the post-Stalin thaw.

Kim Il Sung saw Stalin’s successors as ideologically deviant, personally degenerate, and self-interested, and the Soviet people as their confused and disoriented victims—who, without a worthy leader, were disheartened in the face of danger and failed to save their country. Yet he was sure that one day they would restore their Soviet motherland.

Throughout his later years, Kim Il Sung consistently reiterated these arguments in numerous writings and speeches, although not all of them were explicitly dedicated to this topic. Clearly, the old leader felt a need to share his ideas with the world. In a conversation with the performers after a Four Seasons concert on 7 February 1993, Kim Il Sung discussed the fall of the USSR. He blamed Khrushchev for revisionism and ideological laxity, “after which the USSR’s collapse became a matter of time.” He argued that Khrushchev’s actions had strengthened the influence of the U.S.’s hostile bourgeois ideology and culture, that “people remained interested only in money, cars, and dachas” (Kim Il Sung, 2011a, p. 23).

For Kim Il Sung, Gorbachev continued Khrushchev’s destructive policies that disarmed the people with false principles of ‘democratization,’ ‘openness,’ and ‘new thinking.’ Gorbachev’s abolishment of the CPSU’s leading role dismantled the very foundation of the country.

Kim Il Sung even suggested that Gorbachev “had likely received a lot of money” for destroying the USSR and the global socialist system. Kim Il Sung believed that while Gorbachev did not formally renounce socialism, he ideologically degenerated (Ibid, pp. 24-25). Kim Il Sung also accused Gorbachev of betraying his ally in the GDR, Erich Honecker, “selling him out to the imperialists” (Kim Il Sung, 2011b, p. 376).

During this meeting, Kim Il Sung also expressed the belief that “the Russian people most likely already regret the destruction of their country; many wish to restore everything, but they have no leader” (Kim Il Sung, 2011a, p. 25). He recalled conversing with a visiting Russian singer, who had promised to attend the Friendship Festival and perform his favorite song, Longing for the Homeland (사향가 sahyangga). She assured him that none of the CPSU members among her colleagues had betrayed the Party, and all were keeping their membership cards (Kim Il Sung, 2011a, pp. 22-23).

During a meeting with the leader of the Belgian Workers’ Party on 30 June 1994, Kim Il Sung deplored the USSR’s collapse, saying: “the country lost everything in an instant” (Kim Il Sung, 2011c, p. 408). He contrasted the “traitors,” Khrushchev and Gorbachev, with the exemplary and personally decent Stalin, a great leader whose resolve was pivotal in the war against Germany: “I still watch Soviet films about Stalin and see how he behaved during the war. He did not leave Moscow, even when the Germans were just 40 kilometers away.” “People really respected Stalin, going into battle ‘For the Motherland, for Stalin!’” (Ibid, p. 409). Stalin’s praiseworthy initiatives included his “fight against cosmopolitanism, i.e., globalism.” Under Stalin, there was no greed: “If someone received a pen as a gift from a capitalist country, he would give it to the state.”

Kim Il Sung claimed that Khrushchev used the fight against the personality cult to undermine Stalin’s posthumous authority, betraying and “selling the USSR to imperialists” (Ibid, p. 409). The USSR’s ideological decline began precisely under Khrushchev, when people lost their socialist and communist ideals and became preoccupied with material pursuits. This spiritual and ideological decay made them unable to recognize the reactionary nature of Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’ (Ibid, p. 409).

In a conversation with Chinese participants in the anti-Japanese liberation movement on 7 May 1994, Kim Il Sung emphasized the paramount importance of the communist parties in socialist states. He referenced the Chinese song “Without the Communist Party, There Will Be No New China” (Kim Il Sung, 2011d, p. 349) and expressed confidence that China would never abandon its Communist Party.

During this conversation, Kim Il Sung fondly recalled meeting Soviet hero Nikolai Lyashchenko, who had commanded the 10th Motorized Rifle Division of the 25th Army in Korea. They discussed how “the traitor Gorbachev” destroyed the 18-million-member CPSU by leaving it ideologically adrift. Kim noted that “Nikolai, like many former CPSU members, still keeps his membership card” (Ibid, p. 350).

During a meeting with foreign delegations on 16 April 1994, Kim Il Sung attributed the ruin of socialism in the USSR and East Europe to their communist parties’ bureaucratic complacency, inability to hear the people, and loss of popular support (Kim Il Sung, 2011e, p. 281). He also criticized Eastern Europeans for overly aligning with Moscow: “When it rained in Moscow, people in Berlin would open an umbrella” (Ibid, p. 281). Whereas the DPRK acts independently.

Kim Jong Il: Practical Lessons of Perestroika

As the de facto leader of the nation, Kim Jong Il called for drawing practical lessons from socialism’s collapse in the USSR so as to avoid a similar catastrophe in the DPRK. In his article Historical Lessons of Building Socialism and Our Party Line, he acknowledged that the USSR’s collapse had given rise to a narrative of capitalism’s victory and socialism’s defeat, one that many confused people accepted as true. “However, this is not so. We will learn these lessons and rebuild socialism,” Kim Jong Il wrote (Kim Jong Il, 2012a, p. 58).

Kim Jong Il held that one of the disaster’s most important lessons is the importance of maintaining national independence and resisting sadaejui (사대주의), or “serving the great,” subservience to powerful nations. Such independence underpins the DPRK’s resilience, distinguishing it from the Eastern European countries that unconditionally followed the USSR’s lead. “The USSR boasted of being a mighty power, yet now it has become a nonentity. The Eastern European nations, like blind following the blind, have also dissolved” (Kim Jong Il, 2012b, p. 420).

Kim Jong Il was confident that capitalism offers nothing truly attractive: despite its rhetoric of freedom and democracy, it fails to deliver genuine liberty. “The poor have only the freedom to seek a place to make money. People in the former USSR are now living through unemployment that never existed under socialism, and through declining living standards. They remember how things were under socialism, and so they protest against the government” (Ibid, p. 419). He also condemned the corruption in the USSR, noting that “traitors even stole the party’s finances” (Ibid, p. 420).

Kim Jong Il blamed the USSR’s collapse mainly on the over-bureaucratization of the CPSU’s formulation and propagation of ideology and on its disconnection from the masses. He stressed the importance of combating officials’ privileges, corruption, and arbitrary power, which undermine faith in the government. In his article Strengthen Party Work, Strengthen Socialism of Our Style, he wrote: “I have long said that developing the bureaucracy is like drinking poison” (Kim Jong Il, 2012d, p. 41).

Kim Jong Il underscored the importance of revitalizing party cadres: “When cadres degenerate under the influence of bad ideas, the party itself degenerates, becoming incapable of defending the gains of the revolution. The fall of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe offers a stark lesson in this regard” (Kim Jong Il, 2012e, p. 481).

In his article On Strengthening Revolutionary Principles, Kim Jong Il also attributed the socialist camp’s downfall to the diminished role of the leader. The Soviets and Eastern Europeans did not understand the necessity of the people’s loyalty to the leader, and “without the leader, there can be no independence; without the leader, it is impossible to fulfill historical tasks and safeguard the gains of the revolution,” he emphasized (Kim Jong Il, 2012f, p. 61).

To avert similar tendencies in the DPRK, Kim Jong Il called for closer work with the intelligentsia. He believed that “in the USSR and Eastern Europe, it was precisely the intelligentsia that—having encountered temporary difficulties—turned away from the party and destroyed socialism” (Ibid, p. 65).

He stressed that revolutionaries must trust the leader unconditionally—“without personal interest or pretense”—and “love the leader sincerely, without cries of ‘hooray’.”

As an example of insincere attitudes towards the leader, he pointed to Khrushchev, who praised Stalin while Stalin lived, and then dragged him posthumously through the dirt under the pretense of countering the cult of personality (Kim Jong Il, 2013, p. 72).

Kim Jong Il repeatedly affirmed that the DPRK would never follow the path of Perestroika. Even during the severe economic hardships of the late 1990s, known as the ‘Arduous March’, he firmly rejected any link between the country’s difficulties and its socialist system. In a speech to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on 27 September 1997, he attributed the crisis to the “disappearance of the common socialist market after the collapse of the USSR and the European socialist countries, and the economic blockade imposed by [North Korea’s] enemies” (Kim Jong Il, 2013a, p. 209).

Kim Jong Il also criticized party cadres for their inadequate response to the crisis, emphasizing that the DPRK must steadfastly uphold its socialist system. He warned cadres against being deceived by the imperialist and reactionary attempts to lead the country towards ‘reform’ and ‘openness’: “All this serves only to restore capitalism and undo the achievements of Kim Il Sung and the Korean people’s fifty years of effort…. Our principle is to live according to our system, defending our socialism without concession. I will not permit any ‘reforms’ or ‘openness’—this is my unwavering decision” (Ibid, pp. 209, 210).

To bolster his arguments, Kim Jong Il quoted some senior Soviet official, who had visited the DPRK, saw the good and the bad, and warned that the Koreans “should under no circumstances abandon socialism, since once capitalism arrives, nothing will be left of the good” (Ibid, p. 213).

Kim Jong Il underscored the vital role of art in stabilizing the nation and reinforcing statehood. He regarded Juche art, especially “revolutionary operas,” as politically impeccable, placing them above classical operas. He claimed: “although the USSR was always proud of the patriotic opera Ivan Susanin, it does not even compare to our patriotic revolutionary opera Loyal Daughter of the Party, created in the 1970s” (Kim Jong Il, 2012g, p. 116).

Notably, lamenting the DPRK’s shortage of popular songs imbued with “ideological artistry” (사상예술성; sasangyesulsǒng), Kim Jong Il pointed to the USSR during WWII (Kim Jong Il, 2012g, p. 191) and recalled the exemplary work of Soviet radio broadcasters like Yuri Levitan (Ibid, p. 190).

This illustrates North Korean leaders’ profound connection to the Soviet experience and their perception of the Stalin era as a benchmark and a normative standard.

In discussing the role of art in building up the nation’s morale, Kim Jong Il cited the song Holy War, written just three days after Nazi Germany’s invasion of the USSR (Kim Jong Il, 2013b, p. 84). Emphasizing the importance of promoting ideology, he recalls the character of Commissar Dmitry Furmanov in the film Chapayev (1934) (Kim Jong Il, 2013c, p. 308). And discussing the need to popularize the heroes of the Korean People’s Army, he cites Andrei Zhdanov (a Soviet politician responsible for developing the Soviet cultural policy) as an ideal party activist who “was respected by everyone, although he had few awards” (Kim Jong Il, 2013d, p. 375). He compared North Korea’s post-1991 blockade to that of Soviet Russia after the 1917 October Revolution (Kim Jong Il, 2012i, p. 269).

Thus, based on the USSR’s history, Kim Jong Il saw a need to strengthen the DPRK’s traditions, which were largely linked to those of the USSR under Stalin. He believed that North Korean society should become even more closed and militarized, with even stronger positions for its leader and the state. (Which actually means less ‘bureaucratization’, i.e., officials’ passivity, arrogance, disconnection from the people, and prioritization of formality over ideology.)

This meant abandoning the tentative attempts to open the country that Kim Jong Il had undertaken in the second half of the 1980s. And, although Kim Jong Il emphasized North Korea’s independence from great powers, he consistently turned to Stalin’s USSR, its national heroes and myths, as a point of reference.

Notably, while criticizing Perestroika, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il maintained respect and empathy for the Soviet people, seen as the victims rather than perpetrators of the catastrophe. A similar ideological narrative was established with regard to South Korea. In the 2000s, North Korean art and media began to portray South Koreans not as accomplices in Korea’s ongoing division, but as powerless victims of their reactionary government (Gabroussenko, 2011b). In both Russia and South Korea, this was blamed on a lack of worthy leaders, concordant with the masses’ infantilization in North Korean propaganda and ideology (Myers, 2010).

The emergence of Vladimir Putin changed North Korea’s rhetoric about Russia. In an interview to TASS on 24 July 2001, Kim Jong Il spoke of “friendly Korea-Russia relations” and noted that “his meeting with Putin in Moscow was a joyful event” and “meetings with the friendly people of Russia awaken happy memories” (Kim Jong Il, 2013e, p. 21). He evidently saw Putin’s ascent as an opportunity to revive friendly and cooperative relations with Russia.

THE FORMATION OF THE PERESTROIKA DISCOURSE IN CULTURE

North Korean leaders’ fundamental narrative of Soviet Perestroika was developed in detail in journalism and fiction.

In keeping with traditions of North Korean propaganda, the first response to the new political requirements was a song that briefly outlined the party’s strategy.

In 1991, Let Us Defend Socialism (DPRK Music, 2021), a song with lyrics by Sin Unmo and music by Hwang Chinyǒng, was released. Performed by the Pochonbo pop ensemble with an upbeat melody, it was reminiscent of the popular song Chollima Rushing (1966)—the unofficial anthem of the Chollima mobilization era (Sam Il, 2024).

Let Us Defend Socialism urged listeners to “hold the red flag high” “despite dark clouds and winds of temptation.” The refrain proclaimed that “our Party” and “our Socialism” were the finest in the world. The video clip reinforced this message by the images of socialism: bustling industrial facilities, free educational institutions, and maternity hospitals. Vulnerable social groups—children, the elderly, women, and young families—were depicted as living proof of socialism’s protective embrace.

The song boldly asserted that “success in defending socialism will be our victory, while its loss would spell the death of the country.” This dichotomy laid the groundwork for contrasting Perestroika with ‘Socialism of Our Style.’

The red flag emerged here as a potent symbol. Until the 1990s, flag symbolism mainly featured in historical narratives of Kim Il Sung’s anti-Japanese resistance. However, beginning in the 1990s, the red flag became part of a new epic narrative extolling North Korea’s Red Banner philosophy and unwavering loyalty to the Red Banner of Revolution (Kim Kich’ǒl, 1996). In Kim Myŏngik’s poem The Koreans (2000), “traitor” Gorbachev, against the will of the people, replaces Lenin’s red banner, over the Kremlin and the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang, with the “tricolor banner of tsarism.” This tragic image starkly contrasts with the resilience of the Korean red banner, which continues to wave proudly over the DPRK.

Contrasting Perestroika with ‘Socialism of Our Style’ became central to the stories published in the journal Ch’ŏngnyŏn munhak (Youth Literature). In the essay The Great Leader’s Order, renowned writer Hong Sŏkjin laments that “the USSR, once the giant of socialism, destroyed decades of socialist accomplishments. The whirlpools of ethnic conflicts produced tens of thousands of beggars and homeless people. The country was plunged into the cruel reality of capitalism’s sewers.” The people of the USSR and Eastern Europe “shed bitter tears of remorse, yearning for socialism in which they once found happiness.” Meanwhile, North Koreans, under their own leader, continue to defend socialist ideals, remaining “a happy and proud people” (Hong, 1996, p. 25).

Cho Ch’angju’s essay Heirs! (1996), draws a stark contrast between post-Soviet and North Korean youth. The former, with Perestroika, ceased to be the ideological heirs of their fathers. In the former socialist countries, “a girl joins the mafia for a handful of dollars and stabs her own father to death,” “young people indulge in depravity in neon-lit brothels,” “under the influence of drugs and alcohol, are photographed naked in dirty poses,” and “are mired in gluttony, debauchery, luxury, and entertainment.” Conversely, in the DPRK, young people “hold high the red banner of socialism,” resisting the winds of liberalism and remaining faithful to the ideals of their fathers, preserving the legacy of socialism.

The essay The Strength of Korea (Chosǒnǔi him, 2000) notes how the USSR—despite the formidable army and advanced weaponry with which it defeated Hitler, and which far surpassed the DPRK’s own military resources—collapsed without a single shot fired, because it had no leader. In contrast, the DPRK is led by Kim Jong Il, who unites his people and makes the world envy and admire North Korea’s strength.

Notably, North Korean media frequently cite laudatory statements by former Soviet citizens as evidence of Kim Jong Il’s greatness. In the anonymous article Analysis of Great Words (Myǒngǒnhaesǒl, 2000), Kim Jong Il is extolled by an unnamed Soviet military specialist, who describes the leader as “unique,” “capable of capturing the entire Earth with a single glance,” “unprecedented in history,” and “resembling a mythical giant who lifts the Earth with one hand and spins it.” The Russian specialist assures that “Kim Jong Il is infinitely brave, and although the world seems to be dominated by imperialism today, the Earth will soon be transformed according to Kim Jong Il’s plan.” This statement implies that the Russian specialist resents the current domination of imperialism in the world affairs. He sees protection solely in the Korean leader and pins his hopes for the future on Kim Jong Il.

Thus, North Korean propaganda employs (post-)Soviet figures as ostensibly objective mirrors reflecting the leader’s greatness. However, such statements have greater credibility when they come from more specific sources—and yet declining contact between post-Soviet Russia and North Korea was making it increasingly difficult to find reputable admirers of North Korea. Consequently, growing reliance was placed on fiction.

POST-SOVIET RUSSIA AND RUSSIANS IN LITERATURE

In the DPRK, the primary task of fiction has traditionally been social programming based on Stalinist principles of Socialist Realism (Gabroussenko, 2010, pp. 13-45). North Korean intellectuals have consistently expressed indignation over Russian authors’ rejection of Socialist Realism. They lament that, “after socialism was subjected to reform and capitalism returned, the literature of the former USSR and Eastern Europe began to corrupt workers and the youth, encouraging crime, bourgeois morality and degeneracy. It has thus lost its supreme value as the science of the human being” (Chwadamhoe, 1993). Meanwhile, North Korean writers reaffirmed their commitment to addressing contemporary challenges through appropriate works. Writer Paek Ǔnp’al, for instance, noted that the collapse of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe motivated him to write a new story about the leader’s greatness, and the novella Secretary of the Party Cell (Paek, 1994).

Yet it took North Korean authors nearly a decade to respond to Perestroika. One of the earliest works was Paek Pohǔm’s story Separation and Meeting, which depicts Kim Il Sung’s conversations with Soviet Koreans—descendants of Korea’s liberation fighters who visited the DPRK. The story features Kim Il Sung’s reflections on the disintegration of world socialism. Condemning his interlocutors’ political apathy—one woman is preoccupied with personal affairs, uninterested in politics and unaware of socialism’s collapse—Kim Il Sung remarks: “Why did the Soviet Union collapse? It’s perfectly clear. People were excluded from political life, their ideological education was disrupted. If people are made politically illiterate, how can socialism be maintained? After all, you are not the only one like this” (Paek, 1996, p. 14). This statement echoes Kim Il Sung’s actual comments on Perestroika, which he blamed mostly on the masses’ insufficient ideological engagement. Notably, Separation and Meeting contains no description of post-Soviet realities or realistic portrayals of Russians, focusing instead on Kim Il Sung himself.

It was only around 2000 that images of Russians and modern Russia began to appear in North Korean literature, largely in one of the contexts: 1) the DPRK as a positive contrast to Russia; 2) the DPRK as Russia’s hope and savior.

North Korea as a Positive Contrast to Russia

Ryang Ch’angjo, The Second Briefing (2000).

The story juxtaposes post-Soviet Russia and North Korea through the perspective of Shimada, a Japanese Marxist scholar who comes to Russia to understand the causes behind the USSR’s collapse and to meet his colleague, Svidriy Ruzhanskiy (sic.).

Shimada is frustrated to see the country’s profound transformation: the once-dominant state ideology has vanished, and the people are preoccupied with material pursuits. The Leninist red banner over the Kremlin has been replaced by the tricolor of the “Tsar’s dead spirit.” The Institute of Marxism-Leninism, once a model of the austere style with a golden sign and military-uniformed guards, is now dilapidated and guarded by an old porter in shabby clothes. Inside, books are strewn carelessly on the floor.  When Shimada inquires about their fate, the indifferent porter says they will likely be recycled. Shimada is appalled at such sacrilege.

Ruzhansky, a staff member at the institute, is in despair. His son Glakov (sic.) was killed by a “democrat” during the October siege of parliament, trying to defend the country from capitalism’s resurgence. Shimada recalls Ruzhansky’s son as a “handsome, optimistic young student,” who “sang patriotic songs with heartfelt emotion, with his mother accompanying him at the piano” (Ibid, p. 58).

From the gloomy Moscow torn by Perestroika, Shimada goes to Pyongyang. The North Korean capital appears as a “garden city,” its streets lined with slogans lauding the Leader. Seeing Kim Jong Il’s warm smile during a public ceremony, Shimada understands that “this great man is Korea’s strength, the symbol of its independence, and the defender of socialism” (Ibid, p. 63).

The story offers no concrete details about everyday life in Russia, except for the changes in the Institute of Marxism-Leninism and the new flag over the Kremlin. Its author is clearly unfamiliar with the Russian language and contemporary society: the names Svidry and Glakov are artificial, the characters of Ruzhansky and his wife are schematic.

Rim Hwawǒn, The Fifth Photograph (2001).

This is a family saga about the Soviet victims of Perestroika.

Young beauty Katya Sintsova comes from a respectable family of Communist Party functionaries. Katya’s great-grandfather, a Red Army soldier, perished in the Civil War, and her grandfather died defending the homeland from the Nazis in 1941. Her father, a high-ranking official in a regional Communist Party committee, is a selfless and honest man, and so is her brother Sergei, secretary of the Komsomol’s Moscow Municipal Committee. Katya’s mother died when she was a child, so she became the center of attention for her father and brother. Katya was a hardworking and easygoing child, loved to draw, and cared for her family. But after finishing school and beginning study at an arts university, she changes. She falls under the influence of Westernized students who skip lectures, find Komsomol meetings boring, and spend their lives dancing and buying fashionable clothes. Her father and brother try to get Katya back on the right track, but fail.

To the family’s horror, Katya begins meeting with foreigners. A young American, McConnolly, seduces Katya. He promises to marry her, but disappears after learning that she is pregnant. Katya has an abortion and sinks into depression.

Katya’s personal tragedy, coupled with the country’s decline under Perestroika, kill her father. His last words are: “Long live the Communist Party!” Katya mourns her father’s death, but considers him a “foolish idealist.”

Katya tries to sell four old photographs of her high-profile Communist ancestors on a boulevard, where Chinok, a North Korean translator, catches her in the midst of this shameful trade. Despite Katya’s cynicism and brazen manner, she cannot bear Chinok’s reproachful gaze, like “the voices of her conscience.” She “senses an incomprehensible light coming from Chinok.”

Katya travels abroad in search of her lover and discovers that her seduction was carefully orchestrated. It turns out that McConnolly is descended from a Russian émigré whose land was nationalized by Katya’s great-grandfather during the Revolution, and the McConnollys have sworn revenge on her family.

From abroad, Katya writes a letter to her brother, admitting that he and their father were right about everything, and that she, not her father, was a “fool.” However, she feels she has no choice but go to a brothel, “like Katya in Tolstoy’s Resurrection.” One day Katya suffers an accident, loses her leg, and becomes a one-legged prostitute in Munich attracting perverts.

A booklet from a Munich brothel containing Katya’s photograph falls into Sergei’s hands. This is the last, fifth photograph of a member of the Sintsov dynasty.

The Sintsovs are contrasted to the family of Chinok, a pure and beautiful forty-year-old woman, married to an officer and mother of three children. Chinok happens to witness a road accident in which Sergei, drunk, is hit by a car. The driver does not stop to help the injured man, and Chinok takes Sergei to hospital. Visiting Sergei later in the hospital, Chinok learns about his family’s tragic story, which caused his drinking habit. Sergei gives Katya’s photograph to Chinok as a reminder to the Korean people that socialism must be defended. Sergei compares the great leader of the DPRK with the traitorous Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

Back home, Chinok shows Katya’s photograph to her daughter. A high school graduate and talented violinist, the girl relinquishes the honor of entering a conservatory, where fame and fortune await, and follows her father and twin brothers—who were honored by a personal meeting with Kim Jong Il—into the army. Mother and daughter mourn Katya’s unfortunate fate.

Rim Hwawǒn’s story contains more details and Russian cultural allusions than Ryang Changjo’s text, but not always ones that are applicable to contemporary Russia. For example, it is clearly a strained parallel that has been drawn between Tolstoy’s Katya (a disenfranchised peasant girl forced into prostitution after being seduced by a young landowner) and the novel’s Katya (a young Muscovite artist, from a prominent family, living in sexually frivolous Russia of the 1990s). McConnolly’s motive and means of revenge are even less plausible. But it is telling that the post-Soviet heroine is juxtaposed to (unequivocally positive) conservative traditional morality.

Just like Ryang Changjo’s story, The Fifth Photograph is built on a sharp ideological contrast between hellish post-Perestroika Russia and blissful North Korea, repentant Russian “sinners” and North Korean “saints.” All the characters in the story are infantilized and deprived of agency. Their fates are either punishments for disobeying the ruling party (Katya) and failing to uphold socialist values ​​(the older generation of the Sintsov family), or rewards for loyalty to the Communist leader (Chinok’s family).

Characteristic of the story is Chinok’s salvation of Sergei, run over by an expensive car whose chauffeur (Sergei’s own compatriot) kept driving. The Korean saint (accentuated by her “inner light,” purity, and unfading beauty) saves the Russian sinner, drunk and depressed. Yet both sinners—Sergei and Katya—are portrayed with sympathy.

Later texts further develop the motif of North Koreans saving Russians.

North Korea as Russia’s Hope and Savior

Chung Yong Jong, Dawn (2001).

Communist Simkov is upset by a conflict with his family. His son-in-law Boris, who works for a large trading company, and his daughter Olga, a beautiful actress, beg him to quit his long-held job as custodian of Yaroslavsky Station’s ideological heritage. For years, this job was considered honorable, but now it is barely different from a cleaner, and moreover one who is not even equipped to carry out his duties. The famous monument to Lenin, with his arm pointing eastward to the “path of Yermak,” is weather-beaten and dirty, as no funds are allocated for its preservation.

Furthermore, in the new political situation, Simkov’s job is considered socially compromised. Boris, who had previously treated his father-in-law with respect at work, now openly calls Simkov “Lenin’s ghost” and a “Don Quixote” who does not understand the changing times, and calls his work “pathetic” (Ibid, p. 48). Olga apologizes to her father for this rudeness but asks him to resign so as not to create problems for his beloved granddaughter Tonechka, whose birthday is soon.

Simkov submits a letter of resignation, but feels as if he “has signed an abdication from his own life” (Ibid, p. 49). However, he is urgently summoned back to work. It turns out that Kim Jong Il’s train will be arriving at Yaroslavsky Station, and the authorities have decided to urgently refurbish the monument to Lenin. Simkov is to oversee this work.

Simkov recalls how his daughter, who performed at the April Friendship Festival in Pyongyang last year, spoke of the “inner light” coming from Kim Jong Il. Telling his daughter that he cannot come home for his granddaughter’s birthday because he is too busy readying the monument for the Korean leader’s arrival, Simkov says about Kim Jong Il: “Even if I am unable to see this man, I will see his light” (Ibid, p. 51).

Olga and Tonechka come to the train station with flowers for Kim Jong Il.

As Kim Jong Il’s train approaches the station, Simkov looks at the renovated Lenin, whose eyes seem to “blaze with a special light.”

After meeting the leader, Olga enthusiastically exclaims: “It’s impossible to look directly at Kim Jong Il’s smile. It’s warm, dazzling, and full of a charming gleam that literally draws you in. In his smile lies the soul of an eastern saint” (Ibid, p. 53).

Although the author employs certain realistic details of Russia (descriptions of Moscow and actual Russian names), the story is a mere projection of North Korea. Soviet/Russian railway stations have never employed ‘ideological supervisors,’ and the Russian characters describe Kim Jong Il with mystical metaphors common to North Korean political vocabulary.

The story underscores that socialist Korea is becoming a guiding star for Russia. Lenin’s Mausoleum, visited by crowds of people in the Soviet Union, yet nearly abandoned in post-Soviet Russia, is treasured anew after Kim Jong Il visits.

Simkov attributes some positive changes in the country—the introduction of benefits for veterans, recognition of Russia’s historical achievements, and respect for national traditions—to Putin’s visit to the DPRK and the impression made upon him by Kim Jong Il’s three-year mourning for his father. “And this is right. Today cannot exist in isolation from yesterday. We cannot be Yermak’s heirs if we forget Lenin, who united peoples. Why not think well of Communist ideology? Isn’t this what the leader of socialist Korea, Kim Jong Il, teaches us?” Simkov says (Ibid, p. 52).

The story ends with the exclamation: “The dawn of a new social teaching has come from the East, from the DPRK! Forward, follow this dawn!” (Ibid, p. 53).

Ri Kǔmch’ǒl. Change Course! (2004) (Ri Kǔmch’ǒl, 2004).

Perestroika also features in North Korea’s favorite genre of realistic science fiction, also common in Stalin’s USSR (Ivanov, 1950; Arbitman, 2021). Perestroika underlies the conflict in Ri Kǔmch’ǒl’s story.

Kim Sǒkjin, a young North Korean diplomat, is returning home from an overseas assignment on an American airliner with 250 passengers. He befriends two Russian passengers, astrophysics professor Vassily Ivanovich and his beautiful daughter Nina. The professor explains that after Perestroika, he immigrated to the United States, lured by the false rhetoric of freedom and democracy, but soon regretted his decision. The Americans engaged him in a project ostensibly related to a space program, but actually developing space weapons. Vassily refused to cooperate with the “merchants of war” and is now returning home, with an urn containing the ashes of his wife, who died in a suspicious road accident in New York.

Shortly after takeoff, it turns out that the plane is carrying a time bomb, set to detonate once it reaches an altitude of 3,000 meters. This is the American intelligence agencies’ revenge on the Russian professor for refusing to cooperate. The previous attempt to kill him, in a car crash, succeeded only in killing his wife.

Kim Sǒkjin remains the only person on board who maintains his composure and presence of mind. He quickly becomes the informal leader of panic-stricken passengers. Kim advises the professor to publicly announce his refusal to cooperate with the American space weapons program, and Vassily Ivanovich readily agrees. The Korean diplomat demands the crew change course and fly to North Korea, where military specialists use unique antigravity technology to stop the plane in mid-air and deactivate the bomb.

The rescued passengers rush to Kim Sǒkjin, offering him money and gifts for their rescue. Kim declines the gifts, declaring that their rescue is not his personal achievement, but that of his socialist homeland.

In this story, a North Korean rises above foreigners with his fortitude, willpower, quick reflexes, and exemplary moral character. He is also physically stronger than the others. When Nina is attacked by two American drug-addicted rapists armed with guns, Kim disarms both with his bare hands. Kim Sǒkjin is indifferent to material benefits. He refuses to accept the gifts—just like in the story recounted by Kim Il Sung mentioned above, when Soviets declined even foreigners’ gifts of pens.

The North Korean superman-diplomat derives his strength from his home country. Kim believes that “the socialist motherland will never betray its children.”

Kim Sǒkjin’s bravery and confidence are contrasted with the childish helplessness of the Russian characters. In the situation of general confusion, the Korean diplomat holds his Russian friends’ hands, reassuring them. Nina is portrayed as particularly childish. Even after learning about her father’s conflict with the American military, she cannot understand why these “bad people” tried to kill her father. Her father simplifies the story for her, saying: “It’s all about money, dear. They’re afraid they’ll lose it if I open my mouth.”

The Russian heroine’s childishness is offset by her tenderness and beauty. The Russian professor’s daughter provides a pleasant contrast to the vulgar Western passengers.

The story ascribes the same contrasting qualities to the countries its characters come from, comparing Russia’s credulity with North Korea’s foresight. While Russia disarmed itself in relations with the West, trusting in the latter’s deceitful calls for peace, far-sighted North Korea continued to develop its military technology, ultimately saving the innocent passengers, including the Russians.

The DPRK’s prudent international behavior wins its admirers among the Russians. In his interview with foreign correspondents, Vassily Ivanovich supports North Korea’s military program, emphasizing its defensive nature. He believes that the antigravity technology will help create an “iron shield” over North Korea.

*  *  *

Perestroika was long a key topic in North Korean leaders’ speeches. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il both saw it as a catastrophe caused by the treachery of part of the Soviet elite, but Kim Il Sung saw it mainly through the lens of the Khrushchev era, while Kim Jong Il focused on averting something similar in the DPRK. Specifically, he called for rejecting formalistic and bureaucratic attitudes in the party, which lead to losing touch with the masses and control over public sentiment. He also emphasized the need for party cadres’ loyalty to the leader, warned against trusting “imperialists” and “reactionaries,” and proclaimed that he would not permit liberal reforms. To counter liberal sentiments, the traditions of the Juche state would have to be strengthened. Culture should promote socialist ideology, buildup of the country’s defenses, and the strong position of the leader and the state.

Both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il often illustrated their positions regarding Perestroika by pointing to the policies and culture of Stalin’s USSR. Stalin and his comrades remained examples of true Russian leaders.

Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il believed that Perestroika brought no benefit to the masses in the former socialist countries, and that sooner or later those countries would see a socialist revival. They found support for these conclusions in personal conversations with Russian citizens visiting the DPRK.

Following Kim Jong Il’s directives, North Korean journalism and fiction began to shape the cultural discourse on Perestroika. Not all texts adequately understood Russian realities; depiction of Russia was often schematic and primitive. But conceptually, they were unified in the description of Perestroika as a “wind of temptation” for the DPRK, which would bring only grief to the people and ruin to the state.

The literary portrayal of Perestroika is characterized by a positive attitude towards Russia and Russians, who are described as an intelligent, educated, and beautiful people suffering from the destruction of socialism. Russians during Perestroika are depicted in a manner following the colonial-era Korean literary canon—authors like Ri Kiyǒng, Chae Mansik, Yi Kwangsu, Hyǒn Chin’gǒn, and others, who described victims of social injustice in the 1920s and 1930s. Such motifs abound in The Fifth Photograph, where a young man drinks himself into despair and is hit by a car, and a young girl is disgraced and forced into prostitution. The Russian characters’ attempts to fight Perestroika alone, without the support of a leader, are doomed to fail (in The Second Briefing, Ruzhansky’s son dies during the assault of the White House in Moscow in 1993).

In general, the victimized Russian characters are unable to resist the temptations into which the country’s “criminal leadership” (plunges them: young people lose faith in Сommunist ideals (Katya Sintsova and her classmates in The Fifth Photograph), middle-aged people turn into ideological conformists (Olga and Boris in Dawn), and the older generation succumbs to the onslaught of new materialism (Ruzhansky in The Second Briefing, Simkov in Dawn, the elder Sintsovs in The Fifth Photograph, Vassily Ivanovich in Change Course!). Their weakness is a consequence of the lack of a worthy leader.

The DPRK is presented as Russians’ only hope and savior. In contrast to the depressed and weak Russian characters, Koreans appear as steadfast, cheerful, and energetic people who come to the Russians’ aid in emergencies.

Unlike gullible Russians, Koreans do not follow the West’s lead and develop their own military technology, which helps them not only survive, but also defend their friends.

The source of Koreans’ strength is the Leader, whose various virtues are described in hyperbolic terms reminiscent of a deity. It is Kim Jong Il who inspires Russian leader Putin to restore Russia’s national traditions and symbols.

The contrast between traitorous Perestroika and steadfast ‘Socialism of Our Style’ is symbolized by flags—the proud red banner of the DPRK and the restored tricolor of the Russian Empire—the embodiment of the “spirit of the dead tsar.”

The North Korean narrative of Perestroika, based on a dichotomy of leaders-as-traitors and people-as-victims, has had far-reaching consequences for Russia-DPRK relations. First, the North Korean cultural space preserved Soviet culture as the product of an “ideologically correct” people. Later, it incorporated some ideologically neutral post-Soviet works. This resulted in the popularity of some modern Russian TV series and of concerts by Yaroslav Dronov (Shaman), and the inclusion of Russian and Soviet songs in the repertoire of popular North Korean singers—Kim Okju, Ch’ǒe Sǒlhǔi, Ch’a Yunmi, and others.

In North Korea under Kim Jong Un, the topic of Perestroika has disappeared from the media. Presumably, the country has gone a long way from the Arduous March and the economic crisis associated with the collapse of the international socialist bloc, which is now a distant memory. Also, in contrast to his father and grandfather, young Kim Jong Un does not see Perestroika as an emotionally charged phenomenon. The country has entered a new period of development, where the absence of a global socialist system is perceived as the default international situation rather than an unfortunate aberration resulting from someone’s missteps.

Over these years, no new works of culture addressing Perestroika have been created, and those made earlier are seldom broadcast. Exceptions are quite rare.

On 9 September 2021, during the celebrations of the Republic’s 73rd anniversary, the song Socialism Is Ours, composed in 1992 as a reaction to the collapse of global socialism, was performed (Meari, 2022). In its content, this song was out of place: it promises loyalty to the red flag, despite its rejection by other unnamed countries: “We will not follow foreign customs and foreign trends. Though the winds are strong, we will endure.” The song was probably selected for its well-known rhythmic melody, good for mass dancing.

In mid-2025, the April 25th Film Studio released the film Days and Nights of Confrontation, a reference to Perestroika (Taegyǒrǔi nat kwa pam, 2025). This political thriller, telling the story of a conspiracy against Kim Jong Il in the mid-1990s, features Perestroika as an opportune moment to activate sleeper agents in North Korea. In his confession to an investigator, the film’s antagonist says that Perestroika had weakened North Korea’s international and domestic position and signaled to him that overthrowing the country’s leadership was possible. However, eventually, the enemy’s hopes are dashed, and North Korea and its people prove stronger.

The narrative of the DPRK as a savior of the Russian people, created in North Korean culture in the early 2000s, miraculously became reality in 2025, when North Korean forces participated in liberating and demining parts of Russia’s Kursk Oblast. The narrative played a certain role in legitimizing this involvement in the Special Military Operation.

The currently evolving discourse regarding these events deserves a separate extensive study. Here it is worth noting that, in current North Korean literature on the SMO, the Russian tricolor is viewed as a symbol of modern friendly Russia and its army.

Importantly, in North Korean culture, the rhetoric of support for socialism and opposition to Perestroika is free of reference to economic issues. The Arduous March triggered the spontaneous development of the private market and entrepreneurship, which the Juche state effectively tolerates, but which find no reflection in the state ideology that continues to proclaim an invariable socialist course based on national unity and loyalty to the motherland and its Leader.

This article elaborates on the premises of the earlier publication: see Gabroussenko, 2011a in the References list.

For citation, please use:
Yefremenko, D.V., 2026. A New European Order, or Progressive Eurosclerosis? Russia in Global Affairs, 24(4), pp. 42–60. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-4-42-60

The European order was long equivalent to, or at least the main pillar of, the global order. But, within the last generation, this has ceased to be the case. The global order is undergoing a protracted and increasingly dangerous transformation, and considerations of the European order have been reduced to discussions about the EU’s future.

Conflating the European order with the EU is inherently incorrect, and also reinforces the illusion that Europe’s future is now in the hands of the Europeans (even as it remains unclear which nations are European). Since 2022, it has become entirely clear that the EU and the UK cannot independently shape the European order.

International order is here construed as a stable system of interactions between state and non-state actors, secured by a corpus of treaties and a balance of power that compels compliance with those treaties in practice. However, such a system may exhaust itself if it stops satisfying many of the actors needed to maintain it. The actual distribution of power, influence, and resources may come into conflict with the order’s formal rules and procedures, which are eventually recognized by many as unfair. Yet this alone is not enough to establish a new order. In prolonged transitions—Gramscian ‘interregnum’—the lack of factors establishing a new order may be taken as proof of the inviolability of the old, no matter how dysfunctional it may be. This is exactly the case with the current European order that emerged after the USSR’s collapse.

This order can be interpreted in two ways: as an era when the geopolitical vacuum was filled by NATO and the EU; and as an attempt to establish a subcontinental order through the diffusion of EU norms under U.S. protection (until Trump’s return). The EU’s expansion created the illusion of progressive and irreversible changes in Europe. Even when the EU shrank after the UK’s withdrawal, this did not really shatter the illusion that there is no alternative to European integration. This illusion itself was based on two assumptions regarding the future European order.

First, several waves of post-1991 NATO/EU expansion, carried out over Russian objections, produced the strong conviction that still more of the eastern periphery could be taken under control. The EU and NATO believed that, by cultivating pro-Western elites and gradually enmeshing new territories in obligations and rules, these territories would be irreversibly tethered to European institutions and structures. Russia’s intensifying objection to this expansion was seen as eventually surmountable, if only because Moscow would have to swallow each fait accompli to maintain economic cooperation with the West. After 2014, the EU imposed intensifying sanctions, expecting that the Russian government would be unable to cope and would eventually embark on a self-destructive path, at which point Russia—or the parts of it that escaped central control—would themselves become a new zone for EU absorption.

In 2022, when the West seized the chance for a proxy war against Russia, this scenario was radicalized.

In fact, the political mainstream in European countries remains confident that Russia’s current vulnerabilities will eliminate it as a subcontinental and global player before the EU is critically weakened by its own vulnerabilities.

Second, the EU was confident in the U.S.’s indefinite patronage, allowing the EU to fill the geopolitical vacuum in eastern Europe without exposing itself to the normally attendant security risks. Rhetoric of a security community based on shared liberal values, within which the use or even threat of force is virtually impossible, dates back to Karl Deutsch (Deutsch et al., 1957). It served as cover for a situation in which the U.S.’s military power not only ensured its political hegemony but also supported the European integration project by creating an external security belt. The U.S.’s huge preponderance within NATO stymied any aspirations of other members for geopolitical autonomy, encouraging their egalitarian cooperation in the course of integration. However, as a trade and economic bloc, the EU was a competitor to the U.S.. The EU also claimed leadership in some areas of international regulation, namely on climate change. Eventually, when the West’s ideological monolith cracked, the Eurocrats and most European countries’ political mainstreams turned out to be citadels of the ideology that is seen by the Trump administration as its principal opponent.

Who and What Can Change the European Order?

The fallacy of these assumptions suggests that the European geopolitical order has lost its foundation. But then who and what can transform it?

In most cases, the European order has changed due to wars that radically shifted the balance of power between their direct participants and other international actors. These changes, and the resultant new rules of the game, were formalized in multilateral peace treaties. But transformations in the European order can also take place without the “Estates General of Europe” (Bonald, 1815, p. 5). The most recent, caused by the Soviet Union’s breakup, was never formalized by an international congress. Instead, various bilateral and multilateral agreements were adopted on the basis of that breakup, ratifying Russia’s losses and further degrading its position.

Hypothetically, the Special Military Operation’s completion may provide grounds for establishing a new European order. But the military and political conditions, necessary for one side’s unconditional victory, remain absent.

More likely is a prolonged suspension of hostilities and the belligerents’ de facto recognition of territorial changes. An international congress or conference would not be the best format for formalizing this outcome, and would be of no interest to Russia.

However, there remains the possibility of a radical transformation, precipitated by a significant shift in the balance of power between the key actors in Europe. Brexit has increased Britain’s freedom of maneuver, but it essentially must still choose between Brussels and Washington. The U.S., regardless of its Euroskepticism, will retain strong and multifarious influence over the European order. China will also retain significant economic leverage there, as it becomes a center of global technological development. Türkiye, which formally continues to seek full EU membership, will obviously remain an external player, with its own agenda for Europe (especially those parts once held by the Ottoman Empire), while serving as a conduit between Europe and the Middle East.

Russia’s marginalization continued throughout the post-bipolar world order period. This process was limited by Russia’s geography, resources, military, and culture (part of European civilization despite persistent efforts to ‘cancel’ it). By 2014, Russia’s opinion on European security issues was no longer considered eligible for consideration in interstate dialogue. But Russia—pushed to Europe’s sidelines, yet free to act more decisively and independently in its own interest—began to exercise more influence over Europe as an external (Eurasian) actor. This status, though forced by confrontation, now seems optimal: Russia is not and should not be inside the European order, but it will exert influence on that order from outside, as befits its own security and interests.

The nature and scale of the European order’s transformation will significantly depend on Ukraine’s future and the outcome of the conflict there. If it escalates into a full-scale European war, the European order and European civilization may collapse. If there is a long-term ceasefire, Ukraine will remain a problematic area, whose integration into the new European order would be destabilizing (including due to Kiev’s claims to special status), but Ukraine’s prolonged status as a limitrophe would also be risky.

Below, we will take a closer look at non-military scenarios for the transformation of the European order and their relevance for Russia.

A Neo-Medieval Empire on the European Subcontinent

Many political observers, analysts, and policy-makers in the EU—including some incumbent leaders—realize that the EU is heading for a deep crisis, the avoidance of which requires transforming the EU’s current model of supranational integration.

However, such claims have been made for decades, and anti-alarmists often argue that crises are inherent to interstate integration (Monnet, 1978, p. 432) or have become the “new normal” (Haughton, 2016, p. 5). Descriptions of the EU as a “successful failing organization” (Beck and Grande, 2007, p. 70), only emphasize how it survives and even thrives as an institution despite constantly failing to achieve its strategic goals.

Aside from the philosophically sophisticated project of cosmopolitan Europe, debates about Europe-building ultimately reduce the choice between (1) united nation-states that have delegated measured amounts of their sovereignty to the supranational level (a ‘Europe of the Fatherlands’), and (2) a wholesale transposition of the nation-state model to the pan-European level.

Attempts to create a European federation have been unable to secure a mandate to dilute member-states’ sovereignty. Instead, since the European Constitution referenda failed in France and the Netherlands in 2005, and the Lisbon Treaty came into force in 2009, national regulation in various important spheres has been increasingly replaced by EU regulations and legal harmonization advanced by supranational institutions (Dawson and de Witte, 2013; Genschel and Jachtenfuchs, 2014; Majone, 2014; Schmidt, 2020). This has intensified the degradation of national political elites, which are becoming little more than a reserve for Eurocrats. Rhetoric of pan-European values and responsibilities has thus increasingly displaced national elites’ genuine connection with their voters’ interests and aspirations (Hobolt and Tilley, 2014; Hinterleitner, 2020).

Tellingly, there are problems with human capital at the pan-European level. Those delegated to Brussels are not the best and most efficient, but the most skilled in parochial political survival.

Top Eurocrats are chosen so as to balance between numerous diverse interests—not for professionalism and strategic thinking.

Most of the EU’s decisions are not expressions of unified political will, but compromises reached through tedious multilateral negotiation. These compromises create an array of contradictory regulations, often containing exceptions to previously agreed rules. This is especially the case in the spheres of trade, agriculture, migration, and the digital transition. Internal heterogeneity casts doubt on the EU’s long-term effectiveness; the iron tread of a ‘normative empire’ may belie its lack of genuine agency. Having pursued territorial expansion after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and USSR, the EU long ago passed the last point where it could have turned towards becoming a Westphalian state. Even twenty years ago, it was already the case that the EU resembles a kind of neo-medieval empire with a polycentric system of government, multiple and overlapping jurisdictions, striking cultural and economic heterogeneity, fuzzy borders, and divided sovereignty (Zielonka, 2006, p. 167).

The longevity of the European integration project is due to its benefits still outweighing its costs. No other association of sovereign states in human history has progressed so far in terms of integration. Thanks to inertia in the distribution of roles, benefits, and influence between countries with very different socioeconomic situations, the leading powers benefit from dominance in such a vast market, and the laggards receive subsidies and other support mechanisms (albeit at the expense of additional political concessions to Brussels and the European heavyweights). Notably, Brexit, the only example of a break with Brussels so far, has quickly lost its power to inspire. Now it serves more to frighten Euroskeptics in countries that are less able to cope with exit than the UK is.

The entire EU is also falling behind its main competitors—China and the U.S.—in investment, economic innovation, and labor productivity (Draghi, 2024). This is compounded by the population’s aging and by the apparently irreversible loss of cheap Russian energy and the post-Soviet peace dividend. And yet, despite the EU’s mounting problems, leaving it is likely to set a country back, depriving it of membership in the largest economic bloc. (Unless Brussels significantly softens the conditions of secession.)

Finally, one cannot ignore the effect of long-term systematic efforts to create a positive image of Europe and Europeanness, although it was Europe that has unleashed the bloodiest wars, committed monstrous crimes against humanity, and spread oppression and exploitation across the world during the era of imperialism.

The EU’s critics, who are incorrectly labeled as ‘populists’ or non-systemic forces, remain largely pro-European. While prioritizing the nation-state, they nevertheless declare commitment to a ‘Europe of the Fatherlands.’ Interestingly, many national-sovereigntists draw inspiration for a European confederation from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (Friesen, 2026). In such a neo-medieval empire, tendencies towards centralization and rigid hierarchy would be replaced by internal diversity and respect for particular (national) interests. National-sovereigntists value their states’ geopolitical agency, and oppose federalist tendencies that they see as projections of economic determinism into the political sphere, to the detriment of individual countries’ traditions and interests.

Does this mean that the likely electoral successes of national-sovereigntists, in leading European countries in the next five to ten years, will transform the European order?

Russia still has high hopes for national-sovereigntists, although there is no reason to expect ‘Orban’ rather than ‘Meloni’ in any particular country. Not all national-sovereigntists are conciliatory or even neutral towards Russia, and ideological proximity does not guarantee political rapprochement—at best, it creates a favorable background for dialogue. It is unlikely that national-sovereigntists will simultaneously rule several major EU members and agree to overhaul the integration model, or at least to reduce confrontation with Russia. Once in power (likely in coalition), national-sovereigntists will have to subordinate their ideas regarding European integration and cooperation with Russia (no matter how sound and pragmatic they might be) to domestic and international compromise.

National-sovereigntist forces may play a more significant role in a different, politico-procedural, way. In pursuit of political gains, and facing increasingly desperate efforts by their opponents to marginalize them, national-sovereigntists raise the most sensitive and often nearly-taboo topics, including the unfair distribution of powers and resources between the EU and a particular nation-state. This further erodes the pro-European consensus in a particular country, prompting the local political elites (even those demanding the national-sovereigntists’ isolation) to partially adopt Euroskeptic attitudes and (at the EU level) policies (Vollaard, 2014). If such changes occur in several countries, the possibility of deeper fragmentation will increase tangibly across the EU, trapping it for a long time in a state of semi-disintegration.

As Stefano Bartolini has shown, the greatest danger of destabilization is posed by conflicts over resources and influence in a political system with supranational and national levels of government. In the EU, the supranational center has gained significant decision-making powers, but is not supported by pan-European identity, as that is held by pan-European—but not national—parties, interest groups, and social movements. This clouds the prospects for further European integration, which could be disrupted by mass political mobilization or democratization (Bartolini, 2005, pp. 386-387).

Political mobilization is increasingly triggered not by questions of how to divide the social pie, but by issues of identity, and the traditional left-right political mainstream is not effectively coping with these changes.

The supranational center has little influence at the national level, where domestic interests and preferences prevail, constraining national governments in multilateral negotiations (Hooghe and Marks, 2008) and prompting them to seek exceptions to the EU’s ‘common policy’ in certain sensitive areas. Recalling the epithet for an earlier period of economic stagnation and decelerated integration (Giersch, 1985), this trend can be defined as ‘Eurosclerosis 2.0.’

Eurosclerotic trends should be assessed realistically. The EU remains an arena of multiple contradictions and struggle between diverse forces guided by different interests, values, and logic (Foster and Grzymski, 2022, pp. 116-131). In general, the potential for fragmentation is gradually building up, but steps to strengthen integration and partially streamline it organizationally are quite possible. In this context, well-timed and -targeted outside influence on intra-European processes may at some point be quite effective, especially if accompanied by other influences.

European Geopolitical Ambitions and Realities

Is the EU capable of defying these trends, to become not only the master of its own destiny, but the demiurge of a new European order?

One long-developing school of thought responds to every crisis with the mantra “More Europe!” It is heard today regarding the crisis of Atlantic solidarity, triggered by changes in the U.S. position on the Ukraine conflict and by Donald Trump’s anti-NATO invectives. In the Euro-optimistic version of the ‘post-American’ world, the EU will be the leader of a renewed rules-based international order (McNamara and Steinberg, 2026).

It is assumed that the EU will not only determine geopolitics on the European continent, but will also build a global coalition of like-minded countries interested in an open and predictable global economy. Obstacles can be overcome by deepening European integration, endowing the EU with strategic autonomy, centralized finances, and the world’s reserve currency. External threats—like ‘Russian expansionism’ and the second Trump administration’s destructive behavior—can supply member-states with (otherwise sparse) incentives to embark on this project.

One serious flaw in this logic is its treatment of political externalities as crucial for European integration and the reversal of Eurosclerosis. The crisis in NATO, and war in Eastern Europe, are expected to force governments and peoples to undertake extraordinary efforts, for which they were unready both organizationally and psychologically.

If the EU’s members really do agree to fiscal centralization and a binding military alliance, entrusting their citizens’ wallets and very life to the supranational center of power, then the EU will indeed establish a new European order. But is this likely?

Famously outspoken Croatian President Zoran Milanović has called European leaders “a pack of house cats” who will scatter as soon as matters come to the EU’s transformation into a defense union. Regarding leaders’ quality, behavior, and solidarity, Milanović’s assessment might be endorsed by most Europeans. But Europe’s genuine strategic autonomy would face other serious limitations outside the U.S. security cocoon.

Historically, European citizens have differed significantly in their perception of threats, and this ‘strategic cacophony’ (Meijer and Brooks, 2021) remains even after four years of rampantly demonizing Russia. Perceptions of Russia as the main adversary dominate in most EU countries, but the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s partial routinization has led to the reemergence of traditional historical-cultural threat perceptions or to attention shifting to emergent issues. For example, a July 2025 Pew survey of ten European countries found that the plurality of Spaniards (31%) named the U.S. as the greatest threat to their country, and 74% of Greeks named Türkiye, despite the Kyriakos Mitsotakis government’s consistent anti-Russian policy. Russia was named by a considerable number of Hungarians (33%) and Italians (32%), but Ukraine was not far behind in Hungary (27%), and in both cases the anti-Russian numbers were far short of a majority. Russia was named as the main threat by an overwhelming number of Swedes (77%) and Poles (81%) (Fetterolf, Clancy and Lippert, 2025).

There is no consensus among EU countries on how strategic autonomy should be understood.

It is generally defined as the ability to chart a political course, free from external influence and supported by the power and resources necessary to resist possible interference. But, more concretely, this might mean the ability to independently deter/repel an attack, or the strength and will to conduct limited operations without the support of the U.S., or industrial/technological independence (Posen, 2025), etc. Each definition requires its own priorities and investments.

Finally, NATO’s European members suffer from numerous, and in some cases critical, gaps in their military capabilities, which will take time and money to fill. But is Donald Trump’s mockery of NATO enough for the EU countries to start massively investing in ‘post-American’ strategic autonomy? In a sense, EU countries find themselves in the position of Buridan’s ass, unable to choose between minimizing the damage of Trump’s final years, or, instead, transforming the EU into a military alliance capable of acting independently of Washington or even contrary to it.

Trump will have neither the political window nor the legal authority to formally withdraw the U.S. from NATO, even if he wants to. His aggression against Iran has increased the chances of a major Republican defeat in the November 2026 midterm elections, and Trump’s career will end in a series of epic failures. But Trump can still further undermine NATO and the European elite. By 2029, Atlantic unity may be little more than a husk of contractual obligations and military infrastructure, surrounding deep mutual estrangement.

But if the U.S. leaves a vacuum of military and political leadership in Europe, and the EU is not made into a substitute for NATO, then the Franco-German tandem will end up leading the accumulation of military power (Simón and Fiott, 2025, p. 798). Despite France’s nuclear weapons, Germany’s role would be primary. No matter how much politicians in Berlin assure everyone and themselves of their commitment to pan-European values and the rules-based liberal order, the Zeitenwende announced by Olaf Scholz in 2022 will mean Germany’s return to European geopolitics.

Germany’s strong military-industrial potential has historically worried other European countries (Lukyanov and Prokopchuk, 2026), but until recently this concern was carefully suppressed. German remilitarization may prompt internal regrouping within the EU, including the formation of a group wishing to counterbalance Berlin. In search of a new balance, different players or groups within the EU will seek to strengthen their positions, including through the development of special relations with external actors capable of influencing the European order.

Europe’s accelerated militarization seriously threatens Russia, and must be addressed immediately. Current Russo-European relations amount to a state of deep hostility, in which each side seeks to identify and exploit the other’s vulnerabilities, while keeping away from brink of open war.

But, paradoxically, a new arms race, and the uneven burden of military expenditures, may ultimately increase Europe’s geopolitical fragmentation. Economically, the arms industry’s growth will clearly benefit Germany and a few other countries, with all the rest subsidizing the process. This alone will increase distrust and antagonism within Europe. In the absence of a clear vision for the future of NATO and the EU, nation-states like Germany, France, the UK, and Poland—as well as informal groups, such as the Balto-Scandinavian one—will again become actors in European geopolitics (Kapstein and Caverley, 2026). This aligns well with national-sovereigntists’ aspirations for strong security policies. Meanwhile, much of the left (e.g., the Sanchez government in Spain) will advocate for a strong European army, while parts of the mainstream (e.g., the center-right government of Portugal) keep clinging to NATO and American leadership.

Outside Influences

Despite the calls for its strategic autonomy, Europe is not only a player, but also the platform for a geopolitical game. The most powerful external players—the U.S. and Russia—tend for various reasons to distance themselves from European political actors, but are still present. Even half-turned from Europe, they still hold strong sway over it. But are external actors capable of reaching mutual understanding and dictating the European order’s transformation? For now, there remains the possibility of Washington and Moscow reaching an agreement leading to the cessation of hostilities between Russia and the Kiev regime. This would ratify a new balance of power in Eastern Europe, but not a change of the geopolitical order. Under this scenario, Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, the Donbass, and Kherson and Zaporozhye Oblasts would not be legally recognized by Kiev or the European countries, and even the U.S. would likely just acknowledge Moscow’s actual control over these territories.

Trump’s America is not interested in establishing a long-term stable order anywhere, nor is it interested in uncontrolled destabilization. The U.S. National Security Strategy 2025, which has caused such a stir, calls for establishing a more stable confrontation between Russia and Europe, controlled and when necessary manipulated by Washington as the supreme arbiter (National Security Strategy, 2025). Obviously, this is not the kind of stability that is characteristic of the established geopolitical order.

Recent developments, following the publication of the ‘Donroe’ Doctrine, confirm that Trump will always act as he sees fit at the moment, even when this contradicts the doctrines signed by him. NSS 2025 is not very complimentary towards NATO, but does not signify any critical reduction in U.S. participation in the alliance. The Europeans (including the UK) are trying to develop responses to Trump’s extreme frustration with his European allies during the second U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, but most European governments will likely freeze in a kind of stupor, waiting for the overseas troublemaker to make a fatal mistake or become completely absorbed in the fight against his regrouped internal opponents. Both those opponents, and many European politicians and populations, are beginning to see Trump’s America as a ‘rogue superpower’ (Kagan, 2026) as dangerous as ‘expansionist’ Russia.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, ever-fewer people have tried to find some farsighted calculation in each of his decisions. But his anti-NATO diatribes are repeated too often to be attributed solely to his psycho-emotional state. If his frustration undercuts the remaining pillars of the rules-based order (including its European subsystem), this probably reveals a strong (perhaps subconscious) drive towards chaos, removing the last restraints on ‘America First.’ A new attempt to seize Greenland cannot be ruled out; this time it may be presented as necessitated by the unreliability and duplicity of NATO allies.

The politico-ideological estrangement between Trump and the majority of European leaders, whom he can rightfully view as sympathizers and likely allies of the U.S. Democratic Party, may evolve into a more structured confrontation. Vice President Vance’s speech in Munich, and NSS 2025 contain the necessary arguments for that. The Strategy directly links Europe’s civilizational decline to the EU and other transnational bodies that undermine political freedom and sovereignty, pursue transformative migration policies, impose ideological censorship, and suppress political opposition (National Security Strategy, 2025). Acting under the slogan of restoring Europe’s former greatness, the Trump administration may intensify pressure on the EU’s supranational institutions and the European political mainstream, and increase support for America’s political and ideological allies within Europe. However, these efforts may be hindered by imperial overstretch, as well as by Trump’s antagonization of many of MAGA’s apparent European partners.

It is noteworthy that Western commentators sometimes describe the growing rift in NATO by referring to Thucydides’s Melian Dialogue. Projecting the fate of the unfortunate Melians onto Europe, and lamenting that the U.S.’s benevolent leadership of a symmachia of free polises has been replaced with crude imperial diktat, commentators point to the inexorable logic of political realism, according to which an empire cannot permit neutrality for states within its sphere of influence (Schnaas, 2026; Patrick, 2026).

But the Melians (Europeans) for decades indulged the powerful Athenians’ (Americans’) increasing tilt towards brute coercion. Regardless, such reasoning could be considered indicative of a new pragmatism for a new geopolitical situation—if Thucydides’s realism were not immediately abandoned for Herodotus’s narrative of Thermopylae, as soon as the subject changes to Ukraine and Russia.

As long as we see such a readiness to swap narratives, there is no reason to expect European mainstream politicians to seriously approach building a new regional order. Unconditional confrontation with Russia anchors them to moral superiority as the guardians of liberal civilization from the barbarians to the east.

A change of political elites would not necessarily end the anti-Russian dogma, and would in any case proceed unevenly and require many years to complete.

The EU has become institutionally incapable of equal dialogue with Russia. Its norms, rules, policy directives, etc.—especially since its 2004 enlargement—are determined by the union’s most anti-Russian members. Anti-Russian European Parliament resolutions gave way to binding decisions of the European Commission and the European Council, eventually permeating the entire EU policy-making process. Russia-EU relations were constrained to their minimum possible level. This array of decisions, restrictions, sanctions, etc. steadily grew over time, becoming a giant ‘glacier’ that institutionally blocked any effort to alleviate tension. There are no grounds to expect EU institutions to engage in a constructive dialogue with Russia in pursuit of a reasonable political deal, let alone a stable European geopolitical order.

As the EU’s landsknecht, Ukraine will continue to generate geopolitical disorganization even if the armed confrontation with Russia ends (or is suspended for a long period). While the question of Kiev’s membership in NATO has practically been removed from the agenda, its fast-tack admission to the EU, demanded by the Zelensky regime, may deepen the EU’s internal divisions. Concerns for Europe’s labor and food markets are already enough to delay eastward expansion indefinitely. But the main challenge would be incorporating a relatively large country with a ruined economy, a huge military dependent on massive European funding, and a likely willingness to ‘creatively’ interpret the EU’s common foreign and defense policy in service of anti-Russian revanchism. If Kiev gets a voice in the EU (even on certain political matters), it will never be satisfied with the role of a backbencher. Riding the Thermopylae narrative, Ukrainian leaders will seek to consolidate their exclusive role in Europe and insist on a constant supply of resources to “contain” Moscow.

The most realistic scenario is that, soothed with promises of a European future, Ukraine will for a long time get stuck as a limitrophe state, controlled by the U.S. and European powers, which will continue to transform it into a “steel porcupine.” The Coalition of the Willing, whose very appearance amplified strategic cacophony in Europe, is likely to remain an anti-Russian ad hoc partnership, but will not become a real replacement for NATO or a structured military alliance within the EU. However, the Kiev regime will use the vagueness of the Coalition members’ commitments, and their lack of clear behavioral algorithms in crisis, to push them towards ever-riskier testing of Moscow’s red lines. Ukraine will also remain the epicenter of attempts to destabilize Russia’s political system and constitutional order.

*  *  *

A new European order is needed to, at the very least, prevent total war, but is not yet possible. The UK and leading EU powers—unsure of their own capabilities, their main ally’s reliability and intentions, and their main opponent’s willingness to put up with the blurring of its red lines—will remain the core obstacle for a new, stable configuration in Europe. The post-bipolar order became dysfunctional in 2014, but most Europeans continue to cling to it, unable even to articulate the need for a different order whose external guarantors and beneficiaries would include Russia. So far, European official thought has gone no further than Ursula von der Leyen’s call for the “completion of the European continent, so that it is not influenced by Russia, Türkiye, or China” (Kemper, 2026).

The problem, however, lies not only in the limitations of the European elites’ strategic vision. It is produced by the distribution of power within the EU, and by the political legitimacy thereof. Calls for the EU’s further expansion and strategic autonomy are exacerbating ‘Eurosclerosis 2.0.’ Meanwhile, the disturbing processes—described by the Trumpists and national-sovereigntists, with some reason, as endangering civilizational identity—continue.

One of the main dangers of progressive Eurosclerosis is that the desire to defeat Russia continues to unite the majority of European politicians. Moscow has limited room to keep the current European elite from uncontrolled military escalation.

This could be accomplished through a clear message that such escalation, if unleashed, would proceed rapidly and Russia would go beyond the use of tactical nuclear weapons (Trenin, Avakyants and Karaganov, 2024).

Aside from enhancing awareness of this threat, within European societies and the more reasonable part of their political forces, Russia should at some point raise the possibility of agreeing on a European order that would ensure greater security and at least a partial return of the benefits of peaceful coexistence.

This requires preparation. It will be very difficult and dangerous, since Russian-European interaction is determined by mutual desire to exploit the other’s vulnerabilities.

But it would be a simplification to view Russia and the European countries as existentially incompatible. Rather, their interaction is cyclical. We are currently in the phase where Nikolai Danilevsky’s conclusions, drawn from the Franco-Prussian War, are relevant again: “1) struggle with Europe is in any case unavoidable,” and “2) any disturbance of the political balance in Europe is beneficial for Russia” (Danilevsky, 1890, p. 8).

Danilevsky’s maxims will not hold forever, but they will endure until all sides recognize the need for a new, internally and externally balanced European order. Russia needs it to protect itself from the West, and build its desired future, no longer linked to Europe.

This article is part of the project “Interaction between Russia and Europe as Partner-Vulnerability Management: Mutual Risks and Opportunities for Departing from the Confrontational Agenda” carried out with the support of HSE’s Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs.

For citation, please use:
Kiriyanov, O.V. and Subeom, Ch., 2026. The Northern Sea Route as a Field of Deferred Russia-South Korea Cooperation. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 208–223. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-208-223

In recent years, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) has firmly established itself as one of Russia’s key long-term projects: not only a transport artery, but part of a broader Arctic policy that integrates logistics, resource exports, energy infrastructure, and the spatial development of northern territories (Presidential Decree, 2020). In this sense, the NSR is a long-term geo-economic project.

The NSR’s development is proceeding under severe external constraints, primarily sanctions, which have significantly limited opportunities for international cooperation, and increased Russia’s dependence on a limited number of partners. This increases the need for diversified external relations that can supply strategic options in the future.

In this context, the intersection of South Korean and Russian interests in the Arctic and the NSR is of special relevance. South Korea holds strong positions in maritime logistics, shipbuilding, and complex infrastructure projects. But Seoul’s cooperation with Russia has in recent years been restrained by commitment to Western sanctions.

However, reducing South Korea’s position on the NSR to the lack of practical cooperation would be an oversimplification. Since June 2025, South Korea’s new government has displayed interest in rapprochement with Russia, North Korea, and China (while maintaining the alliance with the U.S.). Notably, development of the NSR has been included in the new government’s key objectives (National Policy Tasks, 2025, p. 118).

South Korean experts and businesses are also discussing the NSR as a promising opportunity to transform global logistics and ensure South Korea’s long-term national interests. Such discussions do not displace government policy, but can serve as a basis for planning longer-term cooperation.

This article discusses how Russia-South Korea cooperation in the Arctic can be conceptualized amid the current political and economic restrictions. Particular attention is paid to the approaches of the South Korean government, experts, and businesses. We describe possible medium- and long-term ‘deferred cooperation’ between Russia and South Korea regarding the NSR, which for now would involve the development of various options and the enactment of measures to lower future transaction costs.

The Northern Sea Route in Russia’s Geo-Economic Strategy

Official Russian documents and policy increasingly describe the NSR not as a backup transportation route, but as an independent infrastructure axis. It is part of a broader strategic project, the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor (TATC), intended to become a year-round logistics artery and the shortest sea route between Europe and Asia. The TATC also includes major rivers, railways, and roads in the Arctic (Kraev, 2026).

Economically, the NSR transports energy and other resources from Russia’s Arctic, and is thus necessary for the realization of major resource-extraction projects in the region. It will complement existing global logistics corridors. And it is linked to the development of Russia’s technological and energy autonomy, including the construction and modernization of Russia’s own icebreakers and port infrastructure.

However, the NSR’s high capital intensity and its technological complexity, as well as the need for investment that is long-term and reliable, narrow Russia’s choice of partners. Sanctions have further reduced Russia’s access to Western technologies, financing, and insurance. Russia’s critically-important Arctic agenda thus needs a diversification of external partners—not for immediate project implementation, but for medium- and long-term cooperation.

South Korea could be useful here, even while maintaining its own interests.

South Korea’s Arctic Policy

Main Contours

South Korea’s polar research policy took shape later than that of other Arctic states. However, in recent decades, Seoul has transitioned from an observer to a full-fledged participant in international activities in the polar regions. Notably, South Korea’s Arctic policy combines research, economic, and diplomatic objectives, and (lacking direct access to the region) relies on international cooperation and the country’s technological advantages.

South Korea’s polar policy dates to the late 1980s, when research infrastructure and dedicated scientific institutions were created. Since the late 1990s, economic factors have intensified interest in the Arctic: South Korea’s export-oriented economy is almost entirely dependent on maritime transportation, hence the importance of new transport routes (primarily the NSR).

Since Arctic phenomena influence Korea’s climate, South Korea also has an interest in climate research there.

A key feature of South Korea’s approach is its treatment of the Arctic and Antarctic as interconnected areas of research and economic activity. South Korea focuses on areas of competitive advantage: shipbuilding, maritime logistics, polar technologies, and scientific research. By creating an icebreaker fleet and research stations, and participating in international scientific programs, South Korea has gained a firm foothold in the system of global polar cooperation (Kiriyanov, 2023).

With Seoul’s acquisition of observer status in the Arctic Council in 2013, its policy became more institutionalized. Its plans have shifted from purely scientific (international cooperation and research) to also economic (transportation, resources, and technology).

In 2022, the Law on Stimulating Activities in Polar Regions enshrined the government’s responsibility for advancing polar research, infrastructure construction, human resources, and international cooperation.

The Arctic Strategy Until 2050 was also adopted, declaring the goal of becoming a leading power in sustainable Arctic governance through participation in international climate change programs, involvement in the region’s sustainable economic development, expanded Arctic diplomacy, and development of the national research and technological base.

Finally, The Medium-Term Plan for 2023–2027 repeated those objectives, acknowledged the growing competition in the polar regions, and the need to strengthen South Korea’s position by developing the icebreaker fleet, satellite monitoring, environmentally-friendly shipping technologies, and international cooperation (Kiriyanov, 2023).

South Korea’s Arctic policy is generally pragmatic and multifaceted: scientific activity legitimizes its presence, diplomacy compensates for the lack of territorial access, and technology and logistics underlie long-term economic interests.

The NSR in the Lee Jae-Myung Government’s Strategy

The NSR is named a priority in all of South Korea’s polar laws, programs, and plans.

In 2017, at the 3rd Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed ‘Nine Bridges of Cooperation,’ including several Arctic-related areas: the NSR, shipbuilding, port development, and gas supplies (Seo, 2021, p. 184).

The new South Korean government, led by Lee Jae-myung, which came to power in June 2025, has elevated the NSR’s importance, making its development a priority—not within a regional or scientific agenda, but within South Korea’s maritime and logistics strategy.

This policy is enshrined in National Policy Task No. 56: “Creating a K-Sea Power, Leading the Era of the Northern Sea Route.” Essentially, it links the South Korean maritime industry’s future to the development of new Arctic transport routes and the creation of infrastructure supporting South Korea’s participation in the redistribution of global logistics flows.

The South Korean government is ready to start practical implementation of this project, with pilot voyages along the NSR, followed by the route’s transformation into a commercially viable corridor. To this end, the government intends to financially support national shipping companies in the construction of icebreakers and the development of technologies for transport in icy conditions (National Policy Tasks, 2025, p. 118).

The port of Busan is planned to become a key logistics hub for servicing Arctic cargo flows. There are also plans to build port facilities for containers, LNG, and oil, and to modernize port infrastructure with environmentally friendly and smart technologies. More generally, South Korea plans to increase its transport fleet’s capacity and environmental friendliness, which should enhance its competitiveness on new routes. South Korea’s strategy also emphasizes the need to intensify international cooperation through participation in global maritime forums and through partnerships in Arctic shipping. The NSR is viewed as a transport project, but also as a source of new technologies, an incentive for shipbuilding, and a source of future economic advantages (Ibid).

Yet Seoul’s plans for the NSR’s development face a dilemma. From the very beginning of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine, South Korea has supported Western sanctions on Russia, including in the Arctic. With Lee Jae-myung’s accession in 2025, rhetoric has noticeably softened, but so far without any concrete change. While Seoul is not at the forefront of Western efforts to impose new sanctions on Russia, it strictly adheres to existing ones. It is generally believed that progress in Russia-South Korea relations will be possible only if the West softens its approach to Russia, since Seoul follows its main military and political ally, the U.S.

But effective use of the NSR, lying along Russia’s coast and running through its exclusive economic zone, is impossible without Russia. Hence Seoul is seeking ways to resume cooperation with Russia on the NSR, without violating the current sanctions regime (Pak, 2026).

South Korea’s Search for New Ways to Use the NSR

The Expert and Business Perspective: Rational Caution

South Korean experts and businesses approach the Arctic and the NSR from a longer-term pragmatic perspective, weighing opportunities and risks in light of national interests.

Expert discussions, which often include government officials, tend to shift focus from the current political situation to structural changes in global logistics and energy. The NSR is seen not as requiring immediate action, but as an element in the future transformation of global maritime routes, one whose importance could increase as traditional corridors become more congested and risky.

South Korean analytical papers emphasize that the NSR is “not just the shortest route between Asia and Europe, but a strategic option capable of strengthening the stability and predictability of supplies” (Ko, 2025).

Geopolitical crises in recent years—the blocking of the Suez Canal and restrictions on the Panama Canal—have exposed the vulnerability of even a well-developed logistics system.

However, in discussing the NSR, experts and business do not oppose the government’s position. Rather, the products of such ‘ideas incubators’ are intended only for later implementation. Strategic interest in the NSR is thus maintained within the boundaries of current government policy.

Today, the debate is around which region and port should be primary beneficiaries of the new strategy and how the new plans should be implemented. Since the NSR’s inclusion in Lee Jae-myung’s list of 123 development priorities, competition for connection to the NSR has risen between South Korea’s regions and ports, several of which have proposed their own (Kiriyanov, 2026a).

Pragmatically, the South Koreans acknowledge that the NSR should be tapped through cooperation between private corporations of Russia and South Korea, as they are less dependent on geopolitical factors. South Korea’s large corporations have shown little enthusiasm so far, content in their reliance upon standard routes. But as global warming extends the period of Arctic navigability, and the vulnerability of the Suez Canal and other routes becomes clear, the NSR’s advantages in shipping to Europe will force even the large corporations to turn towards it (Ma, 2026).

Furthermore, although the South Korean government and businesses constantly claim their independence from each other, there are numerous mechanisms for ensuring the alignment of their positions. The government’s inclusion of the NSR in the official list of key development objectives has pushed companies to become more active. Yet South Korean businesses continue to strictly comply with anti-Russian sanctions (Park, 2026).

While both experts and major companies view the NSR as a strategic opportunity, they emphasize that its use entails significant risks, primarily sanctions against Russia and against those who cooperate with it. Financing is especially vulnerable.

There is also the political risk of sudden international developments, including projects’ suspension by either Russian or South Korean authorities, especially if South Korea’s conservatives—who traditionally give unconditional priority to the alliance with the U.S.—return to power. These risks necessitate additional legal guarantees and special investment protection regimes.

The South Koreans also note inherent limitations of the NSR. Arctic conditions require enhanced ice-class standards, expanded insurance coverage, regular personnel training, and exchange of meteorological data. This raises operating costs and makes the NSR more complex compared to traditional routes. All of this is compounded by the shortage of specialized vessels, limited capacity of ports located along the NSR, the need to develop modern river-sea cargo handling facilities, and other infrastructure deficiencies (EY Report, 2026).

On the whole, South Korean experts and big businesses view the NSR not only as a promising alternative corridor, but also as politically, financially, and operationally uncertain, requiring a cautious and phased approach.

The New Leadership’s Tentative Approach

Despite all the risks, difficulties, and limitations, South Korea is already taking steps towards realizing its NSR goals.

In the second half of 2025, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries began consultations with domestic companies on staging a trial voyage by a South Korean container ship from Busan to Rotterdam via the NSR. In January 2026, the Ministry announced preparations for negotiations with Russia on the NSR trial voyage, with consultations scheduled to take place in the first half of 2026. To organize the passage of a 3,000 TEU container ship, on 27 April 2026 a bidding contest was announced among South Korean shipping companies ready to operate in Arctic conditions. The winner was announced in the middle of May 2026. Busan-based PanStar Line Dot won the contest and will receive government support of up to 4 billion wons (about $2.3 million) for the construction or retrofitting of an icebreaker, along with port fee exemptions. To coordinate the project, a headquarters involving ten government agencies has been established (Kiriyanov, 2026с).

The project aims to test the NSR in practice, accumulate Arctic shipping experience, and check the economic and technical feasibility of large-scale repeat shipments (Kim, 2026; KMN, 2026). The South Korean authorities have not yet articulated how exactly they would like Russia to assist the trial voyage, but they are likely to request right-of-passage, navigation information, and a commitment to provide supplies and repairs as necessary.

South Korean bulk carriers have sailed through the NSR five times, but its container ships have never done so. The South Koreans’ activity is largely instigated by the passage of a Chinese container ship through the NSR in 2025, and by Beijing’s overall increased activity in the Arctic (Kiriyanov, 2026b).

Acting Minister of Oceans and Fisheries Kim Sung-beom has confirmed readiness to resolve the sanctions issue: “Russia requires that we receive permission to transit the portion of the NSR that passes through Russia’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. In this regard, it is important to establish cooperation with the relevant [Russian] authorities. However, since our country is also participating in Western sanctions imposed against Russia, we plan to find a mutually acceptable solution. We are preparing negotiations with Russian authorities in the first half of this year” (Yoon, 2026). This indicates not an intent to lift sanctions, but rather to find ways around sanctions-related difficulties (e.g., with payment of transit fees) in order to ensure the South Korean vessel’s one-time passage.

Thus, fully aware of all the risks and limitations, Seoul has begun taking the first steps towards long-term cooperation with Russia on the NSR, by preparing cautious pilot projects. The first trial voyage was announced to be realized in August-September 2026 (Lee and Park, 2026).

Cooperation Opportunities Under Different Scenarios

Russian and South Korean Long-Term Interests

Russia has a long-term interest in cooperating with South Korea in the Arctic, and on the NSR in particular.

First and foremost, Russia needs to diversify its external partners. Under sanctions and with limited access to Western technologies and markets, Russia has enhanced cooperation with China, including in the Arctic, but long-term dependence on a single partner poses strategic and economic risks. Thus, Russia stands to benefit from adding other, complementary Asian partnerships.

Second, the largest NSR-related challenge, besides attracting investment, is acquiring special technologies and skills required for operation in Arctic conditions. The NSR development requires a specialized fleet, efficient port management, and the coordination of complex seasonal routes.

In this context, Russia would benefit from investment and technology partners to defray the NSR’s costs and smooth its operation.

The third factor relates to the economic rationale for developing the NSR. The project remains capital-intensive and highly risky. Its competitiveness directly depends on the ability to control operation costs, ensure supply reliability, and reduce accident and climate risks as much as possible. For Russia, cooperating with external industrial partners is a way to increase the efficiency of its Arctic activity, rather than internationalizing it. In this sense, South Korea is viewed not as a sales market, but as a potential partner in creating a more sustainable economic model for the NSR’s operation and as a source of capital.

The fourth factor is the geo-economic dimension of potential Russia-South Korea cooperation. It is critical for Russia that the NSR become an internationally significant route, rather than a domestic or bilateral one. Sustained interest from various Asian economies, including South Korea, will help develop the NSR within the broader Eurasian logistics system. In this sense the Korean track of cooperation is part of a strategy for maintaining the diversity of external relations.

Fifth, and final, is the political factor. South Korea is not an Arctic power with political or territorial ambitions in the region, and cooperation with it is thus less likely to be politicized, more likely to remain pragmatic.

As for South Korea’s interest in cooperation, it is exclusively practical: the NSR largely runs along the Russian coast and through its inland waters. As a trading nation relying more than 99% on maritime shipment, South Korea seeks to diversify transportation routes and reduce logistical risks. For Seoul, the NSR is a potential alternative to the instability of traditional sea routes. Furthermore, South Korea is interested in long-term access to the Arctic’s strategic raw materials (e.g., lithium for batteries) and in putting its shipbuilding and engineering to work.

Leaving sanctions aside, the long-term interests of Russia and South Korea overlap in several key areas.

First, shipbuilding and an Arctic fleet. Russia needs river-sea-class vessels and specialized research and support vessels, while South Korea has the expertise and experience to organize modern, large-scale ship production, including ice-class vessels. South Korean expertise could also support Russian ports’ technological, digital, safety, and environmental modernization (EY Report, 2026, pp. 13, 17-20).

Second, South Korean companies’ expertise in construction and port digitalization could be of use in managing port-to-railway-to-NSR and river-to-NSR shipments.

Third, Arctic resources, exported via the NSR, could be utilized by South Korean manufacturing, e.g., of batteries (EY Report, 2026, pp. 18, 21-22).

Strategically, the NSR could become not just a single route, but an element of a broader architecture in the Arctic and Northeast Asia, combining Russia’s resources and logistics with South Korea’s technology and industry.

Deferred Cooperation in the Current Geopolitical Environment

Under the current sanctions regime, opportunities for practical cooperation on the NSR will remain very limited, but possible. The main task is to create the broadest possible framework and mechanisms for deferred cooperation in a future more favorable environment.

Joint investment projects and a strategic alliance are currently impossible, but cautious technical, infrastructural, and expert-based cooperation can be devised.

Possible tracks of cooperation include:

1. Specialized shipbuilding. Joint construction not of large-capacity icebreakers, but of the small and specialized ice-class vessels servicing the NSR’s river-sea logistics. This includes design, engineering, technical documentation, standardization, and consulting.
2. Ports and infrastructure. South Korean specialists may participate in the development of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and other ports—and of associated railway infrastructure—through individual EPC contracts, technological support, and special investment regimes that minimize sanctions risk (e.g., exchange of raw materials for South Korean companies’ participation) (EY Report, 2026, p. 15).
3. Pilot projects and phased testing of the route. The announced South Korean plan, for a container ship’s trial voyage from Busan to Rotterdam, needs to be scaled up to two or three test voyages per year, accompanied by navigational, logistical, and emergency testing of the route. Until the NSR is integrated into global supply chains, this will grant the South Koreans experience with Arctic operations and cooperation with Russian specialists.
4. Working groups and ‘semi-official’ diplomacy (‘Track 1.5’). We suggest establishing a civil Russia-South Korean working group involving shipowners, ports, ship classification societies, insurers, and research institutions. It would discuss standards, insurance, logistics, and regulations without concluding formal agreements, and keep the South Korean and Russian governments informed.
5. Technical standards, safety criteria, and data exchange. Current conditions permit cooperation between Russian and South Korean ship classification societies, the development of compatible safety protocols, the joint verification of ice-class vessels, the coordination of insurance mechanisms, the exchange of meteorological and marine data, and the conduct of regular safety and environmental-protection exercises. This will create the necessary technical foundation for future cooperation.
6. Educational and personnel programs. Educational and personnel exchanges appear promising and mutually beneficial for building trust and creating a foundation for long-term cooperation. They may include training of specialists in Arctic shipping, insurance, and environmental monitoring. South Koreans would be interested in gaining Arctic experience, while Russians could enrich their knowledge of South Korea’s latest advances in technology and information.

In sum, we propose that the two countries draw closer to one another technically, starting with nongovernmental pilot programs that minimize sanctions risks and develop institutional and professional compatibility.

But Russia should also make clear that NSR cooperation can be conducted only on a mutually beneficial basis, that Seoul is expected to be responsive to Russia’s interests and needs.

Prospective Cooperation Guidelines

In the long term, if sanctions are at least partly lifted, Russia-South Korea cooperation could greatly expand.

If sanctions remain, but certain sectoral and functional windows open up, then a prompt response will be needed based on the knowledge and experience accumulated through the prior stages of deferred cooperation. Even just some easing of financial restrictions would remove many of the current obstacles to cooperation.

However, much planning by experts and corporations is oriented towards a significant easing of political pressure, or lifting of sanctions, which permits full-fledged cooperation in: construction of a specialized fleet (including icebreakers with SMR technology); development of port infrastructure (including in Arkhangelsk and Murmansk); LNG projects; and creation of an integrated transport corridor through the Arctic and Northeast Asia, incorporating various South Korean ports like Donghae, Pohang, Ulsan, Busan, Jinhae, and Yeosu-Gwangyang.

If the status quo is maintained, deferred cooperation will remain the only possibility, but even it can considerably benefit both Russia and South Korea.

*  *  *

The Northern Sea Route is an integral part of Russia’s geo-economic strategy, which includes systemic cooperation with Asian partners. In this context, South Korea is not an alternative to other partners, but is potentially complementary to them, offering advanced industrial, logistical, and management expertise.

Given current restrictions, South Korean companies’ caution is understandable. But they are interested in cooperation, and several opportunities for it already exist, namely the planned trial voyage of a South Korean container ship along the NSR.

By building expertise and trust between private companies, ship classification societies, and port operators; by establishing permanent channels of dialogue; and by increasing mutual understanding and awareness of the parties’ specific characteristics and operating procedures, deferred cooperation can create a ‘quiet infrastructure’ for future full-scale cooperation.

The South Korean pilot voyage, scheduled for August-September 2026, will greatly clarify the feasibility of Russia-South Korea cooperation on the NSR. In the future, much will depend on changes in the sanctions regime. But even the emergence of sectoral windows of opportunity could permit much currently postponed cooperation.

For citation, please use:
Bespalov, A.S., 2026. World Map: To Each Their Own? Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 224–228. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-224-228

For fifteen years until its collapse, the Soviet Union regularly published a popular science series titled Looking at the Political Map of the World. Issued monthly, these brochures examined current events in specific countries or regions and offered historical context. They served as an excellent companion to the world map itself, which, amid ongoing decolonization, was updated almost annually. Attention was also paid to long-established countries, both near and far. Soviet citizens had many opportunities to deepen their knowledge of political geography.

This legacy of basic geographic knowledge—shared with other European countries[1]—may be why stories of cartographic blunders in U.S. media[2] remain so popular in post-Soviet Russia.

But there is one thing that even a strong geographical culture does not resolve. The political map of the world has never been universally accepted: a map depicts the globe, but also the official viewpoint—even the political philosophy—of its country of origin. Perhaps the most basic manifestation of this is map-centering. Western and Russian maps are typically centered along the prime meridian, though in post-war Soviet and contemporary Russian cartography, the Moscow meridian has been used. Maps published in the United States sometimes center the axis on America, splitting Eurasia in two, while Chinese maps are generally centered on the Pacific Ocean.

But the depiction of national borders carries even greater political resonance.

While map-centering offers different perspectives on geographic reality, drawn borders often bear no relation to it.

The first post-war generation of West German schoolchildren grew up with maps showing Germany within its 1937 borders, with the GDR labeled a “Soviet occupation zone” and East Prussia as being “currently under Soviet/Polish administration.” During the Cold War, American maps noted that the United States did not recognize the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the USSR, yet still depicted the Baltic republics as part of the Soviet Union. For eighty years, Indian maps have shown the entire former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India, while Pakistani maps claim it as their own. Incidentally, Soviet maps were much closer to reality on the Kashmir issue, as they showed the 1949 demarcation line. Yet Korea remained formally unified on Soviet maps until the establishment of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Seoul in 1990. Countries that do not recognize Israel depict it as Palestine. The list goes on.

The first decade of the 21st century saw a qualitative leap in cartography, as it was revolutionized by the Internet. In 2005, Google Maps set a new standard for mass geographic media. It combined three key components: vector maps (borders, names, roads, points of interest), satellite imagery, and interactive features (route planning and, later, the ability to correct and add data). In showing national borders, Google initially took a technological approach, prioritizing functionality and navigational accuracy. But by the end of the decade, its product had gained such widespread popularity and authority that it began to influence military and political realities.

In October 2010, a Nicaraguan detachment landed on Costa Rica’s Calero Island and began dredging the San Juan River—acting, according to the Nicaraguan commander, based on Google Maps. The ensuing diplomatic conflict was later dubbed by the media “The First Google Maps War,”[3] but, fortunately did not escalate into real war, and was resolved in court in Costa Rica’s favor. After this and several other incidents, Google, a U.S.-based company, changed its approach to depicting borders. Recognizing their explosive nature and facing the demands of national laws, Google abandoned the idea of a ‘single map for everyone’ and adopted a localization strategy. In disputed cases, Google Maps now shows different borders (depending on the user’s location) or uses dotted lines. The same applies to place names: in 2025, Google quickly reacted to President Trump’s executive order, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America—for U.S. users.[4]

This localization policy has proven an elegant solution, allowing the company to largely avoid conflicts with the authorities of countries where it operates, although this does not always prevent scandals. Russia’s Yandex took a similar approach, displaying international borders in accordance with national legislation—until the summer of 2022. At that point, regulatory and sanctions risks drove Yandex to remove state and administrative borders, officially presented as a “shift in focus to natural features.”[5] Other Russian online map services—2GIS and VK Maps—have followed Yandex’s example, though the latter still shows administrative borders.

While American companies have adopted a localized approach to borders, and Russian ones hedge by displaying none at all, Asian companies strictly adhere to their own governments’ policies. South Korea’s Naver Maps, for instance, not only indicates the Liancourt Rocks (claimed by Japan) as South Korean territory but, driven by patriotic considerations,[6] provides unique content, such as underwater photos. However, Naver, like its competitor Kakao Maps, lacks global coverage.

The same cannot be said for the Chinese map service Baidu, which presents all users worldwide with a ten‑dash line in the South China Sea and with China’s claimed border with India. Moreover, Baidu’s map not only fails to reflect the results of the 2005 demarcation of the Russian‑Chinese border, but also draws the Russian‑Japanese maritime border north of Iturup Island, labeling the Southern Kuril Islands as “Russian‑occupied” (俄占). Apparently, the borders are depicted as they were defined by the cartographical agency in 1989, and an update is dependent upon demarcation with other states.[7]

This argument appears to satisfy Russia: China has repeatedly stated that all border disputes with Russia have been resolved, and that discrepancies between maps and reality are a technical, not political issue.

But at least Chinese users can see some version (even an outdated one) of their country’s border. Demand for the same is clearly present in Russia, and online maps’ importance casts doubt on Russian companies’ attempt to ‘stay out of politics.’ Users have already developed their own solutions, adding custom map layers on top of Yandex, whether for military analysis[8] or genealogy.[9] It would be a step in the right direction to provide Russian online maps with a standard toggleable ‘borders’ layer, with a choice of historical period.

This article is an edited version of the paper written for the Valdai Discussion Club, https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/political-map-of-the-world-to-each-their-own/

For citation, please use:
Trenin, D.V., 2026. The Wars of Our Time. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 10–27. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-10-27

It is said that generals always prepare for the previous war. This does not mean that the military is incapable of preparing for the future; while inertia is indeed as common among soldiers as it is among civilians, the price is much higher. Rather, it means that war’s technological and political character changes constantly—and cardinally, with every world war—even as it remains fundamentally the armed imposition of one’s will on the enemy.

Today we are witnessing a transition from mainly mechanized to increasingly digital warfare. The military is usually first to employ scientific and technological advances. Various digital technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and its databases, robotics, cyberwarfare, and space weapons will increasingly define war, radically modifying tactics and strategy.

This new character of war signifies the end of 500-year-long Western dominance and 40-year-long U.S. hegemony. A new world order, often called multipolar, is nearing. It will feature powers of various sizes and civilizations, with various understandings of world order. But before considering how to harmonize these different understandings, we should remember that the transition to it will involve fierce struggle. In the 20th century, the emergence of a new world order triggered two world wars. A third one was avoided because the two main belligerents recognized mutually assured nuclear destruction.

In the mid-2010s, the world entered a new stage of transition, functionally analogous to a world war. To avoid confusing analogies and numbering, this can be termed a new world war with 21st-century features. This war is already underway, consisting of multiple lengthy and intermittent wars, which will produce intermediate results and eventually a final balance. These wars are being fought openly in Eastern Europe and in the adjacent seas, in the Middle East, and (as special operations) in Latin America. But the biggest conflict is brewing in East Asia and the Western Pacific. The stakes in the new world war are so high that it will likely be lengthy, and be fought brutally and resolutely, affecting the entire world. We have entered an era of long wars.

Digital War

In the age of information systems, crucial battlefield importance is logically held by the real-time integration of reconnaissance, detection, targeting, and fire. This is most strikingly exemplified in the ‘drone revolution’ that has upended warfare. This phenomenon has been thoroughly analyzed by General of the Army Yuri Baluyevsky and Director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Ruslan Pukhov (Baluyevsky and Pukhov, 2026).

Essentially, a wide belt of total destruction, extending 20-30 km from the front line—where any platform and even individual soldier will be certainly destroyed by FPV drones—has eliminated the crucial principle of force concentration to break through the enemy lines. On the contrary, dispersing forces has become the rule. War of maneuver with tank breakthroughs has given way to infiltration of the enemy’s position by two or three soldiers. The ‘front’ is actually a gray zone, where the opponents often hold points behind each other’s lines, jutting into one another. The siege of a small fortress city may last months.

Modern warfare now encompasses everything from hand-to-hand trench combat to piloting systems far from the battlefield. Swarms of drones with a range of 100-300 km turn the enemy’s operational rear into an area of constant danger. The almost complete transparency of the entire theater of war, obscured only by the weather, makes it almost impossible to use another important principle—surprise. The ‘fog of war’ has almost dissipated, except for the real fog that sometimes hides troops’ movement from the all-seeing eye of the reconnaissance drones.

Moreover, drones with hundred- and even thousand-kilometer ranges can hit targets deep behind enemy lines that once could be reached only by long-range missiles. Ukrainian UAVs from the Baltic Sea reach the Ural Mountains, and Iranian UAVs reach British bases in Cyprus.

The possibility of accurately hitting critical targets deep in the rear has blurred the old boundaries between tactics, operations, and strategy.

The drone revolution has largely devalued traditional combat platforms. Tanks designed to break through the front line and conduct direct fire are now useful mainly as self-propelled artillery systems, and have themselves become targets for long-range attacks. Artillery guns, especially those using precision-guided munitions, remain in service, but are less cost-effective. Instead of aerial dogfights, air defense systems face off against ballistic and cruise missiles. Warships are struck by sea drones. Air defense systems, designed to shoot down enemy planes, are forced to use expensive interceptors against relatively cheap drones. The importance of electronic warfare, space communications, and surveillance has increased tremendously.

Regionalization of Local Conflicts

Technological advances have made the theater of war practically boundless. Today, one should speak not of a conflict in Ukraine, but of a conflict in Eastern Europe. Kiev is an instrument of NATO countries’ common policy. Russia conducts strikes across all of Ukrainian territory, and Kiev against dozens of Russian regions, using Baltic and Finnish territory. The Kiev regime carries out acts of sabotage and terrorism deep inside Russia, with the help, support, and control of Britain and other NATO countries. Ships carrying Russian oil and LNG face piracy in the Black, Baltic, and Mediterranean Seas. In Operation Cobweb, Ukrainian drones attacked Siberian airfields. Similarly, Israel attacked Iranian targets during the Twelve-Day War. The “quiet” cyberwar goes on non-stop. This creates the obvious and real risk of pushing the Ukraine conflict towards a regional war between NATO and Russia.

In the Middle East, conflict has expanded from the local level—Israel and its neighbors (Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and earlier Egypt)—to the regional level—Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and even Turkiye and Cyprus. The Persian Gulf, and the Red and Arabian Seas, have become warzones. An American submarine sank an Iranian frigate 2,000 miles away from Iran, off the coast of Sri Lanka.

In response to the U.S.-Israeli aggression, Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz for the first time ever, and its allies in Yemen may close the Bab el-Mandeb. Tehran launched missiles at the American military base on Diego Garcia 4,000 km away. Despite Israel’s dense air defenses, almost all of its territory—more or less effectively protected during previous wars—has been struck by missiles and UAVs. 2026 essentially saw much of the Middle East being drawn into a regional war between Israel and the U.S. against Iran and its allies.

Thus, the technological revolution has changed war dramatically. Improved intelligence capabilities and military technology have increased the accuracy of strikes enormously, with distance from the front line no longer playing a decisive role; the theater of war has expanded significantly, covering not only the territory of the belligerents (other than the U.S.), but also targets outside them. Moreover, there is an increasingly clear connection between certain conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and Iran. 

The latest novelty is that some decisions (e.g., choice of targets) and their execution can now be delegated to AI and autonomous systems.

According to media reports, the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife was prepared with the help of AI (Wall Street Journal, 2026). AI was also reportedly used to select targets in Iran (Gustafson and Kosslyn, 2026).

However, many elements of traditional war remain relevant. Wars have not become bloodless computer games: hundreds of thousands of people are fighting on both sides of the front line, including in close combat in the trenches with the use of cold steel, with losses in the tens or hundreds of thousands. The difference between the front and rear has blurred significantly, but has not disappeared: war and peace have learned to exist side by side. And not all modern military conflicts are as fast-moving as the U.S.’s Operations Desert Storm (1991) and Shock and Awe (2002) in Iraq, NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia (1999), or Russia’s five-day war to impose peace on Georgia (2008). The Ukraine conflict is of particular importance in this regard.

A War of Attrition

After a brief period of maneuver, the war in Ukraine turned into a war of attrition. There are no large-scale offensives or frontline breakthroughs into operational depth. The main method of warfare, along with the grueling offensive on the ground (grinding down the enemy), is constant pressure to exhaust the enemy’s front line and, increasingly, rear. The Russian army’s main task is not so much seizing territory (although Russian troops have held the initiative and gradually pushed forward since 2024) as bringing the enemy to collapse by eliminating his manpower and materiel and by destroying or crippling his military-industrial infrastructure, energy systems, logistics routes, control centers, etc. The goal is to drain the Kiev regime’s resources, disorganize its rear, and convince its Western sponsors that the Ukrainian ‘asset’ is worthless.

The enemy also opted for a strategy of exhaustion, trying to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia”—first by undermining its economy and finances, and then by preventing Russia from winning the war. Since 2014, the collective West has imposed an unprecedented 30,000 sanctions on Russia and seized the half of its foreign exchange reserves that were kept in Western jurisdictions. Sanctions are an economic war of attrition, especially in a globalized economy.

Priority in the war of attrition is given to the energy sector.

As part of the ‘infrastructure war,’ in the first months of the Special Military Operation, the enemy blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. Later, the Ukrainians blew up onshore gas and oil pipelines (including Druzhba) connecting Russia with European countries. According to Russian intelligence, Kiev also plans to destroy the Black Sea’s Blue Stream and Turkish Stream gas pipelines.

Nuclear power facilities have no immunity against strikes, either. The Zaporozhye NPP, controlled by Russian troops, is constantly shelled by Ukraine. Other Russian nuclear power plants, especially in Kursk and Smolensk, have also been struck by Ukrainian forces. In turn, Russian forces have attacked electrical substations transmitting electricity from Ukrainian nuclear power plants to consumers—harming the Ukrainian rear, but not creating any risk of radioactive contamination.

In 2025, the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran to destroy its nuclear program, damaging several sites’ infrastructure but leaving the Bushehr nuclear power plant untouched. Yet its grounds were struck in 2026, to which Tehran responded with an attack on the Israeli Nuclear Research Center near Dimona.

While Western countries set price ceilings on Russian oil and piratically seized tankers, Ukrainian aerial and sea drones attacked Russian oil refineries, marine export terminals, oil tankers, and LNG carriers. The goal was stated openly: to reduce Russia’s energy exports and thus its budget revenue.

The situation is similar in the Middle East conflict. With the same aim in mind, Western countries imposed price ceilings on Iranian oil, sanctions against its buyers and against ships carrying Iranian oil and petroleum products, and illegally stopped and arrested such vessels. In response to the U.S.-Israeli aggression in 2026, Iran attacked oil refineries, LNG plants, and other energy infrastructure in the Gulf states with U.S. military bases, and also took control of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. In the Red Sea, the Iran-allied Houthis have threatened to attack Israel- and U.S.-linked ships, endangering transit through the Bab el-Mandeb and Suez Canal. The infrastructure war in the Middle East has also spread to digital facilities, such as data centers in Bahrain and other Gulf countries.

In the asymmetric war between the U.S./Israel and Iran, Tehran leaned heavily on economic weapons. By closing the Strait of Hormuz and attacking the energy facilities of Gulf states hosting U.S. military bases, Tehran sought to impose economic pressure on the U.S. and its allies, making them back down.

Another version of the war of attrition is unfolding in Latin America. The U.S. imposed a blockade on Cuba after the Cuban Revolution in the early 1960s, expanding it in 2026 to oil imports from third countries, basically leaving the country without fuel and electricity. The U.S. President announced that these actions seek to replace Cuba’s government and political course with pro-American ones. Similarly, the U.S. blocked Venezuelan oil exports to force a change in policy.

A war of attrition thus becomes primarily a test of the resilience of the belligerents’ political systems and societies. Russia and Iran have so far passed this test; Venezuela has at present given up; Cuba is holding out for now; and China is drawing lessons.

The War of Annihilation—Massive and Individualized

Not all modern wars are wars of attrition. Israel’s response to Hamas’s massive terrorist attack on civilians was intended to completely eliminate the threat from this Palestinian group. Israeli strikes killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza in 2023-2025, condemned by many throughout the world as genocide. More than 3,500 Iranian civilians were killed during the 40-day U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran in the spring of 2026.

However, mass killing of the enemy’s civilian population is certainly not new. World War II involved numerous cases of deliberate extermination of civilians not only by the Nazis, their allies, and the Japanese, but also by U.S. and British carpet bombings of German and Japanese cities, and by the U.S. atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Israel is also known for assassinations. Since 2023, the Israeli intelligence agencies have killed many senior figures of Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon, Gaza, and beyond, including Tehran. Even before Israel’s first attack on Iran in 2025, a number of high-ranking Iranian military advisers were slain by Israel in Syria.

At the beginning of the Twelve-Day War against Iran in June 2025, Israeli agents liquidated dozens of high-ranking Iranian civil and military officials, as well as nuclear physicists. The incumbent Iranian President was also among the targets.

At the outbreak of the new aggression in 2026, Israeli missile strikes killed 49 Iranian top officials, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—not an already-deposed leader like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, or a terrorist like bin Laden, but the recognized chief executive of a UN member state. And it came less than two months after the Americans forcibly seized the legitimate head of another state—Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The action against Venezuela repeated—on a new technological level—the 1990 operation against Panamanian President Manuel Noriega, who was also captured and sent to an American prison. U.S. intelligence agencies have developed targeted killing, particularly during the post-9/11 War on Terror. President Barack Obama personally gave many orders to eliminate—usually with drones—individuals designated by the U.S. as terrorists. In 2020, President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani.

The Ukrainian security services also use terrorist methods in the ongoing war. In 2024-2026, they attacked four senior Russian generals in Moscow and executed or attempted the assassination of several prominent Russian public figures, journalists, philosophers, and writers. At the end of 2025, Ukrainian UAVs carried out a massive attack on the Russian President’s residence in Valdai, in which NATO intelligence services were apparently involved per evidence cited by Russian officials (RG, 2025).

Israel, the U.S., and NATO-supported Ukraine have broken with the understanding, which dates to well before the Cold War, that political and military leaders generally enjoy unspoken immunity during hostilities. Notably, according to Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, President Putin guaranteed Vladimir Zelensky’s safety in April 2022 (RBC, 2023). Yet eliminating an enemy commander on the battlefield has often been a desirable goal, and killing the opposing political leader was considered one of the shortest ways to win the war or at least avoid defeat.

Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure have been practiced not only by Israel and the U.S., but also by Ukraine since the outbreak of the crisis in 2014.

Both the targeted destruction of the enemy’s leaders and the massive killing of its population underline war’s nature in the 21st century.

21st-century wars are multifaceted and multidimensional. Even in the past, the physical battlefield—the theater of operations—was never the only dimension of military conflict, but now the other dimensions have grown so much as to cardinally change things. Economy and finance; technology and resources; information and psychology; cyberspace and outer space—the list of battlefields is far from complete.

The Nature of War

Statesmen and their advisers sometimes also prepare for the previous war, which often makes for a shocking exposure to the new reality, especially for those who were convinced of peace’s inevitability and deterrence’s absolute reliability. But wars have permeated all of human history, and an era of new—qualitatively different—major wars has now begun after eighty years of peace between the great powers.

The Cold War proceeded, under the nuclear sword of Damocles, through local wars on the periphery of the superpowers’ global confrontation. The end of the bipolar confrontation was immediately followed by an approximately 10-year period of interethnic conflicts in disintegrating or failed states. Those conflicts were accompanied by external interference and peacekeeping operations, as well as by military interventions (in the Balkans and Middle East) to establish a new unipolar (U.S.-centric) world order. Terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 ushered in a period of counter-terrorist operations and the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, with the aim of reconstructing them along Western lines. But by the middle of the 2010s, contradictions between the great powers had resurfaced again. The ‘unipolar moment’ had ended.

Modern wars reflect the crisis of the post-Cold-War U.S.-centric world order and of the West’s lengthy global dominance. By provoking wars (in Ukraine) and initiating them (in the Middle East), the U.S. has launched a counteroffensive against its opponents (Russia, Iran) and competitors (China, BRICS, the EU, and the Arab Gulf states). The Trump administration’s goal is to force a new (illiberal) model of global hegemony upon the world. But unlike the previous (globalist) hegemony, this one does not rest on ideological dominance, political leadership, or norms. Rather, it implies the supremacy of U.S. power beyond the framework of a political order.

In their current wars, the Americans are exploiting their allies more than cooperating with them, activating them on the geopolitical ‘front line’ in Europe (Kiev and NATO), in the Middle East (the Gulf states), and in Asia (Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea). The U.S.’s long-term ‘protection’ of these countries is now driving them into collision with their larger neighbors, threatening their devastation or even destruction.

Notably, unlike in the Cold War, the other side—Russia, Belarus, China, Iran, and the DPRK—is not yet inclined to create a military alliance to concertedly respond to the U.S.; Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran are ready to fight only for their own interests. The only military alliances are Russia–Belarus and Russia–DPRK. India has taken a decidedly neutral position, developing strategic partnerships with the U.S., Russia, France, and other EU countries, as well as with Britain, and Japan. The Collective Security Treaty Organization’s members, other than Belarus, also remain neutral.

 Since 1945, wars have not been declared. Even diplomatic relations are often maintained (embassies are simply evacuated), and martial law is eschewed (to preserve peacetime conditions for civilians as much as possible). It is especially ominous that diplomatic negotiations are not just conducted in parallel with undiminished military operations, but have been used by Washington and Tel Aviv as cover for new attacks. During the Cold War, attacks were feared under the guise of military exercises, but in 2025 and 2026 they began under the guise of peace talks.

War and peace coexist in the same place and at the same time. The parties simultaneously fight and trade with each other. Gas and oil pipelines, running from Russia to the EU through Ukraine, kept operating long after February 2022. The U.S. President almost simultaneously announced his intention to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages” and to lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports (to mitigate the war’s damage to world energy markets).

In general, the space of peace is shrinking, while that of war is expanding.

Nuclear Weapons

This growing relativity of peace signals the approach of a direct conflict between the leading powers. Nuclear deterrence has been critically weakened at the strategic level. States now pursue objectives that would have been unthinkable during the Cold War: in the case of the West’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the objective is the strategic defeat of a nuclear superpower (Russia) in its most sensitive strategic region. In the case of Iran, the objective is not only the complete elimination of its nuclear program, but also its missile-disarmament, subversion, and dismemberment.

Deterrence is weakening mostly because of the disappearance of the salutary fear that kept the Cold War cold and warded off a nuclear apocalypse. The leaders of European states—from large (Germany) to small (Estonia)—now make dangerous provocations, as if they did not care about the consequences for their own countries and people, should Moscow respond to such provocations.[1] This indicates European politicians’ mental derangement and, even more so, their ‘post-national syndrome:’ the elites have no homeland.[2]

The paradoxical reaction of people in European countries is also quite interesting. Influenced by their government and media propaganda, they simultaneously hallucinate non-existent threats (a Russian invasion of NATO countries) and remain blind to the very real possibility of their leaders’ actions pushing Moscow to use force against NATO.

As a result, strategic stability—in its broad geostrategic meaning, rather than in the narrow and obsolete sense of disincentive for nuclear attack—has been seriously undermined. In 2025 alone, the nuclear-armed U.S., UK, and France waged a protracted proxy war against nuclear-armed Russia in Ukraine;[3] nuclear-armed India and Pakistan briefly clashed directly; and nuclear-armed Israel and the U.S. attacked a ‘near-nuclear’ Iran. The DPRK did not enter into conflict with the U.S., but sent its troops to help Russia liberate the part of Kursk Oblast that had been occupied by Ukraine with the West’s support. Only one nuclear power out of nine—China—remained in a state of relative peace, a more ‘regular’ confrontation with the U.S.

All of these wars were/are fought under the threat of nuclear weapons. Their use—as the previous fear diminishes—becomes more likely. But the view in the 1960s-1980s that any nuclear use would inevitably lead to mankind’s destruction[4] is being supplanted by the view that a general nuclear war is impossible (as no one would initiate it), yet the consequences of a limited nuclear war would not be disastrous.

This has boosted the popularity of nuclear weapons as a means of preventing an attack. Possession of nuclear weapons is considered the only real safeguard against external aggression, as clearly evidenced by the U.S.’s diverging policies towards nuclear-armed North Korea, non-nuclear Iran, and Iraq and Libya, which voluntarily abandoned their nuclear programs. In 2026, following the U.S.-Israeli attack, Iran’s parliament raised the issue of withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Renewed interest in nuclear weapons has also been bolstered by the Trump administration’s de facto refusal to provide nuclear guarantees to U.S. allies. Europe is discussing ‘extended deterrence’ based on France’s nuclear forces or, as they say in Germany, some kind of ‘European nuclear capabilities.’ Poland, Greece and Estonia have declared their readiness to deploy allied nuclear weapons on their soil; Sweden is holding consultations with the UK on a nuclear umbrella that supposedly can protect it.

But it cannot. Britain needs U.S. permission to use nuclear weapons. France’s arsenal is under its own control, but is unlikely to be used except in defense of its own vital interests. In the 21st century, there is probably no country that would sacrifice itself for an ally. The only instance of truly reliable extended nuclear deterrence is Russia’s guarantee to Minsk. But Russia and Belarus are a Union State, not only a military alliance.

In Asia, the situation is also changing, though not so noticeably. Japan has not made any statements yet, but according to some experts, the country could create a nuclear weapon very quickly (Report, 2023). In South Korea, which also has a venerable civilian nuclear program and missile capabilities, some top officials have in the past stressed the necessity to develop nuclear weapons, but so far Seoul has settled for an agreement with the U.S. on a nuclear consultative mechanism. Among U.S. clients, the idea of obtaining nuclear weapons is popular in Taiwan and Ukraine, but China and Russia strongly oppose it and are ready to prevent it.

In the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia, a large and wealthy regional power, and Pakistan, the only Muslim state with nuclear weapons, seem to be forming an alliance. The Middle East may see further nuclear proliferation. Israel became a nuclear power at the turn of the 1970s. Iran, which under Khamenei sought only the capability to produce nuclear weapons, is now contemplating secession from the NPT given U.S.-Israeli aggression. Other possible candidates for the nuclear club include Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.

So, nuclear non-proliferation, one of the final remaining pillars of the former bipolar world order, is collapsing along with nuclear arms control, which formally ended with the expiration of the extended Russian-American START-3 Treaty in February 2026.

The multipolar world is becoming an increasingly multipolar nuclear world, in which nuclear war is no longer unthinkable.

Coalitions

During the Cold War, World War III was envisioned as a clash between the two opposing blocs. But when the Soviet-American confrontation ended, there remained only one permanent military alliance: NATO, led by the U.S. Since then, the alliance has doubled its members and fought in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Libya. However, the 2003 campaign in Iraq involved the ‘Coalition of the Willing.’ The Ukraine conflict, too, initially spurred the creation of an informal coalition of about 50 states, whose representatives regularly met at Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany to plan and coordinate military support for Kiev.

In contrast, not only did Russia’s bloc (the Warsaw Treaty Organization) collapse, but all of its members—along with several former Soviet republics—joined NATO or at least cooperate with it closely. Ukraine has become a belligerent Anti-Russia. Even the members of Russia’s Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have largely assumed neutrality regarding the Ukraine conflict.

A new and positive factor for Russia, compared to the Cold War period, is the development of partnerships with major countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Moscow’s leading partners in BRICS and the SCO—primarily China and India—cooperate with Russia, but are careful to ensure that this does not harm their extensive and close relationships with the U.S. and Europe. Belarus and North Korea have become Russia’s only real allies in its showdown with the West. 

However, Donald Trump’s return to the White House has deprived NATO countries of the illusion of guaranteed U.S. military assistance in the event of a conflict. To avoid a direct military clash with Russia, the U.S. is shifting responsibility for Europe’s security onto European countries. The U.S. is acting similarly in its construction of an anti-Chinese coalition out of its Asian allies.

Some of the ongoing wars are asymmetric (two-level), with temporary and loose coalitions replacing permanent and rigid alliances.

While Russia is directly fighting against Ukraine, this is actually a broader war with the Western coalition, even as Russia strengthens its military integration with Belarus within the Union State and receives real military support from the DPRK. In the Middle East, Israel is trying alone to destroy Hamas in Gaza, pro-Iranian Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, but has managed to harness the power of its U.S. ally against Iran. Military tensions between China and Taiwan are growing in East Asia; but, again, this is only the first level of the broader conflict: China versus the U.S. and its Asian allies (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines).

What Kind of Wars Should Russia Prepare for?

Modern wars reflect a crisis of world order. The rise or revival of new regional or global centers of power has inevitably prompted the former hegemons to contain their growth and strengthen their own position.

The military threats to Russia are diverse, but their general nature is obvious for the foreseeable future: to weaken and, if possible, destroy Russia. The most serious risk is a military clash with NATO in Eastern Europe, the Baltic, or the Arctic. For the first time since World War II, Europe is becoming the main threat to Russia. If Ukraine survives as a separate state, it may provoke a European war and take an active part in it. The threat of Transnistria unfreezing appears quite real. Germany, Poland, the UK, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, Finland, and possibly Romania may also actively oppose Russia. The U.S. will keep to the rear, but will extensively support the Europeans. The risk of direct war with a European coalition, unthinkable until just recently, should be neither ignored nor downplayed.

Russia’s opponents will also seek to open new fronts against it, exploiting disagreements with its southern neighbors, but Western attempts to draw Georgia into war against Russia were stymied by Tbilisi’s firm focus on its national interests. Nevertheless, Georgia’s relapse into Saakashvili-like gambles could be possible under a different government. Armenia is ‘peacefully’ drifting away from Russia towards the West, but bilateral tensions are noticeably growing and may eventually lead to provocations against Russia’s base in Gyumri. European countries, especially Britain, will also spin intrigues against Russia in Central Asia.  

Objectively, Russian and Turkish interests run up against one another in the Caucasus, Black Sea, and Central Asia, but the two countries’ relations are fairly stable. A military conflict is avoidable, and pragmatic cooperation is possible. Russia will need special attention, tact, and understanding of Turkish motives.

In Asia, Russia risks being drawn into a confrontation between China and the U.S. (and its allies). Politically, Moscow will naturally side with Beijing and provide it with economic and military-technical support if the West imposes a blockade. Yet Moscow need not directly involve itself in the conflict—China is a strong military power with an increasing nuclear capability.

Beijing’s position on the conflict in Ukraine can serve as a guideline for Russia. Russia will have to provide direct military assistance to North Korea in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, but the likelihood of an attack by the U.S. and its allies on the nuclear-armed DPRK is extremely low. Even less likely, though not impossible, is a direct military clash between Russia and Japan. The greatest danger to Russia and the whole world would come from a military conflict in East Asia among the U.S., China, Japan, and the two Koreas. This could easily draw Russia in, too, but many will seek to avoid such an apocalyptic scenario.

The struggle for a new world order is likely to be long. We must be prepared for an intense and technologically complex confrontation.

The foreign policy doctrine of Russia, as a civilization-state, logically implies not only protecting the country and its interests, but also ensuring the rights and interests of Russians living abroad. Russia is also the guardian and guarantor of the geopolitical balance in Northern and Central Eurasia. Russia’s military might thus guarantees its own existence and forms the cornerstone of stability throughout much of the planet’s largest continent. As the struggle for the new world order intensifies, our country’s position and strategy will be crucial for determining it.

For citation, please use:
Iserov, A.A., 2026. The United States: From the Unipolar Moment to Relative Hegemony. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 106–115. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-106-115

The current discussion of ‘American decline’ masks the economic, demographic, and military reality beyond the U.S.’s real position in the world. In the fall of 1990, Charles Krauthammer declared the coming of the American unipolar moment, unique in human history, since there was no visible strong opposition to U.S. ascendancy then. Krauthammer thought the unipolar moment would last for “one decade, perhaps, rather than, say, three or four” (Krauthammer, 1990, p. 26). Twelve years later, he bluntly stated that even thirty or forty years of domination, which seemed bold in 1990, was a modest statement if the U.S. remained strong in its commitment to sustaining hegemony: “The unipolar moment has become the unipolar era” (Krauthammer, 2002, p. 17).

Exactly at the time when the U.S. reached the peak of its global power, scholars and journalists launched a discussion of American decline.[1] The U.S. was perceived as a global empire and thus subject to the Anglo-American, or to a broader European, traditional interpretation going back to Polybius (ca. 200–ca. 118 BC), Ibn-Khaldun (1332–1406),[2] and Edward Gibbon (1737–1794). Note that we refer here to the concept of gradual systemic decline, not sudden collapse. History shows that forecasts of the latter sort are rarely successful; moreover, even when they are, the reasons provided for the collapse are usually wrong. For example, the overwhelming majority of experts did not believe in the USSR’s possible dissolution, but those who predicted it, did it on the wrong premises: the Soviet Union collapsed neither as a result of the war with China, nor after the revolt of the demographically growing Muslim Central Asian republics (their loyalty to the Soviet Union remained the strongest and in 1991 was in fact stronger than in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) (see Amalrik, 1978, 1980; Carrère d’Encausse, 1978).

This article presents a brief analysis of long-term trends that characterize relative strength of national entities.

Let us compare the data for the U.S. for 1990 and now.

In 1990, the U.S. had a population of 248.7 million, which made 4.67% of the global population (one may recall that on the eve of the disastrous decades that followed the beginning of WWI this figure for the Russian Empire was at ca. 8%). In 2024, the U.S. population (341.2 million) accounted for 4.16% of the world population, i.e., decreased but not dramatically. For an economically developed nation with a declining religious commitment, the absolute population growth, even though achieved through immigration, is a remarkable indicator.

There seems to be no strong evidence that recent immigrants would not follow the path of their predecessors and would not get dissolved in the melting pot.

The Latino community is the fastest growing and currently accounts for 14.7% of American eligible voters. According to exit polls, in the 2024 presidential election, 42% of Latinos voted for Donald Trump, despite his anti-immigration and anti-Latin American rhetoric.[3]

In 1990, the IMF estimated the U.S. nominal GDP at 26.3% of the global economy (the European Economic Community then accounted for 27.4%; China, only 1.8%). The 2024 estimate is the same: 26.3%, up from 21.1% in 2011, but down from 31.3% in 2001 and 2002. The European Union’s nominal GDP, following its expansion and later BREXIT, fell almost 1.6-fold to 17.3%; and that of Japan was only 3.8% (down from even 17.8% in 1994 and 1995). Interestingly, while Japan’s ‘lost decade’ (and then decades) became an important subject for academic discussions, the global media hardly seemed to pay attention to the Fall of Japan. The evident dramatic change is, of course, China’s growth, whose 16.9% almost equals that of the EU countries.

De-dollarization is most visible in commodity markets (J.P. Morgan, 2025), even despite Washington’s dollar weaponization policy. But even amid the current instability, global transactions remain largely dollarized, providing an inherent benefit to the U.S. economy (Eichengreen, 2010), though significantly alleviating the already large national debt: its public share exceeded $31 trillion in February 2026).[4] This debt (sustainable, as experts testify contrary to the popular belief) might slow the U.S.’s economic growth but would not undermine its economy. In the long term, it will probably require a ‘robust fiscal stabilization’ (Auerbach and Yagan, 2024; see also: Bernstein, Shaw, and Posthumus, 2025; Lichtenberg, 2026).

One should bear in mind that the long-term forecasts projecting the financial situation to 2100 and beyond, though certainly useful for policy planning, might prove fundamentally wrong as completely new factors may emerge. Remember that modern sophisticated math methods failed to forecast the 2008–2009 economic crisis. And nobody could foresee the spectacular and almost global birth rate decline in 1966 or 1976, at the time of heated discussions about the world’s overpopulation.

While in 2000 the gap between U.S. investments abroad and foreign investments in the U.S. constituted ca. $1.6 trillion, in 2023 this figure rose to nearly 20 trillion (almost 72% of the GDP!), and this growth was most spectacular in the recent years of rising global instability, since the COVID-19 pandemics. The main investors are currently Great Britain, Japan, and the EU countries (Medzhidova, 2024). This huge money flow might compensate for both the growing U.S. debt and certain underperformance (which should not be overestimated though) of the industrial sector (Grigoryev, 2024).

Today it is too early to say what the long-term results of Trump’s second administration’s reforms, foremost the tariff regulation, would be. Will Trump succeed in reviving U.S. industries by tax cuts, protectionism, and the weakening dollar?

Will he contain protectionism-driven inflation? In the first half of 2025, U.S. current account deficit was 4.6% of GDP, lower than at its 2006 peak of 6.2%, though 1.9% higher than the 2013–2024 average (Eichengreen, 2026; IMF eLibrary, 2025). In the third quarter of 2025, U.S. annualized economic growth was 4.3%—faster than in the previous two years and well above the forecasts, while imports fell, despite government spending growing faster than business investment (The Economist, 2026). In January 2026, IMF expected the 2026 growth to reach 1.8% in advanced economies and 2.4% (0.3% higher than the October 2025 forecast) in the U.S. (IMF World Economic Outlook, 2026).

Back in 1987, Paul Kennedy predicted that the “natural” share in the global wealth that America ought to possess was perhaps 16% or 18% (Kennedy, 1987, p. 533), but this forecast would still take a long time to become real. According to IMF estimates, China surpassed the U.S. in 2016 by purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP, with the U.S. share in the global PPP GDP in 2024 reaching only 14.9%—lower than Paul Kennedy’s forecast.[5] Nevertheless, comparing nations’ PPP GDP makes sense when one measures respective living standards (and hence PPP GDP per capita is a more telling indicator), but the national weight in the global economy is measured by the actual exchange rates, thus, nominal GDP reflects the respective positions better (Frankel, 2014).

According to the World Bank estimates, the U.S. GDP share of research and development rose from 2.45% in 1996 to 3.59% in 2022,[6] which is in relative figures lower than in just three countries—Israel (6.02% in 2022), Liechtenstein (5.87% in 2019), and South Korea (5.21% in 2022), but certainly much higher in absolute figures in comparison with competitors, above all China (2.56% in 2022; in 2022, the U.S. spent 2.18-fold more in nominal dollars but just 1.12-fold more in IMF PPP dollars). Nevertheless, we are currently witnessing spectacular successes of Chinese science which has been surpassing America’s by the number of scientific publications since 2017, and seems to have taken over the leadership in the quality of research, above all in electrical and electronic engineering, materials science, physics, and chemistry.[7]

Still, just like in the 20th century when the U.S. profited intellectually from the Old World’s distress (up until to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the European Socialist system), the academic immigration (brain gain) is greatly benefiting the U.S., despite Trump’s fighting against the universities and toughening of the migration legislation. There are four times more foreign students studying in the U.S. than American students abroad, and by 2022, the founders of 25% of U.S. billion-dollar startups had immigrated to the U.S. as college students (Lodge, 2025).

According to the SIPRI estimates, in 2023, the U.S. spent 3.4% of its GDP on defense expenditures—down from 5.4% in 1990 but still a spectacular 37% of the global amount—3.09 times more than China which allocates only 1.7% of its GDP for defense. The U.S. armed forces are the third-largest worldwide, with 1.358 million men and women in active service, a bit less than in the much more populous India (1.476 million).[8] Back in 1985, the U.S. armed forces of 2.152 million deployed ca. 520,000 military and civilian personnel abroad (24%), and in the spring of 2025, this figure slightly exceeded 243,000 (18%—lower but still a very significant share).[9] U.S. military bases still encompass the globe, and U.S. Navy ships ply the seas as forty years ago, able to quickly employ force (as in Operation Absolute Resolve during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife).

There is reasonable criticism that the huge military costs are not very effective, that the military-industrial complex lobbies expensive weapons instead of more useful mass and simple arms (Lachmann, 2020). One may claim that since China spends less, it has managed to overcome the U.S. in this critical field of strategic competition, and that the U.S. military budget and military planning in general are not living up to contemporary challenges. Recent American military interventions in Afghanistan (2001–2021) and in Iraq (2003–2021) were lengthy and failed to achieve their goals. In a tragic twist at the peak of Colin Powell’s political career, he had to abandon his own doctrine suggesting short and decisive military operations with clear and achievable goals and an effective exit strategy (Powell, 1992). However, although these wars ended in a protracted nightmare for the local populations and further aggravated the complicated situation in the Middle East, the unaccomplished goals were not vital for U.S. security, and the American casualties were much smaller than those in the Vietnam disaster. The current war against Iran might follow the same pattern, even though it demonstrates the danger of being a U.S. ally in the Middle East.

In a certain way, the U.S. still enjoys limited (if we recall the 9/11 attacks) ‘free security.’[10] Apart from the U.S. and China, only a few nations in the world can boast to have relative information and communication sovereignty, including autonomous messengers and payment systems. The current military conflict between Russia and Ukraine vividly demonstrates the importance of large armies and military technologies borne out by effective use of FPV drones and Starlink, a U.S.-made satellite Internet system. While not committing their soldiers to the field operations but supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces with its high-tech weapons and equipment, the U.S. is closely studying the ongoing military transformation.

Thus, the statistics and the recent international developments testify to the U.S.’s remarkable resilience.

The ‘unipolar era’ is over but there is no clear evidence of American decline. In fact, it is the spectacular rise of China which allows us to declare the end of the American unipolar domination.

China is challenging the strengths of the American economy, but has not yet surpassed it in information technologies, including AI; materials science; life science technologies (biotech), including medical research; pharmaceutics; genetics; and mass agriculture. The global finances are still revolving around New York. The costs of the Ukraine conflict, huge by European standards, are easily bearable by the American budget, and the fighting does not engage American soldiers. Moreover, the Trump administration has successfully forced its European allies to pay for the Ukrainian weapons supplies. The U.S. successfully controls the EU and even its large East Asian allies, like Japan and South Korea, to secure positions for struggle with China, in whatever form. Russia feels the strength and the grip of this control, but also the limits of U.S. hegemony. The last but not the least is the domination of American culture which continues growing: the English language now influences even the grammar, syntax, and phonetics of such long-established languages with rich literary and scholarly tradition as Russian: 49.6% of websites are English-language,[11] and the volume of English-language content on the Internet is probably larger. Generative AI systems, including even China’s DeepSeek, are trained using primarily English-language content.

Drawing analogies, the U.S.’s present position in the world should be compared not with the Soviet Union’s in the late 1980s or even with the Russian Federation’s in the early 1990s, but with that of Great Britain at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Remaining powerful, it ceded its first place in the global economy to the U.S., and on the eve of WWI it was surpassed also by Germany. Today, the U.S. is still stronger than Great Britain was in 1913. So, the best term to describe the U.S.’s current global position is relative hegemony.

For citation, please use:
Diskin, Ye.I., 2026. Digital Sovereigns and Vassals. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 142–167. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-142-167

In 2025, President Vladimir Putin stated that Russia had achieved full digital sovereignty, claiming that only three countries in the world were truly digitally sovereign: the U.S., China, and Russia (Kommersant, 2025). Earlier, in September 2025, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko also noted that the number of fully digitally sovereign countries was significantly smaller than the number of nuclear-armed states (Interfax, 2025). By claiming digital sovereignty, these ‘securitization moves’ (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde, 1998, p. 29) also imply the need to protect that sovereignty, permitting the state to take extraordinary measures for that purpose, given society’s recognition of the state’s responsibility for security.

Yet the present measures and level of control are apparently insufficient to counter external threats: foreign countries’ development of Direct-to-Cell technologies, extraterritorial pressure on digital platforms, and coercive exploitation of control over infrastructure all threaten digital sovereignty,[1] and can be countered only with foreign policy instruments.

The official statement regarding “cyber superpowers”[2] raises two major questions: 1) To what extent can control over digital technologies influence the structure of international relations? and 2) What does the status of a ‘digital superpower’ really mean, if defined formally? This article employs and develops Dmitry Anikin’s concept of multiple sovereignty (2025), while also utilizing structural realism, constructivism, securitization theory, and international regimes theory. This should unveil the nature and development of digital conflicts and outline the foreign policy decisions demanded by those conflicts.

To what extent do the ongoing political, economic, and technological conflicts,[3] between the leading digital powers, indicate the insufficiency of state instruments of control over the digital environment? What theoretical and practical factors demand the issue’s transfer into the foreign policy domain?

This study compares four country cases (the U.S., the EU, China, and Russia) featuring those factors. It also analyzes regulation of the digital sphere. Russia’s 2023 Foreign Policy Concept defines its foreign policy priorities but does not sufficiently address protection of the country’s interests in the digital sphere, as demanded by other countries’ intensive development and use of digital technologies. Keeping digital technological development solely within the realm of domestic policy may hinder Russia’s efforts to build a fair multipolar world, as its main geopolitical rivals (above all the U.S.) maintain a threatening lead in digital technologies.

This article posits that Russia’s official claim of “full digital sovereignty”—merely discursive and stated in normative acts only implicitly—disregards threats emerging at the intersection of technology and social relations on the meso and macro levels. Foreign policy instruments are needed to parry such threats.

Sovereignty and the Digital Dimension

Understanding digital sovereignty requires understanding the main approaches to defining state sovereignty. Stephen Krasner identifies four types of sovereignty: domestic sovereignty, interdependence sovereignty, international legal sovereignty, and Westphalian sovereignty (Krasner, 1999, pp. 3-5). It is interdependence sovereignty, i.e., a state’s ability to control cross-border flows, that has come under the greatest pressure amid the digital transformation, since digital flows are inherently transboundary and difficult to control.

Scholarship on digital sovereignty is developing rapidly: Stefano Fratini et al. (2024) have systematized four competing models of its understanding; and Julia Pohle and Mauro Santaniello (2024) have recorded a shift in the discussion from descriptive to normative approaches. Digital sovereignty is being operationalized and becoming part of practical state policy rather than only an academic subject. This article continues in the same vein, suggesting consideration of digital sovereignty not as a state’s static characteristic, but as a process whose dynamics are determined by the interaction of domestic and foreign policy instruments.

John Agnew (1994) warned of the ‘territorial trap’: automatic equation of state sovereignty with territorial control. Cyberspace is the most vivid example of a mismatch between jurisdiction over digital platforms and territorial borders, and attempts to restore territorial control by blocking digital resources create serious risks (discussed below). John J. Ruggie described an ‘unbundling of territoriality’ in which political power and social interaction cease to be rigidly tied to physical borders, and states have to deal with forces and factors that cannot be reduced to ‘territorial solutions’ (Ruggie, 1993, pp. 149-151, 171-172). Ruggie suggested not a ‘disappearance of sovereignty,’ but the emergence of ‘multiperspective institutional forms’ in which authority is separated from exclusive territoriality (Ibid, p. 172). Digital sovereignty is a clear example of ‘unbundling’: the state seeks to restore control of an environment that cannot be reduced to physical space, and hence it is forced to create new, extraterritorial regulatory instruments (i.e., establish jurisdiction based on the number of users operating in the state’s territory). This approach has been adopted in the EU, Russia, the UK, and other countries.

Digital Securitization of Sovereignty

Securitization legitimizes extraordinary measures beyond the usual political process (Buzan, Wæver and de Wilde, 1998). Securitization targets various aspects of state sovereignty, and securitizing actors are heads of state and senior officials. Specific speech acts range from Putin’s statements about “three fully digitally sovereign countries,” to Macron’s remarks about the inadmissibility of “digital vassalage” (Le Monde, 2025a), to the Trump administration’s announcement that foreign regulation of American digital platforms threatens U.S. sovereignty (USDS, 2025).

All four digital powers securitize their digital sovereignty, but with varying reference objects, reflecting their varying normative approaches and strategic interests. The U.S. securitizes the freedom of its platforms from foreign regulation, i.e., defines control over the global digital infrastructure as an element of sovereignty. The EU securitizes technological independence and the integrity of users’ information. China securitizes ideological stability, declaring foreign platforms a source of destabilization. Russia securitizes the integrity of the national communication space. The fruits of securitization—legitimized extraordinary measures—thus also differ: e.g., blocking, personal sanctions against foreign officials, forced division of companies, and creation of alternative technological ecosystems.

Geoeconomics and ‘Weaponized Interdependence’

Edward Luttwak (1990) introduced ‘geoeconomics’ into scientific use to denote a shift from military-political to economic rivalry between states, even as the underlying logic of conflict remained in place. Digital platforms are the most effective tools of geoeconomic competition: they generate huge financial flows, control the global information space, and provide access to data increasingly viewed as a strategic resource. Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris (2016) proposed the concept of economic statecraft. By handling huge financial flows and exercising monopoly control over access to infrastructure (operating systems, application stores, cloud services), platforms become tools of control, while remaining objects of state regulation. It is the economic importance of platforms that makes them one of the central elements of geoeconomic competition in the modern world.

The concept of ‘weaponized interdependence’ proposed by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2019) describes the mechanism by which global network structures—financial, informational, and infrastructural—asymmetrically advantage states that control these networks’ chokepoints. The U.S., through its technology companies, controls the global Internet infrastructure, search engines, mobile device operating systems, cloud services, and digital payment systems. It has thereby amassed an unprecedented arsenal of tools to employ the ‘panopticon effect’ (monitoring of transnational flows) and the ‘chokepoint effect’ (disconnection of other actors from networks). However, this power operates within a ‘regime complex’ (Nye, 2014, p. 7), and awareness of the threat has propelled others to seek digital sovereignty by sometimes radical means (see the next section).

The states challenging U.S. digital hegemony long sought to avoid direct confrontation, relying on domestic regulation such as legal restrictions, data localization requirements, and access-blocking. But the mounting pressure is forcing them to turn to foreign policy.

Susan Strange’s ‘power structures’—environments in which other actors must act (Strange, 1994, pp. 34, 165)—seem applicable to the role of multinational digital corporations such as Apple, Google (Alphabet), Microsoft, X, Telegram, or Palantir. These corporations largely determine the architecture of digital interaction, content moderation rules, information dissemination algorithms, and data processing standards (de Bustos and Izquierdo-Castillo, 2019). Strange predicted “the retreat of the state” in the face of market forces (Strange, 1996, p. 141), but the opposite has occurred: states seek to establish control over the digital environment, which was initially formed outside of state regulation, using the entire arsenal of domestic and foreign policy instruments.

Securitization, geoeconomic competition, and control over key nodes are subject to regulation. Joseph Nye Jr. described global cyberspace governance as a ‘regime complex,’ a set of overlapping and often conflicting regimes regulating various aspects of the digital environment (Nye, 2014). This explains why states cannot achieve digital sovereignty alone, using only domestic policy: such efforts inevitably affect other states’ regimes. This is true of the U.S.’s power projection as well. The normative and functional confrontation between respective regimes, or ‘regime interdependence,’ calls for foreign policy instruments.

The Constructivist Dimension

According to the constructivist approach (see Wendt, 1999, p. 4; Katzenstein, 1996, p. 6), conflicts over digital sovereignty unfold not only in the material, but also in the normative[4] and discursive realms. Every actor constructs his own normative position, appealing to different values. The U.S. refers to freedom of speech and of entrepreneurship; the EU seeks to protect personal data and “counter disinformation and hatred” (EU Code, 2016); China upholds “cyber sovereignty” as an element of public administration; Russia prioritizes the “protection of the national information space from external interference.” The clash of these narratives creates a situation where all parties appeal to sovereignty but construe it differently. This indirectly bears out the thesis of Julia Pohle and Torsten Thiel (2020), that digital sovereignty is not so much a regulatory or organizational tool, but a discursive instrument of political argumentation, which is filled with different normative content dependent on the actor’s position and interests.

Digital Sovereignty and Conflicts Related to Its Protection

The Trump administration’s unrestrained and unilateral behavior is forcing the U.S.’s traditional allies—such as the EU, the UK, and even Canada—to speak of the “end of the rules-based order,” to discuss enhancing “strategic autonomy” (Carney, 2026), and to reconsider their attitudes to the 20-year-long dominance of American digital platforms, which all actors now see as tools of control and coercion. Escaping ‘surveillance and strangulation’ is becoming an urgent task. However, its implementation is encountering numerous legal and technological difficulties, primarily the need to build relationships with the technology giants, which operate as transnational actors despite being registered in specific jurisdictions (mainly in the U.S.) (de Bustos and Izquierdo-Castillo, 2019). These corporations are unprecedentedly important to the global technological infrastructure (Diskin, 2025a), and interaction with them requires both political will and certain national technological capabilities.

The EU AND the U.S.: Regulatory Sovereignty vs. Structural Dependence

On 18 November 2025, Berlin hosted a special EU summit on digital sovereignty, where French President Emmanuel Macron said: “We do not want to be digital vassals of the U.S. or China” (Le Monde, 2025a). In fact, Macron defined dependence on foreign platforms as an existential threat, which can be treated as an attempt at securitization. However, statements alone are not enough to escape strangulation and the panopticon, and accrued dependence cannot be overcome overnight, especially absent the political will and resources for a major leap forward. Miguel De Bruycker, Managing Director General of the Centre of Cybersecurity for Belgium, maintains that “Europe has lost the Internet,” and the EU’s attempts to restrict leading American digital platforms are irrelevant; the bloc needs its own competitive products (RBC, 2026a). “Instead of putting that focus on how we can stop the U.S. ‘hyperscalers,’ maybe we put our energy in…building up something by ourselves?” (The Brussels Times, 2026).

Nevertheless, the EU’s recent measures have noticeably affected its relations with U.S. tech corporations, which are estimated to have lost $97.6 billion from European regulations and special taxation (Schramm, 2025). When the EU uses ‘economic statecraft,’ such as regulatory pressure on foreign actors (Baldwin, 2020, pp. 28-29), the U.S. responds with ‘digital mercantilism’ (Wheeler, 2025), i.e., Luttwak’s geoeconomics.

The EU has established a legal system covering almost all areas of digitalization: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the complementary Digital Services Act (DSA).[5]

Extraterritorial application of European norms has the ‘Brussels effect’ (Bradford, p. 25): global corporations align their practices with EU norms even beyond the EU’s borders. Establishing jurisdiction over foreign platforms based on the number of users in the EU is essentially an attempt to escape the ‘territorial trap’: the state asserts control not over the territory hosting servers with user data, but over the audience physically located within the state’s borders.

But, while this mechanism is effective in pressuring industry, it is reaching the limit of impact on U.S. behavior, as borne out by Macron’s words about the inadmissibility of digital vassalage and by the adoption of the Declaration for European Digital Sovereignty (Declaration, 2025).

The EU has realized, albeit quite late, that digital sovereignty cannot be achieved solely by improving regulatory mechanisms, and that it needs its own digital platforms, cloud data services, AI, and other technological infrastructure.

According to a report to the European Parliament, 80 percent of digital products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property used in the EU have been created outside it (Report, 2025). In fact, the EU does not have major messengers, social networks, or marketplaces. Its most successful social network is France’s BeReal with 40 million monthly users (Silberling, 2025), which pales even compared to Russia’s VK, with 92 million monthly users (VK, 2025). Thus, any online discourse significant to the EU will be conducted overwhelmingly on platforms created outside its borders, within the U.S.’s panopticon. Also, Apple and Google, as the owners of mobile operating systems,[6] have structural power (in Strange’s terminology) over all digital market participants: any national application, messenger, or service operates only insofar as it has access to their ecosystems.[7] In other words, dependence on the U.S. in this field is just as great as it is in the field of armaments, even though the European Commission has its own executive vice-president for tech sovereignty (Henna Virkkunen). Nevertheless, the Europeans remain committed to determining their own regulatory frameworks and are even planning to ban digital platforms close to Trump if he moves to seize Greenland (Gutteridge and Barnes, 2026).

The EU’s public statements, regulatory measures, and fines against American companies have frustrated many officials in the U.S., not only in the Trump administration but also in some think tanks, in particular the right-libertarian Cato Institute (Inserra, 2025). The incumbent American administration’s actions clearly show that the digital track is one of its priorities. U.S. sanctions against European Commissioner Thierry Breton, and against four NGO functionaries associated with the EU’s digital policy, strongly signify a transformation of U.S.-EU relations in this area. The U.S. Secretary of State has emphasized the inadmissibility of violating U.S. sovereignty in cyberspace (Rubio, 2025). This is a manifestation of ‘weaponized interdependence’ (Farrell and Newman, 2019): the U.S. uses control over key global digital infrastructure nodes to coerce partners and uses sanctions to retain that control.

The explicit clash of narratives is an important point: the sanctioned heads of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, the Global Disinformation Index, and Hate Aid play a major role in the implementation of the EU policy of “countering disinformation” (Diskin, 2025b, pp. 417-419). The White House has blasted their activities as “radical activism of the global censorship-industrial complex” (Rubio, 2025). This narrative is also supported by Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who has accused Macron and Breton of building a “digital Gulag” (Durov, 2025). This is essentially a clash of two incompatible narratives and regulatory orders: the U.S.’s freedom of speech, legitimizing personal sanctions, versus the EU’s fight against hatred and disinformation (EU Code, 2016), which has been ratified by EU Parliament laws (Le Monde, 2025b) and which legitimizes fines and regulatory directives.

Note that this study aims to identify the parties’ points of conflict, narratives, and tools, not to adjudge their correctness.

China and the U.S.: TikTok and Geoeconomic Coercion

China has long pursued digital autonomy, having built a system of control over its internal information space.

But prioritization of the manufacturing sector, and the sustainment of domestic demand for it, has shifted government and corporate attention to the development of online shopping. China has the world’s largest online shopping market (Xinhua, 2026) and is rapidly conquering those of other countries (Haleem, 2026).

Meanwhile, Chinese social networks such as Weibo, QQ, Xiaohongshu, and Bilibili are virtually nonexistent outside of China, due to regulatory costs and cultural and language barriers. A major exception is TikTok, with a global audience of 1.59 billion users as of the beginning of 2025 (Statista, 2025).

The conflict over TikTok, the international “mirror” of China’s Douyin platform, is particularly significant. Of the platform’s 1.59 billion users, 135 million are in the U.S.. Trump threatened to block TikTok even during his first term (AP News, 2020), but his order was blocked by a district court[8] and overturned by the Biden administration. After returning to the White House in 2025, Trump forced TikTok to split its U.S. branch into an independent legal entity under U.S. control. Such a forced separation should be considered an instrument of state policy.

It seems that Beijing made concessions on TikTok because it needed to maintain access to the U.S. digital advertising and consumer content market.

But it is unlikely to do the same regarding marketplaces, as they have strategic economic importance to China, providing it with economic leverage (Drezner, 2021) and other benefits described by Farrell and Newman (2019).

Control over the external information space is still of secondary importance for China, but pressure on Chinese companies abroad (e.g., TikTok) is forcing Beijing to make foreign policy decisions. The isolation of its internal information space has not eliminated the need for foreign policy tools.

Russia: Technological Autarky and the Dilemma of Control

Long before the EU did, Russia faced the issue of dependence on foreign digital platforms, and began developing its own replacements.

Unlike in the EU, Russian platforms’ market share was quite significant even before the mass blocking of foreign resources. In 2022-2023, the search engine Yandex controlled 49% of the market, versus Google’s 47%, notwithstanding the far greater resources and unrestricted status of the latter (AdIndex, 2023; Blunt, 2025). VKontakte remains the flagship Russian social network (VK, 2022). Russian marketplaces accounted for 62% of e-commerce in 2021 (Bakharev, 2022). Putin’s description of digital sovereignty, as a pool of national competitive platforms, is therefore accurate.

But digital sovereignty should also be understood as requiring emancipation from the aforementioned ‘strangulating control’ and ‘panopticon effect,’ which continue to plague Russia and Russians’ communication with one another.

Russia remains in an unprecedentedly intense conflict with the U.S. and the EU over control of Russia’s own cyberspace. Western countries censor Russian official resources and state-owned media by blocking them on their platforms and in EU jurisdictions in 2022-2023 (AiF, 2022; TASS, 2024), a process that began long before the Special Military Operation (TASS, 2019). The normalization of Russia’s relations with U.S. tech giants remains conceivable, but this would likely require a comprehensive peace process,[9] and it is unclear what to do with a company that has been designated as extremist, or with fines that have exceeded the entire global money supply (e.g., for not complying with court orders to restore Russian TV channels on YouTube (Zvezda, Channel One, VGTRK, NTV, RT, and others)(RBC, 2024).

There has emerged a tendency towards ‘technological autarchy.’[10] LinkedIn, Telegram, Twitter (X), Facebook, Instagram,[11] YouTube, Signal, Discord, Viber, WhatsApp, Roblox, FaceTime, and Snapchat have all been slowed or blocked in Russia since 2016. Government officials affirm that the current approach is the right way to enforce legislation (Gorelkin, 2025), but there have been no significant signs of foreign platforms’ behavior changing since February 2022. Even when the authorities indicated success in negotiations with Roblox, with a (mainly child) audience in Russia of 18 million (Lantsov, 2025), the service remained blocked as of May 2026 (RIA, 2026a). This provoked discontent: the head of the Safe Internet League, Yekaterina Mizulina, received 63,000 complaints from children and their parents about Roblox alone, which she forwarded to the Roskomnadzor agency (Mizulina, 2025). Many more are concerned by Telegram’s blocking (Gudoshnikov, 2026).

This exposes the growing gap between the securitization of sovereignty and the effectiveness of extraordinary measures taken to ensure it: with the threat to sovereignty defined as existential, emergency measures (blocking) are formally legitimized, but uncontrollable side effects—emigration of specialists, growing discontent, and technological lag—limit that legitimation and create new security threats. Thus, measures to strengthen security in one area (communication) impair security in other areas (technological development, social stability). Alternative tools, including in foreign policy, must be considered. The current approach is increasingly ineffective and even counterproductive, leading to paradoxical results, like the purchase of VPNs by some regional administrations (Okhotnikova, 2026).

The Exhaustion of Tools for State Control

The most intense conflicts over digital sovereignty illustrate that domestic policy tools, alone, are increasingly incapable of resolving such disputes. For the EU, such tools have proven to be too weak, failing to facilitate the emergence of its own platforms. For Russia, such tools have been counterproductive: blocking has uncontrollable side effects. For China, such tools have proven sufficient to protect its domestic market, but unable to protect its companies abroad. And, for the U.S., such tools cannot overcome the increasing resistance to its extraterritorial imposition of norms. In fact, all four parties are in an intense conflict—between West and East, and also between the U.S. (under Trump) and the EU.

Regarding Russia in particular, comparison with the U.S. is telling. The U.S.’s mandatory division of TikTok was legitimized as an emergency measure to protect 135 million Americans from the control of a foreign power. TikTok was already operating under U.S. jurisdiction,[12] but now it will be managed by U.S. investors, giving the U.S. real control (Khushboo and Han, 2025). Russia blocked Meta platforms (Instagram and Facebook) for similar reasons,[13] but with diametrically opposite results: while the U.S. acquired control over TikTok within its borders, Russia lost access to audiences beyond its borders, as there is no Russian alternative with similar global reach.[14] Telegram’s blocking also raised a wave of criticism among military bloggers, officials, and entrepreneurs (RBC, 2026a). The asymmetry of results is explained by the difference in negotiating power: the U.S. controls key infrastructure nodes, which allows it to impose its conditions, while Russia can only isolate itself.

For Russia, this is a major conflict, whose outcome will greatly affect Russia’s digital market and technologies. In the worst case, serious political instability may be generated if successive bans on foreign services eliminate the ability to project national content and narratives, deprive Russians of personal digital communication with the outside world, and exclude them from the global digital agenda and discourse. This risk has not yet been adequately reflected in strategic documents.

Russia’s current digital foreign policy is defined in Para 30 of the Foreign Policy Concept, which declares the goal of the “safe and stable functioning and development of the Internet, based on the equal participation of states in its governance and…preventing the establishment of foreign control over [the Internet’s] national segments.” This is vague and somewhat outdated. It repeats the logic of Federal Law 90-FZ of 1 May 2019 (known as the Sovereign Runet Law) (Zhukov and Shugunov, 2020), but the risk of Russia being cut off from the global Internet is less than it was in 2019, thanks to technical measures taken since then.

The Foundations of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of International Information Security considers many threats, mainly criminal ones (Presidential Decree, 2021). But the document was written so as to motivate certain UN convention that was indeed passed in December 2024 (Convention, 2024), and has little relevance beyond that.

The threats facing Russia are not limited to crime or an externally imposed Internet cutoff. One of the greatest threats is that escalating internal blocking could partly disconnect the Russian and foreign segments of the Internet. Moreover, even a complete disconnection would have limited utility, given almost nondisruptable Direct-to-Cell technology. The January 2026 unrest in Iran, fueled by Starlink’s provision of ‘pirate’ Internet, shows the U.S.’s ability to overcome blocking in any state—even the UK (GB News, 2026).

Meanwhile the Americans are upgrading their capabilities: Starlink is actively developing the Direct-to-Cell space communication technology, which does not require any terminals or satellite dishes—an LTE-enabled smartphone gets connected directly to a satellite (Starlink, 2025). The last smartphones lacking LTE support were sold more than 15 years ago, and LTE occupies 96-97% of Russia’s mobile network (Kotov, 2024). Suppressing such access would require either jamming all LTE/5G[15] cellular bands, or manually examining all mobile devices, which seems impossible (3side, 2025). Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell technology is essentially a new ‘weapon of interdependence’ that significantly enhances the ‘panopticon’ and creates a fundamentally new mechanism for ‘penetration.’ Although Russia is developing its own satellite communication systems, it still lacks comparable capabilities (RBC, 2026b).

Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell technology vividly illustrates the ‘unbundling of territoriality’: the state loses control as access ceases to be routed solely through ground infrastructure.

In Russia’s reincorporated regions, a response is needed to Starlink’s plans to activate Direct-to-Cell in what it considers to be Ukrainian territory (Reuters, 2025). The subject must be included in any negotiations on Ukraine. In December 2025, Russia called an informal meeting of the UN Security Council, demanding that satellite communication services respect the sovereignty of other states (Vedomosti, 2026). This was an attempt to work out basic principles for the international regulation of satellite communications, but its success will require broad international support along with pressure on SpaceX.

Possibilities for Institutionalization

The above-described conflicts over digital sovereignty cannot be resolved by the U.S., the EU, Russia, or China by solely domestic means.

The aforementioned ‘regime complex’ determines which institutional forms are available to foreign policy (Nye, 2014). Forming an integrated regime is hampered by contradictions between the (Russia- and China-supported) multilateral model of Internet governance, and the (U.S.- and to a lesser extent EU-supported) multistakeholder model, which entails the participation of all stakeholders, including non-state actors (see: Mueller, 2010; Zinovieva and Shitkov, 2024). The evolution of the regime complex, currently halfway between complete fragmentation and a single coherent legal structure, may be the most likely scenario (Nye, 2014, p. 16). But the current trajectory is clearly towards fragmentation, partly due to states’ reliance on domestic political instruments to ensure digital sovereignty (RBC, 2026c).

Our theoretical analysis suggests several foreign policy options for the Foreign Ministry, the Security Council, expert groups, and negotiation platforms.

First, in negotiations with the U.S., Russia should raise the issue of U.S. digital platforms’ future operation in Russia. The U.S. may raise this issue itself, but its negotiating position should be understood in advance. Russia’s blocking of foreign platforms limits the benefits, derived by the U.S. from its technological advantage, and emphasizing U.S. companies’ losses may strengthen Russia’s negotiating position.

Second, Russia should strengthen practical cooperation with BRICS+ and the SCO, and internationally discuss threats to Internet governance and the risks of pursuing digital sovereignty through blocking alone. Russia and China could promote their digital platforms as alternatives to American ones, provide them to BRICS+ countries, and exchange experience and competencies. The purpose is to form an alternative (regional, not universal) regime complex that ensures a minimum level of cooperation and harmonization of standards.

Third, when attempts are made on foreign platforms to discredit Russian culture, language, and history, or to persecute Russian users, such attempts must be opposed. But this is possible only through effective international cooperation on digital regulation, a task that has not yet been properly articulated. Foreign digital platforms may be influenced through administrative pressure in reputationally sensitive areas, prosecution for campaigns that violate Russians’ rights, and mass lawsuits by affected users in foreign courts. Other measures should include cooperation with BRICS+ and SCO members in digital regulation, public campaigns to disclose illegal activities of individuals and organizations affiliated with foreign platforms, and the pursuit of modifications to international law by promoting joint legal positions in relevant intergovernmental organizations.

Fourth, the areas of legal cooperation should be expanded: the CIS, SCO, and BRICS+ platforms should be employed to pursue amendment of the UN Convention against Cybercrime, so that it includes provisions on mutual assistance in prosecuting information warfare, terrorist propaganda, and the incitement of interethnic and interreligious hatred.

Finally, a permanent BRICS+/SCO mechanism for cyberspace governance should be created. It may serve as the prototype for a new international regime. Internet access beyond the state’s control threatens not only Russia: the aforementioned forays against the UK and Iran (Times of India, 2026) may indicate that the U.S. is preparing such campaigns against any country seen as threatening American digital platforms.

*  *  *

The above analysis yields several general conclusions.

First. Conflicts over digital sovereignty between the leading digital powers—the U.S., EU, China, and Russia—are not isolated episodes, but the products of a structural shift in international relations. Theories of securitization (Buzan, Wæver, and de Wilde, 1998), geoeconomics (Luttwak, 1990; Blackwill and Harris, 2016), of interdependence-weaponization (Farrell and Newman, 2019), and of international regimes (Krasner, 1983; NYE, 2014) reveal the patterns underlying these conflicts and predict their development.

Second. All four considered great powers are approaching the limits of their tools’ effectiveness, and now face insufficiency (the EU), counterproductivity (Russia), ‘defensive’ ineffectiveness abroad (China), and ‘offensive’ ineffectiveness abroad (the U.S.). No actor can rely solely on domestic policy tools, and all must adopt some foreign policy instruments.

Third. Russia’s current strategic documents—the Foreign Policy Concept and The Foundations of State Policy in the Field of International Information Security—do not fully reflect the described dynamics. Their focus on countering cybercrime, and on external disconnection of the Runet, needs to be significantly expanded to account for new technologies like Starlink’s Direct-to-Cell.

Fourth. Digital issues should be institutionalized as an independent area of Russia’s foreign policy. Priorities should be defined in strategic documents, negotiating positions should be formulated, and mechanisms for international cooperation (bilateral and within BRICS+ and the SCO) should be developed.

The global Internet’s increasing fragmentation—contrary to the integration that prevailed at the beginning of the 21st century—is dragging the contours of digital space out of alignment with national development. To avoid becoming one of the losers in this process, Russia must transition from reactive domestic policy to a proactive foreign policy strategy.

This article is a product of the HSE-BR-2025-001 research project within the HSE Basic Research Program.

For citation, please use:
Toloraya, G.D., 2026. A Military Stress Test for BRICS. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 186–192. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-186-192

The unprovoked U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran, which has undermined the foundations of international law and the established world order, is the first serious stress test for the newly expanded BRICS. The organization’s 2024–2025 enlargement (Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Indonesia) has been widely recognized as a historic success in building a platform for the World Majority, but has also shown that BRICS institutions are unprepared for conflict situations. The war has placed Iran and the UAE on opposite sides, while BRICS as a whole has no unified position.

BRICS members were divided in voting on anti-Iranian UN Resolution 2817. Russia and China abstained, while India and the UAE coauthored the resolution. Brazil adopted a moderate stance, although it condemned the strikes on Iran, as did South Africa. Egypt, conversely, condemned strikes against “brotherly Arab nations.” Ethiopia expressed concern primarily over its own energy security. BRICS consultations in New Delhi (24 April 2026) could not produce a joint statement, and instead ended with a brief summary from the Chairman acknowledging an internal split. The BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting (the organization’s second-most-important annual gathering), held in mid-May in New Delhi, also failed to overcome these divisions, ending with a non-consensus Chairman’s Statement noting disagreement, on a number of points, of certain (publicly known) members.[1]

In effect, three camps have emerged within BRICS. The ‘sovereign-legal’ group (Russia, China, Brazil, and South Africa) condemns the U.S.-Israeli attack. The ‘regional-strategic’ group (India, Egypt, and Ethiopia) is primarily concerned with its own security and energy supplies. Iran, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia (as a ‘half-member’) are themselves parties to the conflict.

There are also other smoldering conflicts, e.g., between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Nile.

This situation is unprecedented: previous clashes, e.g., between China and India, were kept contained, unable to interfere with long-term BRICS projects.

This has prompted a degree of schadenfreude in the West. As a Singaporean-based expert notes, BRICS is able to agree more on reformist language than on “a common posture when conflict threatens to impact concrete national interests.” (Hussein, 2026) The core principles of BRICS—consensus, respect for sovereignty, and pragmatism—function in peacetime, but paralyze decision-making during disorder and confrontation. A fundamental flaw has been exposed in the “minimalist institutionalism” of which BRICS has been so proud—for it grants rights and benefits without obligations, flexibility without diktat, which is precisely what attracts so many new applicants and aspiring members.

A secondary consequence of the war for BRICS has been an energy and financial split: disruptions in energy markets benefit some members (including Russia), but are detrimental to the majority. Furthermore, the tightening sanctions against Iran and its supporters have forced BRICS members to choose between risking secondary sanctions or distancing themselves from Tehran. These frictions notwithstanding, the war may accelerate de-dollarization and promote the creation of independent payment and settlement systems within BRICS—one of its key objectives.

Possible Trajectories for BRICS

In Russia, some experts insist on BRICS’s development based on the ‘lowest common denominator,’ while others argue that BRICS must become a fully-fledged institution of global governance, or the world will become increasingly chaotic, many World Majority countries will become less stable and secure, and BRICS itself will lose its attractiveness and influence (Karaganov et al., 2026).

In some Russian publications, the baseline scenario is one of ambition and reform, in which BRICS becomes a “central institution of the World Majority,” capable of filling the vacuum in global governance (Karaganov et al., 2026). Achieving this demands progress in seven areas: financial settlements (the prototype Mariana system); disaster response (BRICS Rescue); a new climate agenda (BRICS Nature); an analogue to the IEA (BRICS Power); food security (BRICS Feed); dialogue on military AI; and normative and educational cooperation. Further expansion of the agenda is probably undesirable.

However, although these issues are well-chosen and merit vigorous effort, the war may badly injure BRICS’s developing organism.

Hastily expanded on the eve of a global storm, BRICS and its new partners have encountered challenges of a magnitude that they cannot ignore. Nor can they discount more pessimistic scenarios.

The first of those is BRICS’s fragmentation (‘G20-ization’): degradation into yet another geopolitically lightweight forum containing several opposing factions. Political and security issues would be displaced by economic, climate, trade, and humanitarian ones, as in the early stages of BRICS’s formation. Two wings could emerge within BRICS—a pro-Western one and an “irreconcilable” one.

The second option is BRICS’s ‘Sinicization,’ discussed in the West. If Russia weakens, or India and others become more dependent upon the West given deepening geopolitical rifts, then collapse may threaten BRICS, and China may be compelled to become arbiter and security guarantor, offering technological and diplomatic support to BRICS members. The influence of Russia and other members would then decline, BRICS would become an instrument of Chinese foreign policy, and some members might withdraw or maintain only a formal association.

A more realistic scenario is a ‘two-speed BRICS,’ comprising an anti-Western core (China, Russia, and Iran) and an opportunistically hedging periphery (India, Brazil, the UAE, South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia). This would entail differing directions and levels of integration: the core would deepen geopolitical, security, and even military cooperation, while the periphery would participate only in economic and humanitarian projects. Developments such as India’s ‘Special Strategic Partnership’ with Israel (February 2026), and the UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC, point in this direction.

Naturally, any of these scenarios would also affect the BRICS partner countries, which would also choose varying models and factions.

How Can the Situation Be Remedied?

The Gulf crisis may be a moment of truth, not a death sentence. The U.S.’s behavior under Donald Trump—including aggression against Iran and Venezuela, threats against Cuba, tariff wars, and pressure on South Africa to leave BRICS—may temporarily paralyze BRICS, but it also incentivizes BRICS consolidation. Yet BRICS should not and cannot become an anti-Western bloc, as this would diminish its attractiveness for many World Majority countries that do not wish to choose between the U.S. and China.

BRICS now faces a choice: to remain a talk-shop and gradually lose relevance or evolve into a conflict-response mechanism. If the bloc fails to propose an alternative security model (not necessarily a military alliance, but a diplomatic platform for conflict prevention), then its less influential members and partners will seek guarantees directly from the U.S. or China. BRICS would then become a declarative club, while real influence would shift to bilateral alliances—especially if the West, driven to prolong its dominance and exploitation, overcomes its internal contradictions as it did in the past.

Thus, in order to remain relevant, BRICS must establish permanent structures for mediation, monitoring, and coordination of security issues. This should be done together with deeper financial and payment integration (central banks’ digital currencies and BRICS Pay may gain momentum precisely as a means of insulating against dollar-based sanctions). The energy dimension may also play a role: the UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC could trigger a domino effect and a restructuring of the global energy market. BRICS, encompassing both energy producers and consumers, could become a new platform for coordination in this sphere. AI and cybersecurity, developed independently of the West, may likewise serve as instruments of consolidation.

A Bureaucratic Remedy

BRICS must be based on ‘soft institutionalization,’ seeking not a unified alliance, but a flexible multi-level structure.

For years, I have argued for BRICS’s urgent evolutionary institutionalization, beginning with the creation of bureaucratic mechanisms for coordination, monitoring, and preservation of institutional memory (Toloraya and Nikonov, 2013; Toloraya, 2015; Toloraya and Chukov, 2016).

Previously, ‘minimalist institutionalism’ provided flexibility and lowered the barrier to entry for new members. But the enduring rejection of bureaucracy is now causing a lack of continuity. Each chair country shapes the agenda according to its own priorities; previous decisions often remain unimplemented; and what institutional memory there is depends on the enthusiasm of individual states (namely Russia). With the addition of four/five members plus partners, the problem has become critical. New members are unfamiliar with the history of the BRICS agenda, and some lack the bureaucratic resources needed to manage chairmanships involving hundreds of events (Karaganov et al, 2026).

How could ‘soft institutionalization’ be realized? Proposals for a secretariat, divided between members, are detached from the reality of international organizations’ bureaucratic functioning. A BRICS Secretary-General, with few meaningful powers and a geographically dispersed staff, would be little more than a façade.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel. A compact secretariat is needed, composed of one D-2 (per UN classification) official from each member, plus one D-1 or P-5 official from each partner. Some administrators (P-2 to P-4) would also be needed, with national quotas (like budgetary contributions) determined by a formula based on population size and GDP per capita. There should also be a technical staff recruited without quotas (G1–G7). The head of the secretariat would be appointed for a one-year term from the chair country and would, inter alia, be responsible for liaison with the chair’s government. The budget for 50–60 staff can be easily estimated.

A physical headquarters would be most effective, preferably located in a relatively neutral setting. Potential examples include Macau or Goa, which are distant from national capitals and (thanks to Portuguese) feature two BRICS languages. Of course, the secretariat may also have branches in national capitals, staffed, inter alia, by locals, if the host country is willing to finance them.

The technical secretariat would perform a limited set of functions, including:

• monitor the implementation of decisions, maintain documentation, and prepare reports and recommendations for leaders and governments;
• in cooperation with the chair country, prepare meeting agendas and the accompanying briefing and analytical materials;
• coordinate the work of the various sectoral tracks;
• maintain contacts with global and regional international organizations;
• organize training and capacity-building for partners, new members, and the ‘Friends of BRICS Club.’

This would still leave BRICS far short of a classical international organization with binding obligations and supranational bodies, and its members should not fear the emergence of diktat like in the EU. But such a mechanism may be sufficient for BRICS to pass the stress test of the current crisis, develop its own governance system, establish a crisis-response mechanism, pursue a common strategy—and even aspire to the role of global arbiter.

This article is an edited version of the paper written for the Valdai Discussion Club, https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/military-stress-test-the-war-on-iran-and-brics/