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by Timofey Bordachev
Program Director of the Valdai Club
October 02, 2026
from
Vzglyad.ru Website
translation by The RT team
October 03, 2026
from
RT Website
Original version in Russian
© Sputnik / Kristina
Solovyova
The
economic and social challenges
Russia
faces are not unique,
and this
is both good and bad news...
Journalists and public figures from nearly 40 countries gathered at
this year's
Valdai Club conference to discuss
how the world is responding to a growing number of crises, and one
conclusion stood out:
the world has become more complex and there
will be no return to an age of simple solutions.
The 20th century gave humanity a great
deal, but it also encouraged the belief that fundamental political
and social questions can be settled by choosing the correct
ideology.
Capitalism and communism
competed to provide the answer, and after the Cold War,
liberal globalism made its own attempt to reduce
international affairs to a common set of rules and assumptions, but
this has also failed...
We are therefore learning to live in a world where even the most
dangerous developments need not produce panic or despair.
This was reflected in the agenda at Valdai
as participants discussed issues that would have seemed
extraordinary 15 or 20 years ago about how societies withstand
prolonged war, the increasingly impersonal nature of modern warfare,
the military use of A.I., and the uncertain future of nuclear
deterrence.
Yet these discussions took place without a sense of panic, and
without attempts to frighten participants with the prospect of a
world in which the US and Europe can no longer set the rules.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin argued
in the closing session, the global situation under these
circumstances could instead change for the better.
This explains why, despite the dangers facing the world, the tone at
Valdai was constructive.
Yes, the risks are real, but they were
discussed as conditions in which future development must take
place, rather than as signs of inevitable catastrophe.
One reason is that,
the overwhelming majority of participants
come from countries outside the West, and their perspective is
often quite different from that which prevails in Europe, as
rather than seeking to restore an international order that is
disappearing, they're trying to understand what will replace it.
In this respect, Valdai provides a useful
snapshot of the intellectual debate taking place beyond the Western
world.
For Russia, this matters enormously, given,
new ideas and alternative approaches to
development are increasingly being debated in China, India,
Iran, and the Arab world, and across Africa, Asia, and Latin
America, and Russia has much to learn from these discussions.
It's equally important to understand the thinking
of countries that have resisted pressure from the US and Europe and
maintained relations with Russia during the past four years.
These countries constitute much of the 'global
majority' with which Russia hopes to build a
multipolar international order.
The exchange also gives Russia the opportunity to explain its own
perspective, not only on
the Ukraine conflict but on broader
questions that will shape international affairs for decades, and the
first is war.
International law is playing a diminishing role in restraining
countries, as conflicts in some regions have become exceptionally
violent, while,
new technologies are changing the nature
of warfare, and unmanned systems and A.I. create
possibilities that scarcely existed a generation ago.
Far from eliminating human responsibility, these
technologies make questions of responsibility, error, and human
judgment even more important.
The second question is,
how international rules will be established
and maintained as Western influence declines...
Russia, China, and other countries have long
promoted multipolarity as an alternative model of international
order.
Putin used his Valdai appearance to call for
reform of
the UN system and a greater
role for developing countries and the
Global South in making important
international decisions.
The third challenge is older but no less pressing because
climate change, environmental degradation, inequality, and poverty
have not disappeared, and while the struggle by the US and Europe to
preserve their international position has increasingly pushed these
questions into the background, they will eventually have to be
addressed.
This raises two difficult questions regarding,
There is still no clear answer to the first,
and Asian countries show little enthusiasm for simply replacing the
West as global leaders, but on the second,
BRICS increasingly appears capable
of playing an important role.
The attraction of BRICS is that,
it does not operate through one member
issuing instructions to the other, and that its members have
different interests and political systems, but share an interest
in stable development and greater freedom in determining their
own policies.
Its weaknesses should not be ignored,
because,
BRICS lacks the internal discipline
characteristic of traditional Western alliances, and two of its
members, Iran and the UAE, came dangerously close to conflict
this spring, yet the organization is increasingly discussed as a
source of mutually beneficial ideas and practical solutions.
Another challenge is
A.I., and this goes far beyond
its military uses.
Fundamental questions concern the ethical limits
of A.I., the preservation of humanism, and the danger of what Putin
calls "digital totalitarianism."
Technological progress is moving faster than
the political and social institutions that are expected to
regulate it.
For Russia, perhaps the most important lesson is
that the economic and social problems it faces aren't uniquely
Russian, given that countries everywhere are struggling with
economic imbalance, technological disruption, and rapid social
change, and this is both good and bad news.
It's good news for Russia because it
demonstrates the failure of Western attempts since 2022 to
isolate the country from the wider world, but it's bad
news because nobody has discovered universal solutions to these
problems.
Economic and social resilience will therefore be
critical, as the international system is undergoing changes on a
scale rarely seen in modern history.
An era lasting more than 500 years, during
which Western civilization progressively acquired the ability to
determine much of humanity's political and economic development,
is coming to an end, and this transformation
coincides with extraordinary advances in technology, medicine,
and genetics.
Every major civilization is searching for
answers, but the fundamental disagreement concerns how these answers
should be found, as Western countries are attempting to preserve the
international positions they have accumulated over centuries, while
Russia and its partners in BRICS argue instead for an order based on
sovereign choice and mutual benefit.
The clash between these two approaches may prove to be the
defining conflict of our time...
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