The Valdai Club, a well-recognized and influential Russian academic thin tank, marked its 21st annual meeting with the traditional indepth and broad discussions, coincidentally on November 7, which is a significant date both for Russia and the entire world. The Valdai Club’s substantive discussions, with participation of both local and foreign experts from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America, largely centered on the changing geopolitics and its impact on developments and, most essentially on the emerging new global order of the 21st century.

As the Valdai Club passed its 20th year, it has witnessed significant political developments on a dramatic scale these two decades. This alone shows its historical uniqueness, the period, characterized with complexity and contradictions, also generated a solid platform for making tremendous contributions to shaping political history. The history brings in its fold different political waves and economic crises, which sometimes makes the future world unpredictable. But experts, as the popular saying goes ‘two heads are better than one’, have conscientiously studied the dynamics of the changes and design an analytical future.

With an increasing influence, Russian President Vladimir Putin, under his leadership on November 7, outlined the shape and components of the emerging new world architecture. It took him and the entire Valdai Club experts and participants deep into the night, ended close to midnight. Here are a few significant features Putin tried to outline to the world.

i) Building a new world system: If you look back 20 years and evaluate the scale of changes, you can assume that the next twenty years will be no less, if not more difficult. There comes, in a way, the moment of truth. The former world arrangement is irreversibly passing away, actually it has already passed away, and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the development of a new world order. It is irreconcilable, above all, because this is not even a fight for power or geopolitical influence. It is a clash of the very principles that will underlie the relations of countries and peoples at the next historical stage.

Hegemony in the new international order is not a consideration. When, for instance, Washington and other Western capitals understand and acknowledge this........

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