?
War and Peace in the 21st century. International Stability and Balance of the New Type
The year 2015 opened a new stage in the development of the international system. Despite the continuing erosion of the old institutions, for the first time in a long while we can see signs of emergence of something new amid the disintegration of the old.
The world order, much-discussed since the late 1980s, has never been "built" by dint of anyone's conscientious efforts, but it is now starting to crop up from the reign of chaos. The contours are just beginning to take shape, but there are already grounds for reflections about the world's new structure in the upcoming decades.
Globalization is not being replaced by isolationism, although the integrated system is transforming, becoming less centralized, more fragmented and oriented towards regions. Not only are the closest interdependence and intense competition not mutually exclusive, they create an impartible symbiosis. Cooperation and mutual restraining go hand in hand.
A new balance is beginning to take shape based on the interaction between two groups of states: the Broader West (the US and its partners) and the "Greater Eurasia". This is not a new bipolarity, but a new dialectic of diverging and coinciding interests. Should the tendency take root, new conditions for a more solid global unity will appear in the midst of an unending competition.