Politics
Valdai Club: Learn to Love
‘Dr. Chaos’
‘Dr. Chaos’
February 4, 2026
Kremlin-backed foreign policy experts argue in a recent report that the era of stability in international relations is over – in its place has emerged a world of permanent instability in which chaos is the core feature of international politics.
Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in 2013
Kremlin.ru
Kremlin.ru
Titled “Dr. Chaos or How to Stop Worrying and Love the Disorder,” the September 2025 report from the Valdai Discussion Club (Russian version/English version) – a Kremlin-backed forum that has long served as a laboratory for Russia’s strategic thinking and a space where Moscow’s worldview is articulated in dialogue with international experts – argues that a world of permanent instability is not as a failure of global governance but a new historical norm that states must learn to navigate rather than resist.
According to the report’s authors, the task is to adapt to a world in which predictability has become structurally unattainable.
Founded in 2004, Valdai holds annual meetings that are attended by senior officials, including Putin, and its reports often reflect the conceptual thinking of Russia’s foreign policy establishment – it produces narratives and analytical frameworks that shape how Russian elites interpret the international environment and Russia’s place within it.
The end of the ‘Western moment’
The report opens with a diagnosis that has become increasingly common outside of the Western policy mainstream. The post-Cold War international order, built around US leadership, Western-dominated institutions and universalist norms, is presented as a historically limited arrangement rather than a permanent achievement. The dominance of Western political and economic models in the 1990s and early 2000s, the report argues, generated a sense of the end of history, with globalization assumed to be irreversible, liberal democracy framed as a universal destination and multilateral institutions entrusted with securing long-term stability.
In Valdai’s reading, the end of the post-Cold War order is driven less by its internal flaws than by a structural transformation of the global system itself. The diffusion of power, influence and economic potential has created a world in which the Western model can no longer function as a universal framework. What is coming to an end, in this sense, is not a set of norms or institutions, but a historical configuration built around Western predominance.
The emerging world is said to be polycentric, fragmented and heterogeneous, a system in which no state or bloc can impose universal rules, no institution commands uncontested authority, alliances are situational rather than structural and norms are interpreted selectively. This, however, should not be confused with a slide into anarchy. What has disappeared is not order as such, but a specific form of hierarchical order associated with Western dominance. The authors contend that, far from crumbling, the international system has demonstrated a striking degree of resilience in the face of mounting turbulence.
Stability without predictability
One of the report’s core arguments concerns the paradoxical resilience of the international system. Despite proliferating conflicts, sanctions and geopolitical rivalries, global politics is not in the midst of systemic collapse. Economic interdependence remains a defining feature of world affairs, technological networks continue to bind states together and diplomatic channels function even between adversaries. Great power competition has intensified, but it is said to be constrained by mutual vulnerabilities and strategic deterrence.
What emerges from the report is a vision of what might be described as “sustainable chaos”: a world that is unstable but not ungovernable, crisis-prone but not terminal. The system does not consolidate to form a hard equilibrium, yet it does not disintegrate either. Instead of a stable balance of power secured by institutions and norms, the report proposes a model of global politics as a continuous process of adjustment in which stability is temporary, local and reversible.
In such an environment, the function of diplomacy is no longer to construct a lasting peace but to prevent instability from escalating into catastrophe. Conflict management replaces conflict resolution, containment replaces settlement and pragmatism replaces universalism. It is this logic of containment and adjustment, Valdai suggests, that helps explain the system’s surprising resilience and the absence of revolutionary ambitions in contemporary international politics.
The age of incremental power
Historically, periods of systemic crisis were often driven by actors seeking to overthrow the existing order and replace it with something different. The 20th century, in particular, was shaped by ideological projects that aimed not merely to revise the international system but to redesign it entirely.
Today, the report argues, no comparable project exists. Even rising powers dissatisfied with Western dominance do not seek to dismantle the global system, from which they benefit economically and technologically. Their objective is to gain greater influence within the international system.
Valdai argues that a so-called “world majority” has emerged – a group of states prioritizing sovereignty, development and stability over ideology and generally avoiding taking sides in great power competition. Change in this system is thus evolutionary, with power redistributed gradually, rules revised selectively and institutions reinterpreted rather than abolished.
Nuclear deterrence reinforces this logic as it makes large-scale war between major powers strategically irrational. Total victory is unattainable and competition, however intense, remains structurally bounded.
The Trump ‘half revolution’
In Valdai’s interpretation, one of the main forces behind the current reconfiguration of the international system is Washington’s gradual withdrawal from the role of global leader. For Valdai, the US remains the most powerful actor in global politics, but Washington itself no longer seeks to organize the system or bear the costs of global governance.
The Trump presidency is described as a “half revolution” – a pivot that is amount dismantling key elements of the old order but without ambitions to construct a new one. The rhetoric of global leadership has given way to open transnationalism, multilateral commitments are treated as negotiable, alliances have become conditional and institutions are valued only insofar as they served immediate national interests.
In Valdai’s reading, this shift reflects rising internal friction, combined with the recognition by Washington of its limited resources, as well as a broader reorientation toward narrowly defined national interests. Washington did not withdraw from the world but abandoned attempts at organizing it.
This retreat from global leadership, the report argues, has accelerated the fragmentation of the international system. Without a hegemon willing to underwrite institutions and enforce norms, global governance increasingly relies on ad hoc arrangements, bilateral deals and regional mechanisms. What emerges is a more decentralized architecture of power rather than a vacuum.
According to the report’s authors, the task is to adapt to a world in which predictability has become structurally unattainable.
Founded in 2004, Valdai holds annual meetings that are attended by senior officials, including Putin, and its reports often reflect the conceptual thinking of Russia’s foreign policy establishment – it produces narratives and analytical frameworks that shape how Russian elites interpret the international environment and Russia’s place within it.
The end of the ‘Western moment’
The report opens with a diagnosis that has become increasingly common outside of the Western policy mainstream. The post-Cold War international order, built around US leadership, Western-dominated institutions and universalist norms, is presented as a historically limited arrangement rather than a permanent achievement. The dominance of Western political and economic models in the 1990s and early 2000s, the report argues, generated a sense of the end of history, with globalization assumed to be irreversible, liberal democracy framed as a universal destination and multilateral institutions entrusted with securing long-term stability.
In Valdai’s reading, the end of the post-Cold War order is driven less by its internal flaws than by a structural transformation of the global system itself. The diffusion of power, influence and economic potential has created a world in which the Western model can no longer function as a universal framework. What is coming to an end, in this sense, is not a set of norms or institutions, but a historical configuration built around Western predominance.
The emerging world is said to be polycentric, fragmented and heterogeneous, a system in which no state or bloc can impose universal rules, no institution commands uncontested authority, alliances are situational rather than structural and norms are interpreted selectively. This, however, should not be confused with a slide into anarchy. What has disappeared is not order as such, but a specific form of hierarchical order associated with Western dominance. The authors contend that, far from crumbling, the international system has demonstrated a striking degree of resilience in the face of mounting turbulence.
Stability without predictability
One of the report’s core arguments concerns the paradoxical resilience of the international system. Despite proliferating conflicts, sanctions and geopolitical rivalries, global politics is not in the midst of systemic collapse. Economic interdependence remains a defining feature of world affairs, technological networks continue to bind states together and diplomatic channels function even between adversaries. Great power competition has intensified, but it is said to be constrained by mutual vulnerabilities and strategic deterrence.
What emerges from the report is a vision of what might be described as “sustainable chaos”: a world that is unstable but not ungovernable, crisis-prone but not terminal. The system does not consolidate to form a hard equilibrium, yet it does not disintegrate either. Instead of a stable balance of power secured by institutions and norms, the report proposes a model of global politics as a continuous process of adjustment in which stability is temporary, local and reversible.
In such an environment, the function of diplomacy is no longer to construct a lasting peace but to prevent instability from escalating into catastrophe. Conflict management replaces conflict resolution, containment replaces settlement and pragmatism replaces universalism. It is this logic of containment and adjustment, Valdai suggests, that helps explain the system’s surprising resilience and the absence of revolutionary ambitions in contemporary international politics.
The age of incremental power
Historically, periods of systemic crisis were often driven by actors seeking to overthrow the existing order and replace it with something different. The 20th century, in particular, was shaped by ideological projects that aimed not merely to revise the international system but to redesign it entirely.
Today, the report argues, no comparable project exists. Even rising powers dissatisfied with Western dominance do not seek to dismantle the global system, from which they benefit economically and technologically. Their objective is to gain greater influence within the international system.
Valdai argues that a so-called “world majority” has emerged – a group of states prioritizing sovereignty, development and stability over ideology and generally avoiding taking sides in great power competition. Change in this system is thus evolutionary, with power redistributed gradually, rules revised selectively and institutions reinterpreted rather than abolished.
Nuclear deterrence reinforces this logic as it makes large-scale war between major powers strategically irrational. Total victory is unattainable and competition, however intense, remains structurally bounded.
The Trump ‘half revolution’
In Valdai’s interpretation, one of the main forces behind the current reconfiguration of the international system is Washington’s gradual withdrawal from the role of global leader. For Valdai, the US remains the most powerful actor in global politics, but Washington itself no longer seeks to organize the system or bear the costs of global governance.
The Trump presidency is described as a “half revolution” – a pivot that is amount dismantling key elements of the old order but without ambitions to construct a new one. The rhetoric of global leadership has given way to open transnationalism, multilateral commitments are treated as negotiable, alliances have become conditional and institutions are valued only insofar as they served immediate national interests.
In Valdai’s reading, this shift reflects rising internal friction, combined with the recognition by Washington of its limited resources, as well as a broader reorientation toward narrowly defined national interests. Washington did not withdraw from the world but abandoned attempts at organizing it.
This retreat from global leadership, the report argues, has accelerated the fragmentation of the international system. Without a hegemon willing to underwrite institutions and enforce norms, global governance increasingly relies on ad hoc arrangements, bilateral deals and regional mechanisms. What emerges is a more decentralized architecture of power rather than a vacuum.
Headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russia
Alvesgaspar / Wikimedia Commons
Alvesgaspar / Wikimedia Commons
A patchwork of governance
In the absence of universal norms, diplomacy itself is undergoing a profound transformation – one that, in Valdai’s view, helps explain the paradoxical stability of an otherwise fragmented international system. Rather than collapsing into chaos, global governance is being rewired with a dense web of partial, overlapping and situational arrangements.
Valdai paints a picture of a world in which multiple diplomatic logics coexist and overlap, ranging from patron-client hierarchies reminiscent of imperial arrangements and ideological blocs united by shared threat perceptions, to transactional partnerships built around specific interests and classical balance-of-power arrangements between nuclear-armed rivals.
Together, these mechanisms form a loose and decentralized patchwork of governance, which has the basic elements of a global order without relying on universal institutions. In Valdai’s interpretation, it is precisely this architecture that prevents the system from collapsing. The new diplomacy is seen as allowing states, in the absence of shared rules, to manage tensions, contain risks and avoid uncontrolled escalation.
War and the return of might means right
In “Dr. Chaos,” ongoing wars are treated as expressions of a global order that has entered a phase of “permanent transition.” The report situates current conflicts in the broader context of polycentricity, fragmented authority and absence of universally binding rules.
Since the international system no longer operates under a single center of power capable of enforcing norms or arbitrating disputes, the report’s authors stress, rivalries are not expected to be resolved through institutional mechanisms or comprehensive settlements. Instead, conflicts are contained, localized and managed.
The report points to the persistence of military confrontation alongside deep economic interdependence, technological connectivity and ongoing diplomatic engagement. Contemporary wars unfold in a world that remains integrated. Even adversaries continue to trade, communicate and negotiate, while military conflict is treated as one of several instruments through which states pursue their interests in a decentralized and competitive environment.
“Dr. Chaos” highlights the supposedly stabilizing role of nuclear deterrence and mutual vulnerability. While rivalry between major powers has intensified, it remains bounded by the costs of escalation. The absence of revolutionary ambitions, along with this strategic restraint, prevents local wars from spiraling into systemic collapse. In this sense, the report presents ongoing armed conflicts not as a return to 20th total war but as part of a new element of sustainable chaos.
Chaos as a ‘political philosophy’
The “philosophical” core of “Dr. Chaos” is its rejection of a stable, rule-based international order and no new grand settlement comparable to Yalta or Bretton Woods. The age of universal blueprints, in Valdai’s view, is over. We are to live in a state of “permanent transition,” with chaos as a structural feature of global politics, where adaptability becomes the upmost political virtue, strategic flexibility replaces institutional rigidity and might increasingly displaces norms as the main currency of international relations.
For Moscow’s strategic community, this transformation is not perceived as a threat, because the erosion of a hierarchical order is seen as weakening Western dominance and expanding room for maneuver on the part of non-Western powers within a fragmented and polycentric international environment.
The report’s invitation to “love chaos” is rooted in the authors’ sympathetic reading of Washington’s retreat from moral leadership and universalist ambitions, exemplified by the Trump administration’s apparent rejection of regime change and preference for transactional, interest-based diplomacy.
Whether this new normal will help make the world fairer, more prosperous and more peaceful remains an open question. What is clear, according to the report, is that the hierarchical post-Cold War order has come to an end. Replacing is an environment defined by polycentricity, management and adjustment rather than universal, comprehensive solutions.
In the absence of universal norms, diplomacy itself is undergoing a profound transformation – one that, in Valdai’s view, helps explain the paradoxical stability of an otherwise fragmented international system. Rather than collapsing into chaos, global governance is being rewired with a dense web of partial, overlapping and situational arrangements.
Valdai paints a picture of a world in which multiple diplomatic logics coexist and overlap, ranging from patron-client hierarchies reminiscent of imperial arrangements and ideological blocs united by shared threat perceptions, to transactional partnerships built around specific interests and classical balance-of-power arrangements between nuclear-armed rivals.
Together, these mechanisms form a loose and decentralized patchwork of governance, which has the basic elements of a global order without relying on universal institutions. In Valdai’s interpretation, it is precisely this architecture that prevents the system from collapsing. The new diplomacy is seen as allowing states, in the absence of shared rules, to manage tensions, contain risks and avoid uncontrolled escalation.
War and the return of might means right
In “Dr. Chaos,” ongoing wars are treated as expressions of a global order that has entered a phase of “permanent transition.” The report situates current conflicts in the broader context of polycentricity, fragmented authority and absence of universally binding rules.
Since the international system no longer operates under a single center of power capable of enforcing norms or arbitrating disputes, the report’s authors stress, rivalries are not expected to be resolved through institutional mechanisms or comprehensive settlements. Instead, conflicts are contained, localized and managed.
The report points to the persistence of military confrontation alongside deep economic interdependence, technological connectivity and ongoing diplomatic engagement. Contemporary wars unfold in a world that remains integrated. Even adversaries continue to trade, communicate and negotiate, while military conflict is treated as one of several instruments through which states pursue their interests in a decentralized and competitive environment.
“Dr. Chaos” highlights the supposedly stabilizing role of nuclear deterrence and mutual vulnerability. While rivalry between major powers has intensified, it remains bounded by the costs of escalation. The absence of revolutionary ambitions, along with this strategic restraint, prevents local wars from spiraling into systemic collapse. In this sense, the report presents ongoing armed conflicts not as a return to 20th total war but as part of a new element of sustainable chaos.
Chaos as a ‘political philosophy’
The “philosophical” core of “Dr. Chaos” is its rejection of a stable, rule-based international order and no new grand settlement comparable to Yalta or Bretton Woods. The age of universal blueprints, in Valdai’s view, is over. We are to live in a state of “permanent transition,” with chaos as a structural feature of global politics, where adaptability becomes the upmost political virtue, strategic flexibility replaces institutional rigidity and might increasingly displaces norms as the main currency of international relations.
For Moscow’s strategic community, this transformation is not perceived as a threat, because the erosion of a hierarchical order is seen as weakening Western dominance and expanding room for maneuver on the part of non-Western powers within a fragmented and polycentric international environment.
The report’s invitation to “love chaos” is rooted in the authors’ sympathetic reading of Washington’s retreat from moral leadership and universalist ambitions, exemplified by the Trump administration’s apparent rejection of regime change and preference for transactional, interest-based diplomacy.
Whether this new normal will help make the world fairer, more prosperous and more peaceful remains an open question. What is clear, according to the report, is that the hierarchical post-Cold War order has come to an end. Replacing is an environment defined by polycentricity, management and adjustment rather than universal, comprehensive solutions.
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