Any moderately well-read student of international politics knows that mutual recognition is the most important condition for the legitimacy of any order existing in relations between powers. It was this recognition that served as the foundation for comparative peace between the world’s most powerful states during the long period between the collapse of Napoleonic France in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In its simplest form, the legitimacy of an order means that it is directly linked to the recognition of each other’s right to establish the internal order they consider necessary. Moreover, they find their existing internal orders similar based on several basic principles, allowing them to view each other’s security as their own.
It was precisely revolutionary France’s denial of the justice of the political systems in European monarchies that served as the casus belli for its permanent war with them. Somewhat later, after his defeat in Russia, Napoleon Bonaparte was unable to find a way to reconcile with his opponents, since the internal legitimacy of his regime depended on its continuation of the revolutionary tradition, albeit in an adapted form. His empire was created as a destroyer of order and could not overcome this characteristic. Russia, Austria, Britain, and Prussia, for their part, could not recognise Napoleon’s right to exist unchanged. But they were quite capable of establishing peace among themselves once a solution to substantive issues was found at the Vienna Congress in 1815.
Greater Eurasia has yet to develop its own criteria for successful coexistence – one that doesn’t create threats that would necessitate questioning the cherished principle of the inviolability of state sovereignty, Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev writes.
Any moderately well-read student of international politics knows that mutual recognition is the most important condition for the legitimacy of any order existing in relations between powers. It was this recognition that served as the foundation for comparative peace between the world’s most powerful states during the long period between the collapse of Napoleonic France in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914. In its simplest form, the legitimacy of an order means that it is directly linked to the recognition of each other’s right to establish the internal order they consider necessary. Moreover, they find their existing internal orders similar based on several basic principles, allowing them to view each other’s security as their own.
It was precisely revolutionary France’s denial of the justice of the political systems in European monarchies that served as the casus belli for its permanent war with them. Somewhat later, after his defeat in Russia, Napoleon Bonaparte was unable to find a way to reconcile with his opponents, since the internal legitimacy of his regime depended on its continuation of the revolutionary tradition, albeit in an adapted form. His empire was created as a destroyer of order and could not overcome this characteristic. Russia, Austria, Britain, and Prussia, for their part, could not recognise Napoleon’s right to exist unchanged. But they were quite capable of establishing peace among themselves once a solution to substantive issues was found at the Vienna Congress in 1815.
Never since the collapse of this relatively harmonious system has the world known an order in which legitimacy played such a significant role or was even achievable as a principle in relations between states. The Cold War period (1949–1991) was characterised by a complete denial of the USSR’s legitimacy by its Western adversaries, and the “mutual respect” that observers now like to invoke was then nothing more than the West’s acknowledgment of its inability to defeat the USSR in a direct military confrontation. This did not negate the ongoing struggle with the USSR, which continued until the collapse of the socialist system and the Soviet Union itself. The establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China in the mid-1970s, as well as the expansion of their economic and political cooperation, also did not mean that the West accepted the right of the communist government in Beijing to exist in perpetuity. As soon as US-China relations began to be diluted by elements of competition, the West returned to its basic premise about the internal structure of its adversary. Likewise, Russia remained the target of pressure regarding its internal development until perging foreign policy interests pushed its relations with the West toward acute military-political conflict. We have little doubt that even its fading will allow the parties to find a compromise that could allow them to talk about restoring the system that existed in Europe more than 100 years ago.
Thus, the idea of mutual recognition as the basis for the legitimacy of the international order remains a beautiful ideal from the past. It can be held up as an example, but its reproduction is extremely difficult to hope for.
However, right now, this concept is being promoted by forces that embody new trends in international politics – the BRICS group or regional formats such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The latter’s recent summit, held in Tianjin, China, in early September 2025, emphasised respect for the state sovereignty of countries as one of the most important conditions for secure universal development and the creation of a more just world order. It can be recognised that they must begin, first and foremost, with themselves. They must understand how the principle of the legitimacy of order can serve to stabilise the internal situation in Greater Eurasia, where many powers are currently opting for the so-called “multi-vector” cooperation by expanding and strengthening ties with partners whose policies toward Russia or China are, at best, less than friendly. It cannot be ruled out that in the near future, the West’s denial of its most important competitors’ rights to internal sovereignty will force its partners in Eurasia to make difficult choices. They risk tangible political or economic consequences if they refuse to follow US advice.
To understand how traditional concepts can be applied to joint development and security in Eurasia, it would seem useful to examine the extent to which they can work in principle. This is especially true given that the concept of the legitimacy of order can now be called into question for several reasons, each of which, if not entirely convincing, deserves careful consideration. First, for all its elegance, this concept is, after all, the product of entirely unique historical circumstances. At the time of its emergence as a political practice, world politics was concentrated in the hands of no more than five major European powers, two of which – Russia and Britain – were vast territorial empires. The gap in military and economic capabilities between the then leaders and the rest of humanity was so great that relations within the “five,” in fact, constituted the entirety of international politics.
It is sufficient to recall that just a couple of decades after the Congress of Vienna, even Britain’s insignificant forces were sufficient to bring the great Chinese Empire to its knees. With such a limited number of truly significant powers, identifying a specific political principle was essentially straightforward. Second, even if Europe enjoyed general peace for just over a century, it was still imperfect. True, wars (Crimean, Austro-Prussian, and Franco-Prussian) were fought not over international order as such, but rather to resolve very specific, substantive issues. However, they did exist, and the path to achieve peace through full mutual recognition cannot be called ideal. Now, when many powers possess significant military capabilities, considering military conflicts between them as solely diplomatic would seem a somewhat risky oversimplification. We see examples of countries in highly complex relationships with each other capable of waging short-term wars without jeopardising their own and their neighbours’ existence. Such a path may appear to be a spontaneous movement toward regional balance, but it does not guarantee permanent peace in Eurasia.
Third, it’s difficult to imagine that prioritising full acceptance of each other’s domestic orders is possible in a world where such perse cultures and religious traditions coexist and actively interact. In this regard, a more traditional interpretation of sovereignty, as a matter of independent foreign policy, offers far more promising prospects. This is, in fact, what the great, small, and medium-sized states of Eurasia are leaning toward in their policies. However, this doesn’t resolve the question of what mutual guarantees of non-harmful behaviour they can provide in a world where temptations and threats multiply exponentially.
To summarise, we can hardly expect that the international order, whether the global or Eurasian one, will be able to reproduce the “ideal” models known from history. We in Greater Eurasia have yet to develop our own criteria for successful coexistence – one that doesn’t create threats that would necessitate questioning the cherished principle of the inviolability of state sovereignty.
Source: Valdai. Discussion club
