Out of Order

... conflicts of various scales, whose outcomes define the new international system. Events since the early 2010s—Iraq and Syria—seemed to confirm this assumption, and they entered into their decisive phase with the outbreak of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, and Palestine. These conflicts, directly linked to the great powers, are painful and destructive, but implicitly motivated by the need to resolve the contradictions impeding the new world order’s formation. In the fall of 2024, such an understanding is in need of correction. First, regarding nuclear weapons. It is not that they have ceased to function as a deterrent. Their possession by Russia, China—and to some extent Israel—does ...