By Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club
“A new world order must be built to ensure economic justice and equal political security for all nations. An end to the arms race is an essential prerequisite for the establishment of such an order.”
This year marks the 40th anniversary of those words from the Soviet-Indian Delhi Declaration, signed in 1986 during Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to India and talks with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The declaration became one of the first major late-Cold War documents to openly call for the construction of a “new world order.”
At the time, Soviet leaders believed such an order could emerge through what they called “new political thinking” — a vision where former ideological rivals would abandon confrontation and combine elements of their systems into a more stable international framework.
But history moved in a very different direction.
The Soviet Union collapsed into internal crisis before disappearing entirely from the global stage. Meanwhile, the phrase “new world order” survived, but was repurposed by the administration of US President George H.W. Bush to describe an American-led liberal order dominated politically and militarily by Washington and its allies.
According to the article, this was not truly a new order at all, but rather an extension of the post-1945 system, only without the balancing force of the Soviet Union.
Cracks in the post-Cold War system
For a time, many believed this US-led structure represented the “end of history” and the natural endpoint of political development. Yet instead of producing lasting stability, tensions gradually intensified.
By the early 2010s, the foundations of the system were already beginning to fracture. Since then, the pace of breakdown has accelerated dramatically.
The article argues that by the opening months of 2026, it became increasingly difficult to deny that the previous world order had effectively ceased to exist.
What matters now is not simply that major powers increasingly ignore laws and conventions that once appeared stable, but the style in which global politics is being conducted.
“Decisions are impulsive and often openly contradictory as governments act first and improvise later.”
Statements made one day may directly contradict those made the day before, yet this inconsistency no longer appears to matter in the emerging geopolitical climate.
The global redistribution has begun
The article suggests the current atmosphere should not necessarily be interpreted as irrationality, but rather as a belief among major powers that the old restraints have collapsed and that the present moment offers a historic opportunity to seize advantage before a new equilibrium emerges.
According to the report, a broad redistribution of global power is already underway.
Political influence, trade routes, resources, financial systems, technological ecosystems and even cultural and religious spheres are now being contested simultaneously.
“Every major power is now defining its ambitions and testing the methods by which those ambitions might be achieved.”
The article warns that while costly mistakes are nothing new in international politics, the real uncertainty lies in whether the world is still capable of producing a new stable framework after the current period of fragmentation.
Old structures still remain
Unlike previous eras shaped by world wars, the current international system has not been completely swept away.
Instead, the world remains crowded with institutions, agreements and habits inherited from earlier political eras. Many may be weakened or dysfunctional, but they continue to exist and are still selectively used by states whenever convenient.
The United Nations is highlighted as a key example. Although its authority has diminished, governments continue appealing to it when it serves their interests.
Likewise, despite trade wars, sanctions, geopolitical fragmentation and growing rivalry between major powers, the global economic system has proven more resilient than many expected.
Supply chains bend but do not fully break. Markets remain interconnected, and even geopolitical adversaries continue trading indirectly.
No blueprint for what comes next
The article argues that constructing a genuinely new international framework will be extraordinarily painful because the available material consists of fragments from different eras, ideologies and institutional systems.
Some nations are attempting to carefully assemble workable structures from those fragments, while others are trying to impose new arrangements through pressure, coercion and intimidation.
“The danger is obvious: Excessive force may not produce stability at all, but only further fragmentation.”
Perhaps the defining feature of the current moment, according to the author, is that no major power possesses a clear blueprint for what the future international order should actually look like.
“The old rules are fading, but no agreed replacements have emerged.”
The article concludes with a stark observation about the emerging geopolitical era:
“For now, the message confronting every major power is brutally simple: Do it yourself, and then try to live with the consequences.”
Source: RT / Russia in Global Affairs