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Acad. Anatoly Torkunov,
Rector of MGIMO University

The international landscape is increasingly moving away from the model of a global, centralized modernity. The rise of non-Western centers of power – driven not by a rejection of modernization but, on the contrary, by its successful appropriation and acceleration – has contributed to the decentering of modernity itself. In place of a single ‘center’ and a hierarchy of ‘peripheries’, a world of multiple civilizational actors is taking shape. Crucially, these civilizations differ not merely at the level of culture, symbols, or values, but at a more fundamental level: in their social ontologies and epistemologies – how political communities are imagined, how authority is constituted, how order is justified, and how knowledge about international reality is produced and validated. This raises a consequential question for international scholarship and practice alike: what kind of global order can emerge among civilizational states, and which principles and institutions can sustain it under conditions of increasing plurality?

Dr. Vladimir Orlov,
PIR Center Founding Director,
Professor at MGIMO University

“We do not choose our times. Great dynamism is the parent of turbulence and unpredictability. We do engage in forecasting global trends, and we do find it necessary. At the same time, we do not practice pseudo-scientific charlatanry through prophecies and divination; such an approach is banned in our Yearbook. We have therefore chosen the contrary one – it is aligned with the principle articulated by Alexander Pushkin via the character of the chronicler Pimen: to write down unpretentiously all that you’ll witness in your life – war, peace, the rule of sovereigns. It is precisely the principle of unpretentious direct analysis – without much ado! – that has guided our review of the latest global and regional security developments covered in this Yearbook.”