In 2015 the rejection and erosion of the neo-Liberal mainstream reached a new level, both in and outside the West.

       At its session a year ago, in October 2014, the Valdai Club formulated the main issue of current global politics:“New rules or a game without rules?” In this context the club devoted part of its analytical work in 2015 to the analysis of global alternatives: both socio-economic and political alternatives to the neo-Liberal mainstream as well as military-political alternatives to the existing world order.

       In 2015 the rejection and erosion of the neo-Liberal mainstream reached a new level, both in and outside the West. BRICS emergence and consolidation, on the one hand, and a sharp electoral rise of radical protest parties in Europe, on the other, showed the mainstream’s increased instability and clearly set the limits of its domination in modern ideology and political practice. Thus, it is possible to speak about a new stage of countering the Western mainstream – a new stage of global political legalization of alternative development models.

       Importantly, a trend towards reluctant recognition of the importance of non-Western alternatives for the inner Western protest has surfaced. In the past the West had a condescending and snobbish attitude to the ideas of BRICS and other alternative developmental structures, but now this attitude is changing, which may impart a new powerful impetus to the further erosion of the mainstream. BRICS alternatives are being perceived not only as the continuation and development of the ideology of developmentalism but also as a full-fledged global project. The formation of BRICS was perceived as a value challenge to the Western liberal mainstream. In this context a major role is played by the development of national alternative ideological models in major BRICS countries and their integration into a uniform complex of new alternative values in BRICS program documents.

       Naturally enough, BRICS is paying special attention to Chinese development strategy. Feng Shaolei wrote about this in detail in the Valdai Papers series. One more important subject is that of the destinies of the “Leftist turn” and alternative movements in Latin America. Telma Luzzani covers this subject in her Valdai Papers publication.

       The growing importance of alternative projects also revived the role of ideologies and ideological struggle in global politics. So, the next decade is likely to witness ideological renaissance. I am referring both to “old” ideologies and the formation of new ideological trends. In this context I would like to draw your attention to Boris Kagarlitsky’s article on modern Marxism in the Valdai Papers series. The mainstream’s attempts to marginalize ideological struggle and present the very term “ideology” as a dirty word failed to produce results. Thus, the role and evolution of ideologies are becoming key issues in assessing the global agenda.

       On the other hand, the mainstream’s clearly registered strides to replace ideologies with values and impose Western liberal values on the world was also used in shaping global alternatives. The emphasis on alternative values and inadmissibility of their unification played a key role in this respect. Thus, the clash of values and identities largely supplemented and enhanced a global ideological struggle. Indicatively, operating with the notion of having values, protest movements in the West are actively developing a thesis on the absence of a common view on values in the West itself. Obviously, this is of primary importance in the transformation of the global agenda.

       An equally important role is played by the advancement of socio-economic alternatives to the neo-Liberal mainstream in the West. This subject is extensively covered by many authors in the Valdai Papers series by Radhika Desai, Alan Freeman and Francine Mestrum.

       The peculiarity of the moment is that the protest movement in Western countries amassed a much broader social base. As distinct from the previous period linked with the anti-globalist movements of 1999？2003, when mostly Left-wing radicals took part in the protest in the West, now protest ideology receives electoral support of a quarter or a third of all voters in many European countries.

       In 2015 Greece became the EU’s first large country where Syriza, a protest party, came to power as a result of elections. In Britain, Jeremy Corbyn became the new leader of the Labor Party, being a representative of its far-Left non-conformist wing. The phenomenon of Cipras and Corbyn largely made 2015 a year of European protest. Two esteemed authors of the Valdai Club ？ Richard Sakwa and Dimitris Konstantakopoulos devoted their analytical papers to studying the reasons and consequences of this phenomenon.

       In 2014？15 all these processes overlapped with the Ukrainian crisis, the escalation of the conflict in Syria, the emergence of the Islamic State, a new hot spot in Yemen and the like. The general sharp aggravation of international tensions against this backdrop are making especially topical not only the economic but also political (including military-political) alternatives of the existing model of the world order. Such alternatives may be found both in the framework of the established rules of international relations and outside it. One of such alternatives that is often discussed in the context of the crises in Ukraine and the Middle East is the revision of global nuclear policy – a return to the idea of the possible use of nuclear arsenals on the battlefields rather than just as a virtual deterrent. Possibilities of full scale (or “limited”) war between Russia and the West are also discussed in the open. In the Valdai Papers series Richard Weitz writes about nuclear fears after Ukraine. Another author, Huseyin Bagci, describes Russian-Turkish relations as regard to Syria. Thus, alternative development roads, typical for the confrontation between the power centers in the past, boil down to a simple (and somewhat forgotten in the 1990s and 2000s) alternative of war and peace.

       This is the reality of 2015 that will be projected into the future. We will have to use it as a point of departure, whether we want it or not. The new bipolarity makes most urgent the issue of the global alternative of war and peace as a major factor of global politics in 2016 and beyond. Hence, politicians and experts are facing the task of either working on war scenarios or searching for the ground for a new balance of the two influential groups of states with a view to ensuring peace at least for the next few years. The authors of the Valdai Club’s program on global alternatives tried to facilitate the search for solutions to these most complicated issues.

       Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.