The world has become multipolar, and the process of globalization cannot be reversed, participants of the Valdai International Discussion Club said.

       “[Consider] the recent development about the PRISM scandal or the relationship between corporations and their governments. Google abides by the orders, so to speak, or the policy, of the United States government. In the next 10 or 20 years, for instance, there will clearly be a battle to reach primacy in the IT industry,” said Thierry de Montbrial, the founder and president of the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI).

       De Montbrial believes that the concept of national identity can only be reviewed as part of the globalization game.

       Experts also cite other examples. Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Presidium of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, believes it was the situation in Syria and around it that has largely pushed the world to the breaking point.

       “It marks the end of an era when many thought they knew how to resolve international problems,” he said. “The Syrian crisis is probably the largest diplomatic issue after the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. Moreover, it is a problem without an obvious solution. Russian and American diplomats don’t know where it will lead.”

       Lukyanov believes that we already live in the multipolar world that has been heralded for such a long time.

       “The era of big-time diplomacy is returning: the world has addressed the main issues of international relations, including war and peace, abandoning the focus on rates and prices. Nothing can be solved by crude force and domination. The practice of the United States, which remains the world’s greatest power, shows that crude force, although an important instrument, can no longer settle international crises, let alone in favor of any given country,” Lukyanov said.

       Toby Gati, Special Assistant to former President Bill Clinton and Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and the Eurasian States at the National Security Council, spoke about the economic, social and moral losses which people sustain when force is used in foreign policy.

       "There's a very sobering reality in the United States about the high cost that we paid for too many entanglements. The inability to cope with this is very clear. This includes the debt of the United States, it includes the number of people who've served in the military who are coming back who are wounded and will have to be taken care of by the American population for the next 60-80 years, people who lost limbs, people who've been emotionally scarred by their experiences, those kinds of things," Gati said.

       China is also facing the issue of national identity, which is being influenced by both old and new factors of global development.

       “[China is feeling] a shift of gravity from the traditionally transatlantic region to the transpacific region and beyond. This is the situation that China is confronting. China is undergoing such tremendous changes that we Chinese ourselves feel uneasy, we are caught unprepared and we are still exploring to how to deal with it,” said Yang Jiemian, former president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.

       He said that Chinese experts are considering ways to deal with this situation, because this will also allow the Chinese to more clearly define their identity.

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