The West's confrontation with Russia and China was named the main security threat

A new era of competition between the “great powers” ​​— the United States, China, and Russia — has arrived in the world, but the West, and especially the European Union, is not ready for this competition. This is stated in the report “The Big Puzzle: Who Will Pick Up the Pieces?” published by the organizers of the annual Munich Conference on International Security, which will be held on February 15–17, Vedomosti writes.

Competition with “authoritarian China and Russia,” experts believe, has become the core of the American foreign policy agenda, replacing the fight against terrorism. The rivalry between Russia and the West hits the countries that find themselves between them the hardest: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine: “They do not benefit from rapprochement with an economically weak and authoritarian Russia. However, Moscow constantly reminds them that it will not let them out of the orbit of its geopolitical influence. Meanwhile, neither the EU nor NATO is seriously considering the prospects of accepting these countries into their ranks.”

An improvement in relations between Russia and the West is unlikely. At the same time, Russia will not be able to remain a serious rival to the United States in the long term because of its economic problems. A more important rival for the United States is China. Under Trump, relations with China have deteriorated “more and more rapidly than at any time since diplomatic relations were established in 1979,” says political scientist Ryan Hass of the Brookings Institution.

"The authoritarian regimes of Russia and China" pose a threat to the established liberal world order, but a split within the Western community itself poses no less of a danger, experts write. US President Donald Trump's disdain for international institutions and agreements, his reluctance to solve global problems, and his support for illiberal leaders such as the presidents of Brazil or the Philippines are all contributing to the fact that traditional American allies are no longer perceiving the US as a guarantor of the liberal world order. In this situation, it is the G7 countries or the entire EU that must make up for the lack of US leadership, experts conclude.