Homo Perplexus: How to Stop Fearing and Learn to Love Change. Opening and I Session of the Rondtable
On June 17, the Valdai Discussion Club held a roundtable in Saint Petersburg, in the run-up to SPIEF, titled “Homo Perplexus: How to Stop Fearing and Learn to Love Change”. The participants of the first session discussed, whether the state is capable of pursuing policy without strategy and whether tactics can be made strategic in an era of dramatic change. Can policy be effective without a strategy? The instinctive answer is, of course, no. But what if the sheer scale of change makes foresight impossible? That is precisely the reality we face today. Yet, states cannot afford to drift passively on socio-political currents – or can they? And if not, what path should they take when the situation can shift suddenly and radically? In other words, how can tactics become strategic?
On June 17, the Valdai Discussion Club held a roundtable in Saint Petersburg, in the run-up to SPIEF, titled “Homo Perplexus: How to Stop Fearing and Learn to Love Change”. The participants of the first session discussed, whether the state is capable of pursuing policy without strategy and whether tactics can be made strategic in an era of dramatic change. Can policy be effective without a strategy? The instinctive answer is, of course, no. But what if the sheer scale of change makes foresight impossible? That is precisely the reality we face today. Yet, states cannot afford to drift passively on socio-political currents – or can they? And if not, what path should they take when the situation can shift suddenly and radically? In other words, how can tactics become strategic?