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Very powerful and sobering piece by Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the magazine Russia in Global Politics, on how we have entered the most dangerous age in human history: “The Iranian head of state was not only liquidated by a precision strike — this act was also hailed as a triumphant achievement and a blessing for future conflict resolution. Ali Khamenei was, according to his country’s laws, the legitimate supreme authority of a UN member state that is internationally recognised almost universally and participates as a full-fledged actor in world affairs — including political negotiations with the very states that brought about his death. The fact that one state deliberately assassinates the head of another state and does so according to the same scheme used to eliminate leaders of terrorist cells or drug cartels gives world politics a completely new, dangerous dimension. This is true even in comparison to previous regime changes and their violent endpoints, such as the lynching of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya or the execution of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Although both events resulted from external military interventions, Gaddafi died at the hands of Libyan adversaries amid internal unrest. Saddam Hussein, on the other hand, came to an end through a ruling by an Iraqi court — despite legitimate doubts about the objectivity of this procedure. The case of Iran marks the transition to a method that Israel has so far practiced primarily against the leadership of Hezbollah and Hamas. The United States now fully supports this approach. This process dismantles the last stabilising elements that had survived from previous eras of international relations. The actors now make the recognition of state legitimacy dependent on current political circumstances or personal inclinations and dislikes. This transforms world politics into a form of ‘Russian roulette’ and deprives it of its fundamental set of rules. It is not the case that in the past all actors always acted according to law and morality — especially since the latter is interpreted differently depending on the culture anyway. But framework conditions did exist. These are now being torn down. As this process progressed consistently and almost fluidly, many political elites do not seem to have yet grasped the seriousness of the situation in all its drama. In these circles, the events are considered merely drastic but explainable excesses of current contradictions. But not everyone shares this view. The conclusions that the US opponents now inevitably draw are obvious: - Diplomacy as a dead end: negotiations with the Americans seem almost pointless. The end result always demands surrender or exposes itself as a diplomatic simulation that merely prepares the violent solution. - Last resort: in a situation without a way of retreat and without the prospect of preserving what already exists, any remaining argument — i.e., any available form of the ‘red button’ — becomes legitimate, whether literally or figuratively. These findings will stand, regardless of what happens in Iran. Even if a form of ‘social engineering’ based on the Venezuelan model were to succeed there — for example through a backroom agreement on a transfer of power acceptable to all sides (which currently seems unlikely) — this would not reassure other US-critical states. The mechanism of violent submission is now established. This is a much tougher option than even the ‘color revolutions’ of the 2000s. Resistance to this will be more determined and desperate in the future — with consequences that, in the worst case, will develop a fatal dynamic of their own. [...] The general conclusion is as sobering as it is unoriginal: world politics is increasingly relying on naked violence and forced submission. Everything else descends into a trivial matter. Even hypocritical moral or ideological pretexts are rarely used anymore. The evaluation of this development is the responsibility of the individual. But ignorance of these facts is no longer possible”. Full article in Russian: rg.ru/2026/03/01/vyh…
