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East-West Forum (EWF)
26 SEPTEMBER 2026

10:00-12:00

I. Plenary Discussion

The end of the liberal order – revisiting the postwar world

Discussion Questions:

  • The liberal exceptionalism of the United States. The ability of the US to penetrate other cultures. The re-interpretation of Europe in the spirit of American liberalism during the Cold War. The worldwide push towards liberalism in the age of globalization.
  • The difficulty to remember. The loss of context and cultural complexity in all major world civilizations during the age of colonialism and neocolonialism.
  • What and who is a “civilizational” state? The concept of a civilizational state and the possibility to restitute lost traditions? Is it possible to connect pre-modern traditions to the living realities of the 21ˢᵗ century?
  • Prospects for the 21ˢᵗ century: Will there be “such thing as society? The state in the world of the 21ˢᵗ Century.
  • Can those cultural trends, which were tight to American hegemony, be changed and re-directed? Or how to imagine an alternative to the neo-liberal development trajectory.

13:00-15:00

II. Plenary Discussion

Balancing the global system – preventing disruption, disorder and war during the transition towards Multi-polarity

Discussion Questions:

  • The Decline of the unipolar system as the End of 500 years of Western Hegemony. How the post-Colonial and post-American world order will look like. The “Second World” between “Chimeria”. How a peaceful transition can be organized?
  • The challenge for the US to transform from a modern military Empire into a normal Nation? Shaping US-China relations: fresh perspectives on the great power rivalry.
  • Old civilizations on the rise – debunking the “clash of civilization”: Will and can China or India offer their models of state planning to the world? What are the philosophical principals behind the Chinese policy? What are the characteristics of Indian civilization? The future of Russia as a bridge between East and West. Rainforest and global Allmende: What Brazil has to offer? The future of Iran within a post-American middle east and Gulf region. Champion for peace: South-Africa’s Nobel prize winning tradition. Reflections on Türkiye’s regional and global role?
  • Can Europe politically unite? Neutral Europa as global mediation platform: Should Europe become a BRICS member? What kind of role can a Europe beyond the EU play in a multipolar world order? The future of trade-routes and energy flows among the Eurasian continent. How a different geopolitical structure and societal concept will lead to a different global UN-system. The question of global political representation. How can equality before the law be achieved nationally and internationally?
  • The dangerous delimitation of war, its infusion into the civic sphere, the danger of nuclear war and the necessity for a future policy of detente. What has to be done to guide Europe out of the trap of its self imposed military escalation spiral?

15:30-17:30

III. Plenary Discussion

The future of man

Discussion Questions:

  • Why human adaptation towards a blind technological progress is not a destiny
  • Task of the 21ˢᵗ century: To bring the blind forces of capitalism and technology once again into a balance towards the aspiration of human civilization?
  • The transhumanistic temptations of new technologies: How„Palantir“-control & emotional nudging could lead to the domestication of man and the cracking of the man / animal frontiere.
  • The danger caused by the reciprocal acceleration between geopolitical competition and technological revolutions of our time? And how a new concept of international security is necessary to contain it.
  • Can China, India, Russia or Türkiye offer a countermodel to the transhumanistic dystopia of the Silicon Valley or will they repeat Western approach?
  • War in times of information- and neurological warfare: Can the militarization of the civil sphere be stopped and reversed.
  • How to deal with the global concentration of wealth and its tendency, to create a extra-territoriality forms of politics