Since 2020, the world has gradually witnessed the impact of the speed of political-security-military games, changing the definition of interests, using new models in gaining positions and interests, redefining the geopolitical space and managing the severity of threats, and intensifying the impact of new tools in power calculations. In the meantime, defining the problem and separating it from the crisis, managing tactical risks to fertilize the value of containment and balance, and achieving a balance point have been some of the main concerns of decision-makers.

During 2023, geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine became very prominent, and returning these conflicts to a balance point was placed in the conditions of a stable challenge. The dynamics of crises and the disclosure of fault points have created the assumption that for some powers, taking advantage of the dynamism of challenges and creating a chain of danger for their competitors and enemies is the new meaning of deterrence in new conditions.

The problem of realism and realistic approach is still going on apart from other effective axes in the identification and management of crises, and due to the new combination of games in the cognitive, psychological, and media battle, the influence of these factors in managing the opponent's calculations has doubled. In this situation, obtaining the ratio of crises with the environment of stability and understanding and creating maturity in diplomacy is in a transitional and sinusoidal state. For example, Asian realism has obvious differences from European realism and even American realism in the trends and, management and control of tensions.

In 2023, we saw that the evolution process of crises in international competitions has created a new bias in the definition and explanation of the world order. Instead of being placed in the framework of network diplomacy, dynamic and intelligent deterrence has entered the field of geopolitical pressure and successive shocks and creating ruptures. Global rationality has seriously declined from the conventional meaning, caught in self-concept and illusion about the self-made future. At the same time, the value of dialogue and interaction to find key results in strategic confrontations was defined only in the field of preemptive logic. This is where the question arises: will the meaning-making of the crisis in international relations change in 2024?

In the current situation, the level of goodwill in the way of interaction and control of presuppositions and balancing of minds has lost its relative quality, and principles, values, and human-centeredness have given way to self-centeredness in the model of global understanding.

The global approach to solving this situation is political stroke and heterogeneous, and the management of crises is answered with the mode of panic management, thus pushing the crisis to become more critical. Any kind of meaning making in the current situation requires a detailed problem analysis and then getting into the issue, and a quick descent into the issue to solve the crisis will cause the use of traditional formulas and make the solutions ineffective. Experience has shown that a different attitude to challenges and gaining new experiences in recognizing and dealing with them actually increases the ability to take advantage of new opportunities. As an example, the experience of managing relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023 can be a good example of clarifying problems and moving toward a solution.

Mohammad Farhad Kalini, a Senior Expert at the IPIS

 (The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the IPIS)