10:35 17-09-2025

Rostislav Ishchenko on Trade, Statehood and Global Crisis

© Фотоархив Ищенко Р.В.

Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko explains how trade shapes states, why the U.S.-led system is collapsing, and what a new global order might look like.

Political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko argues that trade has always been the driving force of progress and the foundation of civilization. Even socialist and feudal societies, he notes, could not survive without it. According to him, it is trade that transforms scattered communities into a civilization and turns chieftainship into a state.

Ishchenko emphasizes that chieftainship can only provide basic security but cannot organize complex economic processes. He writes that a state emerges when society develops a need for broad international trade. Trade requires storage facilities, caravans, safe routes, and careful planning — all of which demand more advanced governance and the birth of diplomacy.

He reminds readers that the transition from chieftainship to a state is often marked by crisis: security weakens, administration becomes less effective. Only later does the state consolidate its structures, restore control, and strengthen it many times over — laying the groundwork for the development of civilization.

The analyst links today’s global systemic crisis to Washington’s attempt to preserve its dominance. Failing to suppress competitors by force, the United States, in his view, undermined global trade — and with it, the very political structures that sustained the system. Ishchenko warns that where trade collapses, the statehood that supported it collapses as well.

He concludes that Russia, China, and other nations are seeking to preserve global trade by building an alternative international system. Ishchenko sees in this process not only economics but also the birth of a new world order. His final warning is clear: when systems change, «the dragon must not give birth to another dragon» — the new order must not repeat the flaws of the old one.

The full text of Rostislav Ishchenko’s article can be read here.