Chaos seems to be one of the favorite themes among observers of international affairs. The basis for this discussion is the book Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics When the Rules Fail (2026) by Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The title may sound like a self‑help manual, but the book is an interesting work largely devoted to China as an example of how to navigate contemporary chaos. It includes a chapter of recommendations for European leaders and has even been described as Leonard's manifesto. The ideas are useful, and when combined with the recommendations in Mario Draghi's report on modernizing the European Union, the book is worth recommending to observers, practitioners, and decision‑makers alike.

A good starting point is the understanding that the old world order is gone, rule‑based life is a thing of the past, and we must adapt to a new world.

Leonard divides approaches to order into two types. One is the "architects'" approach — the effort to build structures and institutions capable of protecting us. This fits a world based on order.

The other is the "craftsmen's" approach. Craftsmen, in Leonard's sense, are people who, instead of thinking in terms of large structures, try to understand where the world is heading and find their place within that movement. One group tries to build a new rigid structure; the other tries to turn emerging conditions to its advantage.

Most of the West, especially Europe, fits the first category. China, Leonard argues, represents the second.

In his opinion, a new era requires a new language, and he suggests that the current state of the world should be called not disorder or chaos, but unorder. His explanation: unorder is a state in which order nominally exists but rules are broken. Disorder would be a state in which rules are irrelevant and simply ignored. It may sound like linguistic acrobatics, but the author is entitled to his terminology.

As noted, the old liberal, rules‑based world order is already gone. Today's global divide is not primarily between democracies and autocracies or East and West, but between different attitudes toward the concept of order — between architects and craftsmen.

Leonard argues that instead of trying to build new structures, it would be more useful to adapt old ones, give them new functions, and improvise. Try different approaches; if something works, continue. If it doesn't, try something else. A somewhat start‑up‑like mindset.

While Europeans talk about the need to preserve the existing order, the Chinese see the world as chaotic and look for ways to find a suitable place within it — and perhaps even benefit from the changes.

Leonard has studied China extensively and argues that the assumption that Beijing sees itself as the leader of a Western‑style global architecture designed to solve the world's problems is wrong. China is not trying to create a new world order; it is preparing for a world without a shared order. In the movement of the world through confusion, the Chinese see opportunity. Their thinking responds to how the world changes — a core idea in Confucian teaching.

Europe views change with fear, assuming things can only get worse. Europeans tend to favor grand plans or alternative orders. The opposite mindset is the Chinese approach: endurance and benefiting from chaos.

This instinct can also be found in other rising states, from India and Turkey to Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Mindset is what distinguishes the camps in today's changing world.

Europe will be ready for the new era of unorder when governments prove capable of adapting. Leonard summarizes the biggest upcoming changes with four keywords: capital, climate, chips, and civilizations — the "4C," which also happens to be the short variant of the plastic explosive Semtex. Another wordplay, but why not.

There is no need to unpack these changes here, but in each of them we can find differences between Chinese and Western approaches. In any case, the world is moving toward a heavily unpredictable unorder characterized by fragmented power, a multitude of actors, and a blurring line between war and crime.

We live in an era where there is no longer a shared understanding of what is right or wrong — not even a shared understanding of what truth is. And if we accept unorder as the new normal, we must get used to constant interconnected crises. Leonard offers the term "polycrisis" where the whole is more overwhelming than the sum of its parts.

We live in a time of continual rebirth, and it is too late to mourn what has been lost. Global politics is becoming different and more chaotic than before. For the Chinese, none of this is new; they have encountered such situations repeatedly throughout history, and that is their advantage.

Chinese thinkers have compared Western thinking to stone tablets, while China's approach resembles flowing water — endlessly flexible. China has also developed effective tools to protect its interests, and Leonard argues Europe should learn from them in both economics and foreign policy.

Europe's understanding of multilateralism is based on rules; China's is based on relationships with other states. A country's influence is determined by the number of its connections and its position within the network of relationships. Europe must understand that it does not have a monopoly on truth, and while it must defend its values, it must also accept that others think differently.

Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev has said that Europe should abandon the role of missionary and instead become a monastery. It should not impose its views on others, but should declare: in our monastery, our rules apply, and anyone who comes here must follow them.

Europe must act according to its own interests, stop outsourcing its security to the United States, and mitigate risks in accessible ways — in economics, technology, politics, and security. It must create a unified capital market and invest money in Europe so companies do not have to seek investment in the U.S. And it must bring talent back to Europe. Europe's greatest challenge is to rediscover its political imagination.

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