Bangladesh, Oct. 5 -- When Vladimir Putin stood before the Valdai Discussion Club this year, his words carried an unmistakable sense of epochal change. The Russian president declared that “the age of a single model for all has ended.” The statement was not just geopolitical-it was civilizational. In his view, the era of one-size-fits-all ideology, imposed from above by self-proclaimed global arbiters, is closing. What emerges in its place, he suggested, is a world of sovereign civilizations-each rooted in its own culture, faith, and moral code.

This is not the first time Putin has spoken of a world beyond unipolarity. Yet his tone at Valdai was different: more philosophical, even spiritual. He described a global landscape whe...