A growing chaos in international relations in recent years has provoked an intense debate in political, expert and academic communities on the future of a world order in the 21st century. This debate focuses not only on the shifts in balance of power after the end of the Cold War but also on the erosion of the legal and normative framework of the world order. This essay makes a contribution to intellectual deliberations on these crucial issues. Representatives of two generations of the Russian international relations scholars – Anatoly Andreevich Gromyko (1932– 2017) and Aleksey Anatol’evich Gromyko – share their views on major threats to international peace and outline key pillars to ensuring survival of human civilization. The essay examines such issues as arms control, with special focus on weapons of mass destruction; continuing importance of the institute of a nation-state in the context of globalization, growing interdependence and increased role of non-state actors; primacy of the rule of law over the rule of force, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter, and, finally, great powers’ responsibility for global governance and global stability. Exploring the prospects for a democratic world order the authors conclude that this idea is not completely utopian if the recurrence of the Cold War and zero-sum game logic is avoided.