[{"content":"The defeat of Viktor Orbán carries an очевидent geopolitical dimension. For sixteen years, he had established in Hungary a model for the far right in Europe and the United States. Donald Trump himself had drawn inspiration from it. This model, described as an “illiberal democracy,” was gradually evolving toward a form of authoritarian regime. Its fall therefore also constitutes a new symbolic defeat for Trump.\nOrbán’s regime had become deeply unpopular. This unpopularity is particularly strong among those under 30: 65% of them voted for the opposition Tiza party, and only 15% for Orbán. There is a strong generational divide: young people suffer from structural unemployment, and emigration in search of work is high. Other converging factors explain Orbán’s predictable defeat. As early as the 2010s, he clearly displayed his ambition to transform Hungary. As Steve Bannon, ideologue of the MAGA movement, pointed out, he was “a Trump before Trump.” The first step in this transformation was control of the media: today, nearly 85% of Hungarian media are under government influence. After public media, the few remaining independent private outlets were gradually targeted. Young people were able to access alternative information through the internet. The judiciary has lost all independence. It is the primary target of far-right governments, along with the press.\nNational memory remains marked by the tragic events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, particularly the massacres of civilians in Budapest by the Soviet army. However, anti-Russian sentiment could not be expressed for 16 years due to repression and media control. The authoritarian model inspired by the Vladimir Putin–Alexander Lukashenko tandem nevertheless provoked strong repulsion. Opposition leader Péter Magyar campaigned by denouncing Orbán’s very close ties with Putin. Today, Hungarians celebrating victory in Budapest are chanting “Russians out.”\nThis is compounded by a notable economic deterioration and a sense of decline. Poland and the Czech Republic have overtaken Hungary, whose economic model is in crisis: based on traditional industry (chemicals, internal combustion automotive), it showed its limits in the early 2020s. The drop in investment—linked in particular to the freezing of European funds (Hungary received only €800 million from the “NextGeneration EU” plan) and to Germany’s slowdown—has weakened growth. Inflation remains high and purchasing power is declining. In this context, economic concerns have overtaken ideological issues. Budgetary measures taken on the eve of the elections, often unfunded, have worsened imbalances.\nA third determining factor lies in corruption. Hungary is now designated by the NGO Transparency Investigation as the most corrupt country in the European Union. The system built around power is based on clan-like logic, comparable to the Russian model. The Orbán clan, made up of around 13 individuals, concentrates 25% of the country’s GDP. The diversion of European funds is a central driver. This situation is increasingly rejected by the population and fuels the opposition’s discourse, notably embodied by its leader Péter Magyar, a former member of the ruling party, Fidesz.\nFinally, Orbán’s foreign policy, long seen as an asset, has become a liability. His rapprochement with Russia, and his perceived alignment with Vladimir Putin, have sparked growing mistrust. Historically, Hungarians are not Russophiles. Energy dependence, particularly on Russian hydrocarbons, is poorly perceived, especially since its benefits for the population remain limited.\nThe overt support of American figures, such as Vice President J. D. Vance during the campaign, was also perceived as foreign interference. Likewise, the visit of Marine Le Pen to support Orbán highlights the symbolic importance of Hungary as a model for the far right.\nOrbán’s defeat therefore goes beyond the national framework. It marks a significant setback for ultraconservative movements in Europe and the United States, for whom Hungary had until now served as a political laboratory.\nEric Djabiev\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-04-12-orb%C3%A1ns-defeat-a-major-geopolitical-turning-point/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe defeat of Viktor Orbán carries an очевидent geopolitical dimension. For sixteen years, he had established in Hungary a model for the far right in Europe and the United States. Donald Trump himself had drawn inspiration from it. This model, described as an “illiberal democracy,” was gradually evolving toward a form of authoritarian regime. Its fall therefore also constitutes a new symbolic defeat for Trump.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOrbán’s regime had become deeply unpopular. This unpopularity is particularly strong among those under 30: 65% of them voted for the opposition Tiza party, and only 15% for Orbán. There is a strong generational divide: young people suffer from structural unemployment, and emigration in search of work is high. Other converging factors explain Orbán’s predictable defeat. As early as the 2010s, he clearly displayed his ambition to transform Hungary. As Steve Bannon, ideologue of the MAGA movement, pointed out, he was “a Trump before Trump.” The first step in this transformation was control of the media: today, nearly 85% of Hungarian media are under government influence. After public media, the few remaining independent private outlets were gradually targeted. Young people were able to access alternative information through the internet. The judiciary has lost all independence. It is the primary target of far-right governments, along with the press.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"  Orbán’s Defeat: A Major Geopolitical Turning Point"},{"content":"The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 marked a turning point in Syria’s recent history, opening a phase characterized by deep uncertainty but also by the possibility of change. In this new context, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa, has emerged as a central figure in the country’s transitional process. His trajectory reflects a significant evolution, not only on a personal level but also within the broader Syrian political landscape, marked by a shift from an insurgent approach to a still-evolving governance structure. Understanding al-Sharaa’s current role therefore requires retracing the path he followed to consolidate his power during the Syrian war. In this process, al-Sharaa not only strengthened his authority but also gradually transformed the nature of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the organization he leads.\nFrom 2017 onward, HTS became the most important armed group in northwestern Syria. The organization took control of much of Idlib province and several surrounding areas. Initially, HTS brought together various Islamist factions. Over time, however, it succeeded in consolidating its position thanks to its operational superiority and its ability to coordinate its actions effectively. Its presence on the ground was based on a balance between the use of force and administrative governance. This enabled it not only to maintain power but also to govern the areas under its control effectively, thereby creating the political and operational conditions for al-Julani’s rise.\nAl-Sharaa\u0026rsquo;s background lies within contemporary jihadism. After joining the jihadist insurgency in Iraq in 2003, he returned to Syria in 2011 and, the following year, founded Jabhat al-Nusra, a key armed group in the fight against the regime. Initially linked to al-Qaeda and embedded in a transnational jihadist perspective, his trajectory was also shaped by confrontation with the Islamic State, with which he quickly competed for control over networks and fighters in Syria. However, in 2016 al-Julani formally severed ties with al-Qaeda and initiated a reorganization of al-Nusra that culminated, in 2017, in the creation of HTS. This decision marked a crucial turning point, as it enabled the group to gradually redefine its role and become a local actor, officially distancing itself from global jihadist ideology.\nIn the following years, HTS changed its strategy under the leadership of al-Julani, shifting its focus toward a more localized approach through the control and administration of the areas under its authority. This development was accompanied by the growing centralization of power and the marginalization of more radical elements within the organization. At the same time, the group began to develop administrative and institutional structures, taking responsibility for security, dispute resolution, and the delivery of certain public services. In this sense, HTS’s legitimacy increasingly came to rest on its ability to maintain order and stability in a context of civil war.\nThe consolidation of this model in northwestern Syria represented the starting point for al-Julani’s subsequent political rise. The gradual weakening of the regime, exacerbated by the reduction of Russian and Iranian support and by shifting regional dynamics, opened up a space that rebel forces were able to exploit rapidly. In November 2024, these dynamics led to an offensive that resulted in the fall of Damascus and the end of the Assad regime, in a manner that surprised observers and international actors by its speed. In this new context, al-Julani’s role becomes even more significant, as his trajectory reflects not only a political transformation but above all an ideological and strategic shift. Whereas in the early stages of the conflict his discourse was strongly rooted in the construction of an Islamic State and a jihadist vision, over time he has progressively adopted a language more oriented toward political pragmatism and the national dimension. This change is evident both in his public rhetoric, focused on national unity and reconstruction, and in the construction of his image as a political actor attentive to the country’s stabilization and to dialogue with other actors.\nHowever, the period following the fall of the regime clearly highlights certain limits and contradictions in this evolution. Syria under the leadership of Ahmed al-Sharaa remains a fragile system, characterized by incomplete territorial control and a political transition that, to this day, is deeply uncertain and unfinished. In particular, the difficulty in rebuilding a fully legitimate and functioning state authority continues to represent one of the main obstacles to the country’s stabilization.\nIn northern and northeastern Syria, following the power vacuum left by the regime’s fall, clashes occurred between the Syrian National Army, primarily supported by Turkey, and Kurdish forces, resulting in thousands of casualties and over one hundred thousand displaced persons. One of the most sensitive issues for the new government concerns the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a predominantly Kurdish coalition, into state structures. The SDF controls large areas of the northeast and maintains its own military forces and autonomous administrative structures. Their integration is therefore not merely a military matter but involves redefining internal power balances and the degree of autonomy of Kurdish-majority regions. In this sense, the agreement signed in March 2025 between the government and the SDF represented a potential turning point for integrating the SDF’s military and civil structures into Syrian state institutions, constitutionally guaranteeing the rights of all groups. Despite partial progress, the implementation of the agreement has proved fragile and incomplete.\nThese challenges are compounded by the broader issue of rebuilding the military and security apparatus. The government must integrate a multitude of armed groups, many of which have not yet been incorporated into state forces. The widespread circulation of weapons among the population and the presence of autonomous militias make this process even more complex. Consequently, the disarmament of Kurdish forces represents a political and strategic priority, especially in light of pressure from Turkey. This is therefore not only a matter of formally reorganizing existing structures but also of managing a military transition in a country that remains fragmented and heavily militarized. Moreover, the threat posed by the Islamic State continues to be significant, as the group maintains an active presence, particularly in the east, through terrorist attacks and by exploiting territorial fragmentation. The failure to consolidate this process continues to fuel tensions and hinder Syria’s stabilization.\nAt the same time, sectarian tensions persist, challenging the government’s ability to ensure security and protection for minorities. Despite promises to avoid reprisals against the Alawite community, a wave of violence in March 2025 caused the deaths of hundreds of civilians, in some cases attributable to groups integrated into the state security apparatus. Meanwhile, in southern Syria, tensions between Druze communities and Bedouin tribes led to particularly violent clashes, fueling accusations against the central government and reinforcing the perception of selective security enforcement.\nPolitical and institutional ambiguity also emerges. Despite official rhetoric emphasizing pluralism and openness, al-Sharaa’s government record currently appears inconsistent. A significant example is the handling of the Kurdish issue. The interim government assumed military control over much of the northeast, effectively curtailing the Rojava autonomous project. At the same time, al-Sharaa promoted some symbolic gestures toward the Kurdish population, including the recognition of the Kurdish language, the introduction of Newroz as a national holiday, and the promise to include elements of Kurdish culture in school curricula. However, this openness seems limited to the cultural sphere. Politically and economically, the government does not appear willing to relinquish control over the northeast’s main resources or to recognize forms of local autonomy, maintaining a policy oriented toward strong centralization of power. This approach reflects a broader trend in the new Syrian political order, which, while claiming to build a state representative of the country’s diversity, continues to be perceived by many minority communities as neither inclusive nor protective. The parliamentary elections of October 2025 saw limited participation by women and minorities, while the new provisional constitution raises questions regarding the risk of strong centralization of power in the absence of adequate guarantees for civil and political rights.\nOn the economic and international front, the situation remains equally complex. The partial suspension of U.S. sanctions in 2025 and the first signs of openness from some regional actors have not been sufficient to revive the economy, which remains severely affected by years of conflict. Persistent instability, weak institutions, and challenges in reconstruction continue to negatively impact living conditions, also limiting the return of refugees, which has occurred only to a small extent. The role of external actors further reshapes the balances of the transition. The United States has adopted a more pragmatic approach toward the new government, in line with the positions of certain regional actors such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Israel’s position, by contrast, appears more nuanced. On one hand, it has continued to expand its control in the south through military operations aimed at limiting the new government’s capabilities. On the other hand, recent developments have also fostered forms of indirect coordination intended to restore the 1974 agreement, with the assistance of the United Nations, aiming at a broader regional security arrangement.\nIn conclusion, al-Sharaa’s transformation highlights a central question: is this a genuine process of deradicalization, or a strategic adaptation aimed at political survival? The gradual abandonment of the transnational jihadist dimension and the focus on governance suggest significant evolution. At the same time, the continued use of force and centralization of power reflect elements of continuity with the past. Ideologically, mixed signals also emerge, since - although the group has never abandoned a critical view of democracy - the new political discourse emphasizes concepts such as representation, elections, and institution-building. In this sense, al-Sharaa appears as a hybrid figure, capable of combining political pragmatism with authoritarian control.\nSyria’s future will depend on the new regime’s ability to translate this balance into a stable process of institutionalization. In the short term, the priority remains economic stabilization, in a context where the majority of the population lives in extreme precariousness and daily survival takes precedence over political dynamics. In the medium term, the challenge will be to build a truly inclusive system capable of integrating not only diverse ethnic and religious groups but also social categories deeply affected by the conflict. Finally, in the long term, the objective concerns “transitional justice” and national reconciliation—that is, the ability to heal wounds caused by decades of repression and years of war. Only the effective management of these three dimensions will allow Syria to move beyond the insurgent phase and build a genuinely inclusive political system.\nValentina Cannito\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-04-06-post-assad-syria-under-the-leadership-of-abu-mohammad-al-julani-between-instability-and-reconstruction/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eThe fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 marked a turning point in Syria’s recent history, opening a phase characterized by deep uncertainty but also by the possibility of change. In this new context, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa, has emerged as a central figure in the country’s transitional process. His trajectory reflects a significant evolution, not only on a personal level but also within the broader Syrian political landscape, marked by a shift from an insurgent approach to a still-evolving governance structure. Understanding al-Sharaa’s current role therefore requires retracing the path he followed to consolidate his power during the Syrian war. In this process, al-Sharaa not only strengthened his authority but also gradually transformed the nature of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the organization he leads.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Post-Assad Syria under the leadership of al-Julani: between instability and reconstruction"},{"content":"In the same way that the United Nations, back in 1947-48, had proposed making Jerusalem an ‘international city’, many voices, over much of the world and over many decades, have spoken out in favour of ‘internationalising’ the Amazon, the largest expanse of primary forest on the planet. For some, the Amazon rainforest, a source of water and oxygen and an outstanding reservoir of biodiversity, should be seen as a global public good, belonging to us all. It is an idea somewhat reminiscent of the Pachamama or ‘Mother Earth’ concept in Andean culture.\nAs recalled by jurist Christian Caubet, the Amazon, covering an area of around seven million square kilometres, is “the largest hydrographic basin in the world. Its 80,000 rivers, many of which are navigable, together account for 20 per cent of all the freshwater available on earth. Its natural resources, which are far from being fully inventoried, include the countless plant species of the world’s largest tropical rainforest but also a wide variety of known and economically exploitable mineral resources, such as iron, copper, manganese, cassiterite, bauxite, nickel, kaolin, titanium, vanadium, gold, diamonds, gypsum, limestone or halite.”\nIn the aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched an initiative to set up the International Institute for the Hylean Amazon (IIHA) with a view to internationalising scientific and agronomic research into the Amazon by bringing together researchers from the various countries sharing the Amazon basin. Part of UNESCO’s aim was also to contribute, through this international body of scientists, to stimulating economic development in the region, whose inhabitants were already very poor.\nUNESCO held conferences in 1947 and 1948, bringing together representatives from the countries in the region, from the United States, France and the United Kingdom, as well as delegates from other UN bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and Pan-American organisations, to draft the statutes of the IIHA, through a convention.\nUNESCO finally abandoned the project. Already one century earlier, similar projects had emerged, but the spirit of the initiatives was not always progressive. For example, “Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-73), director of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC, once suggested that racial problems in the US could be solved by colonising Amazonia and moving black Americans there,” as Renaud Lambert reports in his article Does Amazonia belong to the world?, for Le Monde Diplomatique.\nIn the 1960s, the Hudson Institute, a conservative US think tank, came up with the ‘Great Lakes’ project, an ambitious bid to develop the entire Amazon region. The idea was to create seven lakes all linked together by canals. As noted by Caubet, the project was designed to enable “the navigation of vessels weighing up to 20,000 tonnes, to facilitate the export of the resources to be exploited in the region. The project was widely publicised. Several meetings on the matter were held in Brazil and attended by various ministerial-level representatives. The scale of the project, its serious shortcomings and the threat it posed to Brazil’s sovereignty soon gave rise to strong opposition,” writes Caubet. The Hudson Institute’s project thus also ran aground.\nA desire to possess or to protect? It became increasingly clear, over time, that the involvement of foreign powers represented an obstacle to the development of a global project, particularly for Brazil, the country on whose sovereign land most of the primary forest lies. In the decade that followed, another plan was therefore launched, this time by eight countries from the region: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. On 3 July 1978, they signed the Amazon Cooperation Treaty (ACT) or ‘Amazon Pact’ in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia. This multilateral instrument for Pan-Amazonian cooperation was aimed at “preserving the ecological balance of a particularly vulnerable region”, but also, and above all, to assert the sovereignty of the signatory states over the riches it contains and to protect it from the covetous ambitions of foreign powers.\nIn the 1980s, the debate was once again rekindled after concerns were raised about the consequences of deforestation and worldwide campaigns were waged by indigenous peoples to defend their ecosystem from the threat of economic plundering. In 1989, US politician and environmentalist Al Gore said: “Contrary to what Brazilians think, the Amazon is not their property, it belongs to all of us.” That same year, the president of France, François Mitterrand, insisted: “Brazil must accept relative sovereignty over the Amazon.”\nAccording to the World Council of Churches, meeting in Geneva in 1992: “The Amazon is the heritage of humanity, and the fact that this vast territory belongs to Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador is just a matter of circumstance.” Also in 1992, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev expressed the view that “Brazil should delegate part of its rights over the Amazon to the relevant international bodies”.\nIn the year 2000, Cristovam Buarque, a Brazilian economist and politician within the Workers’ Party (PT) at the time, responded to the claims to the Amazon with these thoughts: “Before we internationalise the Amazon, I would like to see the internationalisation of all the world’s great museums. The Louvre should not belong merely to France…we cannot let this cultural heritage, like the natural heritage of the Amazon, be manipulated and destroyed at the whim of an owner or a country.” He developed this argument in an article published in the Brazilian daily O Globo, translated into several languages, saying that if we internationalise the Amazon, we should also internationalise all the world’s oil reserves.\nLike a recurring cycle, the issue came back to the fore in 2019, the year when the Amazon rainforest was the scene of some 90,000 fires, once again placing the Amazon “at the centre of the world”. The controversy was refuelled when, during the G7 summit in Biarritz, France’s president Emmanuel Macron raised the idea of conferring “international status” on the Amazon, prompting a furious response from Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro in his first speech to the UN General Assembly. “It is wrong to say that the Amazon is the heritage of humanity,” he insisted. Not surprisingly, now as in the past, this is a very sensitive issue among Brazilians and their neighbours.\nLooking to alternative solutions\nBrazilian and international lawyers, for want of preparing the ‘internationalisation’ of the Amazon, are looking into the possibility of charges being brought against the Brazilian state for the crime of ecocide. According to Brazilian political science professor Mauricio Santoro, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest should be considered as equivalent to “a crime against humanity”. For Valérie Cabanes, a lawyer specialising in international law, the crime of ecocide, as well as the crime of ethnocide (of which the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest emerge as victims), should be recognised by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Those responsible should be prosecuted, such as Texaco, for example, which damaged Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest from 1964 to 1990 during its oil drilling operations there. An association representing some 30,000 victims of the pollution filed a lawsuit over the matter in 2014.\nBut the resistance they face from their governments and the increase in the violence against their leaders is hindering their fight. Indigenous leaders are, nevertheless, increasingly present at international summits on the climate and human rights, such as Sonia Guajajara, Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Raoni Metuktire, who has taken up the fight again at the age of almost 90. The APIB, an alliance of indigenous peoples in Brazil, is meanwhile calling for a boycott of Brazilian products responsible for deforestation and violations of local people’s rights.\nOther international mechanisms devised to protect the Amazon include the Fundo Amazônia, set up in 2008, managed by Brazil and funded mainly by Norway and Germany, which was a good example, for a while, of international cooperation against deforestation. Unfortunately, the project is currently being undermined by the Bolsonaro government, which no longer wants to respect the country’s initial commitments.\nBut a number of other avenues are still open, such as that taken by the FAO in cooperation with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and other partners, which have set up the Integration of Amazon Protected Areas (IAPA) project. The idea is that “by ensuring a regional, cross-border approach to the Amazon, the project better protects its biodiversity and safeguards the communities and local economies that depend on the Amazon for food and livelihoods”.\nChloé Maurel (first publication: Given its rich heritage and its role in regulating the world’s climate, is ‘internationalising’ the Amazon an option? - Equal Times)\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-04-04-internationalize-the-amazon/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn the same way that the United Nations, back in 1947-48, had proposed \u003ca href=\"https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/why-jerusalem-was-supposed-to-be-an-international-city\"\u003emaking Jerusalem an ‘international city’\u003c/a\u003e, many voices, over much of the world and over many decades, have spoken out in favour of ‘internationalising’ the Amazon, the largest expanse of primary forest on the planet. For some, the Amazon rainforest, a source of water and oxygen and an outstanding reservoir of biodiversity, should be seen as a global public good, belonging to us all. It is an idea somewhat reminiscent of the \u003cem\u003ePachamama\u003c/em\u003e or ‘Mother Earth’ concept in Andean culture.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Internationalize the Amazon?"},{"content":"In mid-March, Romania, together with Austria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, signed a letter addressed to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and to the President of the Council, António Costa, calling for an urgent revision of the deadlines set by the energy transition plan. This issue, seemingly highly technical, brings together a group of states with specific interests: some display a clear hostility toward European institutions in their current form (the most extreme case being that of Viktor Orbán, who has based his electoral campaign on AI-generated videos portraying the EU and Ukraine as public enemies); others have direct economic interests, linked to the nature of their energy consumption or to infrastructure projects, which are largely incompatible with the timelines adopted at the European level.\nThis comes in the context of an Israeli-American war against Iran, which is generating structural disruptions in global oil and gas supply and which, according to several European and Romanian analyses, makes the case for a European renewable energy strategy rather than fossil fuel dependency. At the same time, amid the Russo-Ukrainian border war that has been ongoing for four years, Romania appears to be basing its entire “energy sovereignty” strategy on the Neptun Deep project, located not far from the maritime front line.\nLast March, Romania was invited by France to participate in the European nuclear umbrella initiative. The presidential administration has still not given a clear response (after several days of extremely evasive communication in early March). In contrast, the response to Donald Trump’s invitation on February 19 to participate in the Peace Committee was much quicker: an initiative that closely resembled a pyramid scheme for the personal benefit of the American president, who, in any case, ignored the international cooperation structures to which Romania belongs and where President Dan attended as an “observer.” Since Donald Trump’s election to the White House, pro-Putin reactionaries have finally had the opportunity to reconcile the apparent cognitive dissonance of their dual proximity to Russia and the United States. The Slovak Prime Minister has thus, like any self-respecting reactionary, carefully maintained ties with both sides. Last January, he was invited to Mar-a-Lago, where he assured Trump that he was not “a Brussels parrot.”\nFico’s visit, however, is consistent with longer-standing projects, exemplified by Romania’s participation in April 2025, through acting President Ilie Bolojan, at the Three Seas Conference. The general context in the region reflects a gradual strengthening of the Central European Eurosceptic bloc, structured around the former Visegrád Group. Thirty-five years after its creation, the group appears to base its political unity on a balance between closeness to the Kremlin and to Washington.\nEven Poland, hitherto a pro-Ukrainian stronghold, is aligning with this trend following the inauguration of President Karol Nawrocki. On March 24, after a vehement speech against Vladimir Putin, President Nawrocki traveled to Budapest to publicly express his support for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, then in the midst of his electoral campaign for the April 12 elections. Observers noted that the Eurosceptic line dominates the Polish president’s strategic alliance choices.\nIn the Czech Republic, the autumn 2025 elections also marked a shift toward a conservative, Eurosceptic right. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s ANO party is allied with Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party of Viktor Orbán within the Patriots for Europe coalition, which brings together far-right parties. A few days ago, protests took place in the Czech Republic against a law regulating NGO funding according to a model its opponents denounce as Russian-inspired.\nNicușor Dan won the presidential election on a “pro-European” platform, and amid the turmoil of the campaign nearly a year ago, there was little opportunity to analyze in depth what this concept would look like under the vision of the new government. Eleven months later, an assessment can already be made, both in terms of foreign policy and regarding the major directions of domestic and economic policy outlined by the presidential candidate in his proposals.\nWhat emerges suggests a “Europe of Nations”\u0026rsquo; model: a euphemism long used by a much older Eurosceptic political project, but initiated through an American-Hungarian co-production discussed in March 2024 at Mar-a-Lago during a visit by Viktor Orbán and integrated into Project 2025.\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-04-04-where-does-romania-stand-11-months-after-the-election-of-nicu%C8%99or-dan/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn mid-March, Romania, together with Austria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, signed a letter addressed to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and to the President of the Council, António Costa, calling for an urgent revision of the deadlines set by the energy transition plan. This issue, seemingly highly technical, brings together a group of states with specific interests: some display a clear hostility toward European institutions in their current form (the most extreme case being that of Viktor Orbán, who has based his electoral campaign on AI-generated videos portraying the EU and Ukraine as public enemies); others have direct economic interests, linked to the nature of their energy consumption or to infrastructure projects, which are largely incompatible with the timelines adopted at the European level.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Where does Romania stand, 11 months after the election of Nicușor Dan?"},{"content":"In March 2023, the United Nations Water Conference brought together some 10,000 representatives of UN member states, NGOs and businesses in New York, and called for the appointment of a UN Special Envoy on Water* to address the urgent need to ensure greater respect for the human right to this essential resource.\nThis imperative is underpinned by the UN General Assembly resolution adopted on 28 July 2010, recognizing “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”. Indeed, water, one of the Earth’s natural resources, is not just another commodity, and given its vital importance to humankind, it is only fitting that it should be considered a global public good, a common good.\nAt a time of global warming, this vital resource known as ‘blue gold’ is all the more crucial. A few figures highlighting the drastic consequences of water scarcity illustrate just how fundamental it is:\n• 2.2 billion people do not have access to safely managed drinking water services and have to drink contaminated water • More than half the world’s population – 4.2 billion people – are without safely managed sanitation services • Over 297,000 children under the age of five still die every year from diarrheal diseases caused by unsafe drinking water • Almost 90 per cent of natural disasters are water-related (floods, cyclones, tornadoes, drought, etc.) • 80 per cent of the world’s wastewater is discharged untreated into the environment.\nThe UN reflects the gravity of the situation, reporting that over 842,000 people in low- and middle-income countries die as a result of inadequate access to safe water every year. The problems linked to water are further exacerbated by the high level of water wastage in the countries of the North.\nSimilarly, when it comes to seawater, pollution is dramatically affecting the water on Earth: a ‘garbage patch’ or ‘plastic continent’ is floating in the Pacific, and in August 2023, Japan began discharging contaminated water from the Fukushima disaster into the sea.\nAlongside these human and environmental challenges lies the threat of ‘water wars’. Water has become a key weapon and major stake in current geopolitical confrontations: in Ukraine, the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in early June 2023 led to severe flooding and the evacuation of more than 8,000 people; Egypt is considering “the use of force, including air strikes, against the Grand Renaissance Dam being built by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile”, the waters of the Indus and Brahmaputra rivers are disputed by China, India and Pakistan; and in the Middle East, Turkey is looking to control the great rivers of Mesopotamia.\nWater is also a source of conflict and tension within states, sometimes leading to violent confrontation, from Colombia to South Africa, including France, where, on 25 March 2023, more than 200 people were injured in clashes with the police during demonstrations against the construction, in Sainte-Soline, of vast reservoirs or ‘mega-basins’ for agriculture.\nUN action\nThe 2010 UN resolution, which recognizes the right to water as essential to the realization of all human rights, is particularly important in this respect. The text specifies a minimum of 50 and 100 liters of water per person per day, at a cost that must be affordable, that is, less than three per cent of household income. It also specifies that all families must have access to a water source within one kilometer of their home, and that the time taken to collect this water should not exceed 30 minutes.\nFive years later, under the 17 ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) proclaimed by the UN in 2015, goal 6 aims to ensure access to and the sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.\nBut will these declarations remain merely declaratory in a world where they have no binding force and the UN has no power to sanction?\nDespite not being able to enforce its resolutions by making them legally binding, the action taken by the UN has nevertheless been useful, all the more so given its long-term perspective, with the organization having begun its work almost 80 years ago. The action of the UN and its agencies on the issue of water dates back to the 1970s, when ecological and environmental concerns were coming to the fore, with the holding of the UN Water Conference in 1977, followed by the International Conference on Water and the Environment in 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit.\nUNESCO was even a pioneer, launching research programmes on ‘arid zones’ and ‘wetlands’ in the 1950s, then creating the International Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and launching an Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme. Its first director-general, Julian Huxley (1946-1948), was a scientist with a keen concern for the conservation of nature.\nThe global water conference held by the UN in March 2023, the first on this subject for 40 years, produced a strong albeit not legally binding text, the Water Action Agenda, which covers all the (over 700) voluntary commitments regarding water and will monitor their progress.\nThe European Union (EU), for example, has pledged to “support the access of 70 million individuals to an improved drinking water source and/or sanitation facility” by 2030. The EU has also pledged to support its member states “with funding of €20 million to accelerate the deployment of wastewater surveillance”. Another example is the commitment made by French multinational Danone to launch a blended fund “to give daily safe water access to 30 million people in need”. In total, US$300 billion has been pledged to support the Water Action Agenda.\nThis conference is highly significant in that, as journalist Akram Belkaïd points out in Le Monde diplomatique, unlike the oceans, which are now protected by a global treaty, adopted in March, there is no major text governing the use, sharing and conservation of freshwater. It is, therefore, a step towards achieving this goal. As the conference was taking place, the UN published its World Water Development Report for 2023.\nWater multinationals and the defense of their financial interests\nBehind this rhetoric, however, lies the reality that private sector interests are gaining a growing foothold within the UN. This incursion of the private sector into the inner workings of the UN dates back to the 2000s, under the mandate of Kofi Annan. This UN secretary-general brought about the involvement of multinationals in UN debates through the Global Compact, which he set up. But the water multinationals, often listed on the stock exchange, from French firms Suez and Veolia to American Water, Thames Water, Brazil’s Sabesp and Switzerland’s Nestlé, are strongly influencing the discussions and the direction of the texts adopted.\nAs heterodox economist Sylvain Leder points out, “in 1992, at the United Nations Water Conference in Dublin, [\u0026hellip;] this resource was, for the first time, officially recognized, internationally, as an economic good”.\nThis has led to the establishment of a true oligarchy or “global high command for water”, in the words of the economist and political scientist Riccardo Petrella. As Leder explains, this oligarchy is “headed by the World Bank, which was behind the creation in 1996 of the World Water Council, run at the time by top executives from multinationals such as Suez and Vivendi (now Veolia) and headquartered in Marseille. The Council’s mission is to define a global vision for this resource within a liberal framework. The operational dimension is covered by the Global Water Partnership, set up the same year to promote public-private partnerships.”\nFreshwater, which represents a market worth over €600 billion, is increasingly central to the economic stakes of the 21st century. And there is a tug-of-war within the Organization between the humanist imperatives of the ‘right to water’ and the logic of predatory profit and the commodification of all natural resources.\nThe UN therefore has a duty to free itself from private sector interests and the powerful lobbies associated with them, and to take a firm and unambiguous stand for the right to water, in the spirit of the “economic and social rights” proclaimed by the organization in 1966.\nChloé Maurel\nFirst published on Equal Times, 7 September 2023\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-03-30-the-un-defends-right-to-water/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIn March 2023, the \u003ca href=\"https://press.un.org/en/2023/envdev2058.doc.htm\"\u003eUnited Nations Water Conference\u003c/a\u003e brought together some 10,000 representatives of UN member states, NGOs and businesses in New York, and called for the appointment of a UN Special Envoy on Water* to address the urgent need to ensure greater respect for the human right to this essential resource.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis imperative is underpinned by the UN General Assembly resolution adopted on 28 July 2010, recognizing “\u003ca href=\"https://press.un.org/en/2010/ga10967.doc.htm\"\u003ethe right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right\u003c/a\u003e that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”. Indeed, water, one of the Earth’s natural resources, is not just another commodity, and given its vital importance to humankind, it is only fitting that it should be considered a global public good, a common good.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The UN defends right to water"},{"content":"European governments—and the media that follow their lead—continue to react to Donald Trump’s “National Security Strategy” as if the current president had invented Washington’s hostility toward any genuine European unity, whereas he has merely made it provocatively explicit, in well-tested alignment with Moscow. In doing so, the President of the United States provides Europeans with a valuable opportunity to define and focus the urgent correction of the structure and direction of the European Union, toward its independence —not merely “autonomy”— in strategic terms, restoring to its peoples the only sovereignty possible. A further paradox is that Giorgia Meloni —the supposed sovereigntist and former fascist who, as Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, allows herself to be kissed on the head by Joe Biden, only then to become the factotum (certainly not a courtier) of Donald Trump— reminds our homegrown pseudo-Europeanists that there exists another Europe beyond the current EU: that of Ventotene. It will not happen now, but that must be the perspective.\nLet me explain by drawing on a few personal memories. When, after the fall of the Wall, I met Henry Kissinger again—who had been my professor during two years of my youth —I asked him: “Isn’t it true that you have always been hostile to European unification?” He replied: “No, why do you say that?” Then, after a pause for reflection, he added: “I think you are right.” This belated admission refers to a reality dating back to the time of the United States’ defeat in Vietnam, which marked the beginning of the decline of its previously uncontested global hegemony. This led to a growing dependence, for the purpose of consolidating the residual U.S. political-military primacy, on the persistence of the Soviet “credible threat.” It was Kissinger himself, at the height of his power, by then Secretary of State under the unprepared President Gerald Ford, who urged the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, to rewrite his assessment of Soviet power, because it was insufficient to justify U.S. military spending and presence worldwide. This coincided with a shift in relations with European allies, who had been encouraged in the 1950s by Eisenhower to unite in order to create their own autonomous defense, with the aim of forming an improbable “alliance among equals” —later supported by the presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson— within NATO.\nThe fall of the Wall, far from constituting “the end of history” and the triumph of Washington’s foreign policy in a now unipolar world, in fact marked its crisis. Deprived of the “credible threat,” U.S. leaders —whom we might call post-Kissingerian— found themselves engaged in an anxious effort to substitute the Soviet threat, now insufficient to justify armaments and military bases, along with the associated burden on taxpayers. After the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and with it the far-sighted political understanding between James Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev, their successors sought to preserve NATO, objectively obsolete, by extending its borders eastward, further humiliating Russia.\nAfter the anti-Serbian interventions in the Balkans, the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 and the ensuing “war on terror” restored room for Washington’s role as a military power; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, followed by the attacks on Libya, served to provide oxygen to the military-industrial complex, half a century after Eisenhower’s warning. Finally, Russia’s long-provoked attack on Ukraine produced the mutually beneficial effect—useful for both declining superpowers—of resurrecting the specters of the Cold War. China, a rising great power, was instead engaged in building a multipolar world, using the BRICS as an instrument; it was therefore scarcely inclined to adopt the bipolar framework of which the United States and Russia remain as tenacious as they are inconsolable widows.\nAnd Europe? An adversary of Washington —and not just today. Here I once again yield to the temptation of a personal recollection. Thursday, September 17, 1992. The Italian Senate was engaged in the debate preceding the vote to authorize the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, scheduled for the afternoon at the conclusion of the week’s work. Italy’s approval would not have made headlines, but even a postponement could have had fatal consequences for the treaty throughout Europe. France had in fact decided to submit it to a referendum, with a highly uncertain outcome, scheduled for the following Sunday. A failure by Italy to ratify it would have revived the specter of the collapse of the European Defence Community, which in 1955 was rejected by the government of Mendès-France, using it as a reason or pretext.\nThe problem was not the availability of a majority, but the lack of a quorum. Indeed, to the votes of the majority held by the last “pentapartito” government, led by Giuliano Amato, would have been added those of the largest opposition group, linked to the PDS. In the preceding months, we had decided to vote in favor because the treaty provided for the establishment of a common currency, the euro—one of the three essential prerogatives, alongside territory and government, for the creation of a united and sovereign Europe. By contrast, the groups of Alleanza Nazionale and Rifondazione Comunista, while declaring themselves in favor of that objective, believed—with some justification—that other aspects of the treaty would give rise to a “Europe of bankers.” For this reason, they did not merely express opposition but engaged in obstruction that endangered the achievement of a quorum.\nBy mid-morning, a dramatic turn occurred. The majority rapporteur, Senator Bruno Orsini of the DC, and the Socialist group leader, Gennaro Acquaviva, approached me to ask what the reaction of the PDS would be if the government decided to postpone the vote to an unspecified date, citing the emerging crisis of the previous European Monetary System (EMS) as justification (which, in reality, made the treaty’s approval even more urgent). Strengthened by the united position of my group, I replied loudly that we would take up the flag of Europe and use it to strike the government as long as we saw it move. Half an hour later, my interlocutors returned, announcing an intervention by Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo, who would reaffirm the commitment to hold the vote at the end of the session. At that point, I had to ask for an explanation. The answer was: “Pressure from Washington opposing the euro in order to protect the dollar.” Confirming this, the lax presidency of Giovanni Spadolini—top of the class in the American court of the time—was facilitating the obstruction that could have jeopardized the quorum and, consequently, the fate of the treaty. At that point, armed with this episode, I informed Luigi Vinci—Rifondazione’s representative on the Foreign Affairs committee—who, after a brief pause, confirmed the opposing vote but guaranteed the quorum that saved the treaty, allowing the Senate not to make headlines even at the global level.\nIf, in all likelihood, the defense of the dollar in global markets and the resulting hostility to the birth of the euro were the trigger of the events recalled here, what were —and remain —the reasons for this U.S. determination against a united and sovereign Europe? The Europe envisioned by the signatories of the Ventotene Manifesto, which inspired the Treaty of Rome and many statesmen, from Jean Monnet to Jacques Delors. As Washington’s hegemony gradually evaporated, the political unity of a market of around 500 million people, with a strong social-democratic imprint —especially in Northern Europe, yet not attributable to anti-democratic orientations or structures —would have created a formidable rival, more threatening than the accommodating enemy in Moscow, and not dismissible as a hostile dictatorship. In prospect, such a Europe could have jeopardized NATO’s future, which has poorly survived the fall of the Wall, putting an end to Washington’s divide et impera in Europe.\nToday, the dream of Madeleine Albright and Victoria Nuland (“Fuck Europe!”) —to name just two significant figures — even before that of Donald Trump, has almost come true. The corrupt management of Ursula von der Leyen, aided by the sovereigntist convergences of the Baltic countries and the Visegrád group, has turned the European Union into a compliant instrument of Washington under Moscow’s approving gaze.\nWar propaganda, fueled by the bloody events in Ukraine and Palestine, has led to a rearmament policy serving the U.S. military-industrial complex, precluding a European defense —with its corresponding economies of scale — which would require an integrated foreign policy. The anachronistic role of Putin’s Russia as a “credible threat” is reinforced by the interruption of gas and oil purchases from Moscow —along with the Western sabotage of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline supplying Germany — by sanctions policies, and by the freezing of Russian financial assets in Europe. At the same time, Trump’s United States revives and even theorizes in an official document its traditional policy in Europe, based on interference in both foreign and domestic affairs of individual states. The EU has provided no proportionate response to the increases in export tariffs imposed by Trump, nor to the obligation to raise military spending within NATO agreements, mostly in the form of purchases of U.S. weapons.\nIn short, we are facing a “vast enterprise,” as Charles de Gaulle would say. And yet a different Europe, inspired by its original vision, could take its place in a more peaceful multipolar world, mark the end of the prolonged Cold War, and even stimulate a shift by the United States and Russia, still engaged in dividing it into spheres of influence. A change of direction that would allow a fair distribution of resources, freedom of exchange as a condition for peaceful and productive coexistence, and the ecological preservation of the planet. In short: bread, peace, and freedom for all. Utopia? As Barbara Ward, alongside Kwame Nkrumah—then president of Ghana—stated more than half a century ago, we are in urgent need of “relevant utopias” which, even if they are not realized, point immediately to the direction in which we must commit ourselves.\nGian Giacomo Migone\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-03-30-usa-europe-the-story-of-a-hostile-alliance/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eEuropean governments—and the media that follow their lead—continue to react to Donald Trump’s “\u003cem\u003eNational Security Strategy\u003c/em\u003e” as if the current president had invented Washington’s hostility toward any genuine European unity, whereas he has merely made it provocatively explicit, in well-tested alignment with Moscow. In doing so, the President of the United States provides Europeans with a valuable opportunity to define and focus the urgent correction of the structure and direction of the European Union, toward its independence —not merely “autonomy”— in strategic terms, restoring to its peoples the only sovereignty possible. A further paradox is that Giorgia Meloni —the supposed sovereigntist and former fascist who, as Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, allows herself to be kissed on the head by Joe Biden, only then to become the factotum (certainly not a courtier) of Donald Trump— reminds our homegrown pseudo-Europeanists that there exists another Europe beyond the current EU: that of Ventotene. It will not happen now, but that must be the perspective.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"USA – Europe, the story of a hostile alliance"},{"content":"Now that the White House is occupied by a figure whom calling “questionable” would be an understatement, many are beginning to recognize a geopolitical fact that has eluded them for more than thirty years: European and American interests do not coincide. In reality, they never have. Just think of the underlying reasons for the American Revolution, through which the thirteen colonies emancipated themselves from the English motherland in 1776—exactly two hundred and fifty years ago. “No taxation without representation” was the slogan. And to express their indignation, they threw a shipment of tea—the pride and glory of the British crown—into the sea. The ultra-conservative Tea Party movement, from which Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerges today, takes its name from this episode.\nWe were in the 18th century, of course, but the American Revolution did not share the same roots as the one that, thirteen years later in 1789, would forever transform the organization of France and the Old Continent. If, despite the long period of the Restoration, France remained, even in the 19th century, the homeland of the Enlightenment; if Napoleon Bonaparte, though undeniably a kind of despot, is nevertheless regarded by the French as a father of the nation; and if great post-Napoleonic French masterpieces like Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables must also be read as a claim to the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, it is precisely because that revolution carried an egalitarian spirit that the American Revolution only partially possessed. Indeed, Alexis de Tocqueville, in closely and deeply examining the events across the Atlantic, grasped their distinctive features, as well as the similarities and differences with those in Europe. Yet no observer ever failed to recognize that the true nature of this people, though descended from old Europe, was isolationist.\nIt is no coincidence that the two fundamental doctrines of the 19th century were those of James Monroe—“America for the Americans”—and Andrew Jackson, the putative father of the Democratic Party: that is, precisely, isolationism, based on the idea that America lives and shapes its own destiny, while the rest of the world, at best, is inspired by its light and greatness. Over the following ninety years, a series of rather artificial myths arose: American exceptionalism, the “city upon a hill,” Manifest Destiny, and a whole series of self-narratives that preceded, by roughly a century, what would become, in the 20th century, the Hollywood epic of Westerns and the emphatic self-narration. One need only consider that the issue of slavery in the United States was resolved only thanks to the tenacity of Abraham Lincoln (a Republican, for at that time, and for at least another century, the Democrats were the true representatives of the enslaving and segregationist South), who was able to confront the secessionist currents that had led the country into a devastating four-year war, marked by Lincoln’s own assassination.\nWithout delving into every single aspect of the American case, we will simply note that Theodore Roosevelt, in fact, also had a forceful, muscular conception of the country’s role in the world: he saw it as a kind of global policeman, but without making any concessions to others. To arrive at an interventionist rather than isolationist vision, one must look instead to Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, whose experience was marked by the violence of the Southern states— increasingly prone to lynchings and unspeakable acts of barbarity, especially against Black people— and above all by America’s entry into World War I. The League of Nations, a precursor to the United Nations, was conceived in Wilson’s mind precisely in that climate, as Europe saw its empires dissolve and its role as global hegemon fade.\nWho, then, is Donald Trump? Setting aside his countless controversies, politically speaking there are at least two versions of him. The first (2017–2021) is a paleoconservative president, shaped by a Jacksonian vision (let us not forget that he was, for a long time, a regular donor to the Democrats, not so far removed from the positions of the Clinton family) and by the thinking of the presidents of the “Roaring Twenties,” the years of Prohibition, of anarchists mysteriously falling from the window of an FBI office (Andrea Salsedo) or being executed in the electric chair (Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti), and of the trio composed of Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, who were responsible for the country’s disaster and, in Hoover’s case, entirely incapable of dealing with the crisis of 1929, to the point that shantytowns were commonly referred to as “Hoovervilles.” The second Trump (2025–2029), who declares war on the entire planet while at the same time aspiring to the Nobel Peace Prize, is instead far more interventionist, following in the footsteps of Republican figures such as the neoconservatives Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, as well as Democrats like Bill Clinton.\nWhy this shift? Because the United States is in decline. While the bellicism of its predecessors was tied to the need to expand American power and influence—seizing the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity offered by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of its sphere of influence, with the subsequent incorporation into NATO (and later, not coincidentally, also into the European Union) of almost all former Warsaw Pact countries—Trumpism today needs to reassert the historical function of a country that, upon reflection, no longer has one.\nAmerica, in fact, is no longer a cultural power, despite the still-thriving Hollywood industry; it struggles economically, is challenged by an increasingly assertive China, must contend with a Russia that Vladimir Putin—albeit through brutal methods—has rescued from the period of decline associated with Boris Yeltsin, and does not know how to deal with a Middle Eastern powder keg in which Benjamin Netanyahu has unleashed chaos without managing to close a single front.\nThus, at present, America is a defeated nation: in Venezuela it has ousted Maduro but failed to bring about any “regime change,” leaving his deputy in power; in Iran, the same applies, with the added difficulty of confronting a population of one hundred million people and a country with three thousand years of glorious history; and, as for Gaza, it has allowed the oligarch in Tel Aviv to carry out a genocide without managing to secure even the outline of a peace plan, limiting itself at most to a fleeting truce, never truly respected by the Israelis.\nFinally, in Ukraine, partly due to Trump’s innate admiration for Putin and partly because no one can raise their voice too much with Russia, America has displayed all its weakness and ineffectiveness—after, moreover, its ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021.\nWe are therefore faced with a tired country, at war with itself, suddenly discovering its own fragility and finding itself besieged by a techno-oligarchy of multibillionaires claiming the right to dictate the law not only to the White House but to the entire world, engaging in ridiculous preachings about the Antichrist and claiming immortality as well as the conquest of Mars.\nIn short, this country, which was once that of Camelot and Kennedy’s “New Frontier,” of filmmakers like Elia Kazan, playwrights like Arthur Miller, actors like Marlon Brando, divas like Marilyn Monroe, independent journalism serving as a counterbalance to power, editors like Katharine Graham, jazz, the Charleston, and a thousand other elements and figures that made it great despite its contradictions, now finds itself imprisoned by a sort of out-of-control cult, benefiting from the complacency of a president whose mental health now raises serious doubts among many analysts.\nAmid all this, a Europe that, until now, has positioned itself in a vassal-like role—unable to express an autonomous and unified foreign policy, even allowing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to be destroyed, thereby triggering a recession in Germany and endangering energy supplies across the continent—a Europe more divided than ever and plagued by the resurgence of fascisms and authoritarianisms of all kinds—seems perhaps beginning to realize the need to change its attitude.\nIt is no coincidence that, following the passing of Pope Francis, for the first time in history, an American pope was elected—almost as if to signal that the temporal power of the dominant country has reached its end and that a bit of spirituality, even at these latitudes, does no harm. It is also no coincidence that there is now talk of autonomous defense and a European NATO. Finally, it is no coincidence that there is reflection on how to position oneself on the international chessboard, having acknowledged that no country—not even Orbán’s Hungary—can realistically consider following Trump and Netanyahu into the madness of triggering an Armageddon in Iran without paying a very high price.\nAnd tariffs, repeated insults, accusations, attacks, displayed distrust, as well as the undignified stance taken toward Zelensky—who is not a statesman but cannot be abandoned overnight—and, above all, toward the Ukrainian people, have certainly not helped to calm tensions.\nI want to believe, in short, that the European Union, though poorly represented and trapped by one of the weakest ruling classes it has ever seen in its long history, is beginning to realize the need to row determinedly against a model that has become unsustainable and is now entirely contrary to our interests.\nThe real question, then, is this: are we ready to “de-Trump” ourselves? Is progressive thought capable of producing the necessary antibodies and, above all, of bringing forth leaders up to the electoral challenges ahead in key countries like Italy, France, Spain, and Germany? And what will a repentant England—looking more and more like the prodigal son—do with regard to the European Union?\nIn all of this, a Europe that until now has positioned itself in a vassal-like role, incapable of expressing an autonomous and unified foreign policy, capable of letting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline be destroyed—pushing Germany into recession and jeopardizing the energy supplies of the entire continent—more divided than ever and prey to the resurgence of fascism and authoritarianism of all kinds, may finally be beginning to realize it needs to change its approach.\nIt is no coincidence that, after the passing of Pope Francis, for the first time in history, an American Pope was elected, as if to signal that the temporal power of the dominant country has ended and that a little spirituality, even in those latitudes, does no harm. It is no coincidence that discussions are starting about autonomous defense and a European NATO. It is no coincidence that questions are being raised about how to act on the international stage, acknowledging that no country—not even Orbán’s Hungary—can truly think of following Trump and Netanyahu into the madness of triggering an Armageddon in Iran without paying a very high price. And even tariffs, constant insults, accusations, attacks, ostentatious distrust, and the disgraceful position taken toward Zelensky—who is not a statesman but cannot simply be discarded overnight—and above all toward the Ukrainian people, have certainly not helped to calm tensions.\nI want to allow myself to hope, in short, that the European Union, though poorly represented and hostage to one of the weakest governing classes in its long history, is realizing the necessity of rowing stubbornly in the opposite direction from a model that has become unsustainable and is now entirely opposed to our interests.\nThe real question, therefore, is: are we equipped to “de-Trump” ourselves? Is progressive thought capable of producing adequate antibodies and, more than ever, of expressing leadership up to the electoral challenges that will take place in the coming years in key countries such as Italy, France, Spain, and Germany? And what will the deeply repentant England do in relation to the European Union, increasingly reminding us of the parable of the prodigal son? If there are any statesmen, let them come forward, because time has run out. Either we emancipate ourselves once and for all from the embrace of a nation that has effectively declared war on us—both in values and in economics—or we will end up sinking with it, without even adequate energy resources to face an unprecedented emergency, with multiple war fronts looming on the horizon, besieging us on all sides.\nRoberto Bertoni\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-03-29-de-trump-europe/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eNow that the White House is occupied by a figure whom calling “questionable” would be an understatement, many are beginning to recognize a geopolitical fact that has eluded them for more than thirty years: European and American interests do not coincide. In reality, they never have. Just think of the underlying reasons for the American Revolution, through which the thirteen colonies emancipated themselves from the English motherland in 1776—exactly two hundred and fifty years ago. “No taxation without representation” was the slogan. And to express their indignation, they threw a shipment of tea—the pride and glory of the British crown—into the sea. The ultra-conservative Tea Party movement, from which Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerges today, takes its name from this episode.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"De-Trumping Europe"},{"content":"Today the whole world is discovering Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish socialist leader who heads a left-wing coalition government. His “no to war” in Iran resonates as a powerful warning signal in the face of the deadly danger threatening the system of collective security established in 1945. The United Nations—whose true meaning was an “organization of nations united against fascism”—was meant to prevent any new war.\nThis “no” is also a resounding rejection of Trumpism. Pedro Sánchez is the only European head of government to oppose head-on the war sought by Donald Trump, by refusing to allow the United States Air Force to use American bases located in Andalusia. By contrast, France and United Kingdom have granted the U.S. military access to their bases as American aircraft methodically bomb Iran, in disregard of international law. This refusal is all the more striking given that Trump’s war initiative appears wholly reckless: a war against a country with a millennia-old history could lead the world toward general chaos.\nPedro Sánchez stands within the tradition of Spanish progressives. His “no to war” reflects a deep political culture of rejecting war in the country’s history. The founding event of this culture was the deliberate and systematic massacre of civilians in the small Basque town of Guernica by fascist aviation in 1937. This bombing marked a world first and a historical turning point: it inaugurated a new era in which the mass killing of civilians became a strategic instrument of pressure. In the context of the Spanish Civil War—which pitted democrats and progressives on one side against the union of right-wing forces around General Francisco Franco, supported by fascist states—Guernica became a historic symbol of freedom.\nThis practice of Nazi aviation would be repeated in May–June 1940 in France, when columns of civilians fleeing the German advance were bombed and machine-gunned on the roads. In 1937, by painting Guernica, Picasso created a work of art that was a universal denunciation of barbarism. At the time, part of the right-wing press—among them Le Figaro —echoed fascist propaganda accusing “the Reds” of being responsible for the massacre. By contrast, the newspaper L\u0026rsquo;Humanité reported the actual facts.\nOn the Palestinian question, Pedro Sánchez has adopted one of the most openly opposed positions in the Western world to that of the Israeli far-right government. He was among the first European leaders to recognize the State of Palestine and the only one to impose a genuine embargo on arms sales to Israel. He is also the only Western head of government to refer to the existence of a “genocide in Gaza.” In Spain, a recent poll indicates that more than 80 percent of Spaniards share his view. Pedro Sánchez can therefore rely on very strong public support. But of course, he condemns the terrorist massacres carried out by Hamas on October 7 and defends Israel’s right to exist without threat.\nA Coalition of All the Left\nIn Spain, as elsewhere, foreign policy is a powerful marker of the confrontation between a left-wing bloc and a far-right bloc, strengthened by the rallying of part of the traditional right. As soon as he took office as prime minister, Sánchez declared that he wanted to build “a wall against the right and the far right.”\nAlthough he has not had a majority to pass his budget since 2023, he has nevertheless succeeded — thanks to his rhetorical skills, his sense of negotiation, and his art of compromise — in building a coalition that unites all the forces of the left, including the radical left. He has also secured the support of Basque and Catalan pro-independence parties. This coalition was born from what is known as a “constructive vote of no confidence,” a feature specific to the Spanish system. Unlike in France, a motion of censure can only be introduced by a coalition that already possesses a governing program.\nThe budget is therefore renewed from year to year, with adjustments that make it possible to pursue a left-wing policy supporting domestic demand. Since 2023 the minimum wage has increased by 60 percent, reaching €1,200 in a country where the cost of living remains lower than in France. Pedro Sánchez is thus pursuing a policy of transformation rather than simple management. The Spanish Socialist Party clearly states that it does not follow a purely social-democratic management model. The left-wing markers are strong: priority to renewable energy,assertive feminism, and clearly defined social policies.\nThis policy of transformation has also been an economic success. Spain today enjoys the strongest growth in the European Union, exceeding 3 percent. This growth is based on domestic demand, the development of tourism, and significant but controlled labor immigration. Pedro Sánchez’s policy remains pragmatic but grounded in clearly affirmed left-wing values. It is welcomed by rating agencies. Strong growth also allows for a significant reduction in public debt. A comparable phenomenon occurred in France under the left-wing coalition government led by Lionel Jospin between 1998 and 2002.\nThis has not prevented the European right from criticizing Pedro Sánchez’s policies. Yet the present moment reveals the limits of the supply-side and austerity policies it advocates, at a time when the central issue remains the purchasing power of the middle and working classes.\nEric Djabiev\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-03-20-spain-saves-europes-honour/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eToday the whole world is discovering Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish socialist leader who heads a left-wing\ncoalition government. His “no to war” in Iran resonates as a powerful warning signal in the face of the deadly danger threatening the system of collective security established in 1945. The United Nations—whose true meaning was an “organization of nations united against fascism”—was meant to prevent any new war.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis “no” is also a resounding rejection of Trumpism. Pedro Sánchez is the only European head of government to oppose head-on the war sought by Donald Trump, by refusing to allow the United States Air Force to use American bases located in Andalusia. By contrast, France and United Kingdom have granted the U.S. military access to their bases as American aircraft methodically bomb Iran, in disregard of international law. This refusal is all the more striking given that Trump’s war initiative appears wholly reckless: a war against a country with a millennia-old history could lead the world toward general chaos.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"Spain Saves Europe’s Honour  "},{"content":"Iran is a political entity in which the ethno-confessional dimension is essential. The millennia-old tradition of the Persian Empire was based on tolerance toward all minorities. The most powerful Persian emperor, Darius I, described himself as “the king of the land of all ethnicities.” This phrase is engraved on his tomb in Susa (Shush), in 486 BC. This tradition of tolerance was broken in 1928 in favor of a hyper-centralized system of repression of minorities.\nThis rupture was driven by the Pahlavi shah dynasty and later, in 1979, by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which overthrew the shah’s regime and established an authoritarian theocracy based on Shiite Islam, the state religion. The country is in fact ruled by the Supreme Leader, a proclaimed descendant of the Prophet, chosen by a council of mullahs. The armed wing of the regime is made up of the “Guardians of the Revolution,” a true morality police, particularly targeting women who refuse to wear the veil. The ethnic minorities in the peripheral regions are the primary targets of severe repression. These Guards, the backbone of the regime, number around 150,000 men and serve both as police and army, controlling a large part of the economy. Since 1979, they have carried out fierce repression: shootings, hangings, torture, and rape, particularly against women, young people, and ethnic minorities. The radical Shiite regime has waged a total cultural struggle against Sunni Islam and against the cultures of ethnic minorities, imposing a forced, radical Islamization. Even Persian identity is marginalized.\nThis is the main difference with the previous regime of the shah, which was rooted in the Persian tradition, even though it was a repressive dictatorship equipped with a political police force, the SAVAK, which tortured and killed. In the collective memory of Iranians, this remains very vivid. This is why the return of the Pahlavi monarchy, represented by the shah’s son who lives in the United States, does not constitute a consensual solution for Iranians. The Islamic Republic favored the “Persian center” to the detriment of the ethnic peripheries, which were left in deep poverty. This very strong central power theoretically relied on about 50% of the population, which is Persian. However, this “Persian center,” highly educated and cultured, has led a direct opposition, particularly through student and women’s movements. For decades, these protest movements have been crushed by repression and terror carried out by the Guardians of the Revolution. Can the situation change after the assassination of Supreme Leader Khamenei and the decapitation of the Pasdaran elites (the exact scale of which is not yet known)? It is difficult for a structured opposition to emerge from the center, weakened by years of repression.\nEthnic minorities, on the other hand,constitute truly active opposition forces. Their economic marginalization compared to the center—where they have often been regarded as “second-class citizens”—forms the structural driving force behind the unrest. These minorities, significant in number (around 50% of the population), are mainly four groups: the Azeris (25%), the Kurds (15%), the Baloch, and the Arabs. First, West Azerbaijan, populated by Turkic-speaking and Shiite Azeris, represents about 25% of Iran’s 90 million inhabitants. This region in northwestern Iran shares a mountainous border with the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. Azeris on both sides of the border maintain the historical hope of reunification, rooted in a pan-Turkic political logic: Baku, Tabriz, Ankara. However, the Iranian regime carries out very harsh repression against any expression of Azeri nationalism.\nThe Islamic authorities have been particularly wary of an Azeri uprising. Indeed, the demographic weight of the Azeris is considerable. This is why this minority is relatively better treated economically, even though its standard of living remains lower than that of the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan, which is rich in oil and gas. Azerbaijan is also a major geopolitical player, with the Caspian Sea and the border city of Astara, a true commercial hub on the northern axis of the Silk Road. The regime in Baku maintains complex relations with these minorities: it is close to the United States and Israel, allied with Ankara, and engages as an equal partner with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The border with Iran has been a significant military issue for several years, particularly due to the presence of American and Israeli interests. Astara has thus become an important military center. Furthermore, peace negotiations with Armenia are very advanced. The neighboring Azerbaijani state practices a largely secularized Shiite Islam, in sharp contrast to that of Iran. Active women there generally do not wear the veil. Azerbaijan is thus becoming an attraction pole for the Azeris of Iran. There are claims of potential CIA and Mossad infiltration in this Iranian province. The Azeris of Iran are mainly engaged in a political and cultural struggle, not a military one, unlike the Kurds in the west and the Baloch in the southeast.\nAs for Iranian Kurdistan, located in the west of Iran, it has a strong military tradition of resistance, which is absent among the Azeris. Kurdish national consciousness was forged in the face of relentless repression. Despite this, armed opposition groups remain active and are also believed to receive external support. Iranian Kurdistan, like Iranian Azerbaijan, could provide political elites in the event of the collapse of central power.\nFinally, the Baloch minority, somewhat distinct, is Sunni and represents about 2% of Iran’s population. It is the ethnic group most opposed to central authority. The Baloch have borne the heaviest burden in the face of the extremely brutal repression carried out by the Revolutionary Guards. However, despite the repression, these ethnic oppositions remain attached to millennia-old Persia. They are in favor of a return to a form of federal state reminiscent of the imperial tradition prior to the Pahlavi dynasty.\nWhile waiting for the United States to explain how it envisions the future of Iran, this is the ethnic situation that the new ruling elites will face (whether the Pahlavis or movements opposing the Iranian theocracy), with the aim of preserving the unity of the oldest state entity in the world.\n","permalink":"https://geopolitics-today.com/en/articles/2026-03-20-the-return-of-the-pahlavis/","summary":"\u003cp\u003eIran is a political entity in which the\nethno-confessional dimension is essential. The millennia-old tradition of the Persian Empire was based on tolerance toward all minorities. The most powerful Persian emperor, Darius I, described himself as “the king of the land of all ethnicities.” This phrase is engraved on his tomb in Susa (Shush), in 486 BC.\nThis tradition of tolerance was broken in 1928 in favor of a hyper-centralized system of repression of minorities.\u003c/p\u003e","title":"The return of the Pahlavis"}]