By Dan BOSCOV-ELLEN – Joshua FRANK

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Although the social and environmental costs of renewable energy technologies are often gestured at parenthetically in left discourse about climate action, they are rarely given serious and sustained attention. It is generally assumed that because a rapid transition to renewables is necessary to avoid full-on climate disaster, we will simply have to accept these costs without too much critical scrutiny. 

In an interview with Spectre’s Dan Boscov-Ellen, Joshua Frank draws on his recent book Bad Energy: The AI Hucksters, Rogue Lithium Extractors, and Wind Industrialists Who Are Selling Off Our Future (Haymarket 2026) to highlight the dangers of that assumption.

Joshua Frank is the managing editor at CounterPunch. He is an investigative journalist and author of the recent award-winning book Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America (Haymarket, 2022).

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Thank you for speaking with me again, and congratulations on the publication of your new book Bad Energy. The book is a sobering look at the environmental costs of the transition to renewables that explores those made expendable in the name of combating climate change and pushes us to reckon with the material constraints on any construction of a sustainable postcapitalist future. Challenging the complacent path-dependency of much left energy politics without laying out a detailed blueprint for an alternative makes this a potentially unpopular line of questioning; people may not want to confront the harms involved in the only climate solutions that seem to be on offer, especially when there seems to already be so little to feel hopeful about at the moment. What prompted you to take up this project? And were there things that particularly surprised you as you began your research?

I live in California. I grew up in the West, in Montana. The majority of public lands in this country managed by the Bureau of Land Management are in the West; there are 240-some million acres that are managed by the BLM. And many of these huge so-called green energy projects are being built on these public lands. In California, for instance, a lot of big solar farm projects are popping up in the Mojave Desert. I spend a lot of time in those areas, and I see the impact that they’re having.

On a very personal level, when my wife and I moved into our current house, we adopted an endangered desert tortoise that had been living here. It was probably stolen from the Mojave decades ago, but it’s been living here through three different residents. So we’ve gotten to know this desert tortoise really well. When I started learning about what some of these big energy projects are doing to desert tortoise habitat, I really felt like I needed to tell the story and defend these creatures, which have been out there for millions of years and we’ve put them on the brink of extinction in a hundred years. They’re an indicator species of an ecosystem in crisis.

Of course, it’s not just green energy projects; there’s been mining and grazing and drought and weapons testing and all sorts of things that have happened out there. But right now, this big push for green energy has made things much, much worse. So that was really the first thing that prompted me to think about approaching this project; I felt like I needed to do it in defense of this tortoise that I am a steward of here at home.

Obviously, I support a transition away from fossil fuels. So I’ve supported solar and wind projects. But what I didn’t realize until I started my research for the book is who is behind many of these projects or the scale of the moneyed interests involved. One that I write about in the book is an enormous wind project in Wyoming that is being funded by an oil billionaire. It’s going to be five hundred square miles, and they’re going to build a seven-hundred-plus-mile-long transmission line called the Transwest Express that’s going to transmit that power from Wyoming to California. That was just mind boggling to me.

Wind energy in and of itself is not a bad thing, but a huge wind project like this that is four or five states away seems completely crazy to me. And when I visited the town where that project is being built and I talked to residents there, they feel the same way—that this is just another example of resource exploitation in their state. There are many other examples like that. So I started looking at the nuances of some of these technologies and who benefits from implementing them in one way versus another, which was enlightening to me, and hopefully will be to readers.

One of the themes of the book is that focusing too narrowly on climate change can cause us to overlook other aspects of capitalist ecocide—particularly the biodiversity crisis, which is, as you note, “in many ways as serious as climate change itself.” If you’re an oil billionaire who’s trying to diversify with more of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy, as the Democrats like to say, then perhaps it makes good sense to frame things narrowly in terms of carbon alone. But some climate activists and sections of the left seem to do the same thing unintentionally. Are there ways to talk about and organize around the climate crisis without separating it from the broader context?

I think one of the traps that we fall into is thinking about the planet in a very binary way when it comes to the climate—a problem that has been made worse by the big green outfits that are almost solely focused on climate change. And of course, this isn’t to say that climate chaos isn’t real. It is. But we can fixate on it at the expense of a lot of other problems that are also happening concurrently: industrial farming and the pollution it causes, habitat loss, all sorts of things. So the first thing we need to do is start looking at planetary health holistically. Once we start to see that all these things are interconnected, and then look for answers to climate change that take the impacts of biodiversity and everything else into consideration, we start looking at the problem differently. When we destroy biodiversity (often in the service of capital accumulation), we’re doing so at the expense of the climate, because those deserts and rainforests act as carbon sinks in many cases, too. We can’t approach the answer to one of these problems at the expense of the other.

You take the same stance here when it comes to the social impacts of energy projects. You note that “more than half of critical mining projects are on or near Indigenous lands,” and throughout the book you cover a number of specific examples where the buildout of renewables is harming Indigenous communities and, in some cases, making their existing ways of life impossible. This focus contrasts with the predominant approach of the social-democratic left in this country, which generally prefers to ignore or downplay such concerns as identitarian and politically inconvenient. Why have you centered them here, and how do they connect to the larger argument of the book?

I think if we’re talking about the fossil fuel industry and the impacts that coal mining or oil production have on people, we don’t have the same kind of conversation. There, everybody on the left would agree we need to oppose these things because they’re polluting resources, they’re poisoning water, they’re destroying communities. Well, then why can’t we use that same framework to analyze so-called green energy projects?

For example, I have done a lot of work with folks in the Navajo Nation working against uranium mining, talking to people that have been impacted by that industry, which is being resurrected under the guise of climate change. One of the things that we need to do when we’re looking at all of these projects is to give it the same attention and criticism that we would to the fossil fuel industry, because many of the impacts on the ground for these communities is very similar.

As you and I have discussed before, I also think that there is a lack of environmental ethic on parts of the left, and definitely a lack of respect for Indigenous cultures and Indigenous lifeways. There is so much we can learn from Indigenous cultures, but we also need to understand that if we’re not approaching where we get our energy in a critical way, it is going to play out like all of the earlier extractive, colonial episodes that have come before. As I detail throughout the book, these mining companies and other interests looking to profit off of the transition are using the same playbook that the fossil fuel industry has used. So we need to be critical in the same way that we would if we were talking about oil and gas production.

Part of that playbook is to frame so-called “nonproductive” uses of the land as “waste.” Even when it’s not explicitly stated, I think there’s often an attitude on parts of the left that sees Indigenous land and water protectors as irrationally obstructing necessary “progress”—a (possibly willful) misunderstanding of the concerns of Indigenous communities as they have been sounding the alarm about the dangers of repeating the same harms under a green banner if we fail to acknowledge and address the underlying causes. And those are not just capitalism and ongoing colonialism but a breakdown of proper relations and an unwillingness to acknowledge our full obligations to all those with whom we are in relation.

Often we are talking about how climate chaos is impacting these communities, but we should be talking about all of the things that are impacting these communities, and the book tries to highlight that.

While we’re talking about some of the ways that this book may push or challenge sections of the left, I wanted to ask about another inconvenient truth that you highlight in the book, which is that of non-Western imperialism. In particular, several prominent ecosocialist thinkers (I have in mind John Bellamy Foster and Jason Hickel, but there are numerous others) seem to have a real blind spot when it comes to the social and environmental harms of Chinese imperialism. Why do you think that is, and how should the left position itself vis-à-vis interimperial rivalries in global supply chains for renewables?

One thing that was very enlightening to me when doing research for the book was learning just how much of these so-called critical mineral resources globally are controlled by China and Chinese-backed companies. Congo is example of this: 80 percent of its copper and cobalt is controlled by Chinese interests. It’s a similar story in many other places in Africa and South America. This includes things like cobalt, copper, and nickel, as well as graphite, lithium, and rare earths. And not only do they control something like 70 percent of the world’s current critical mineral reserves, but they also control 90 percent of their refinement.

Of course, critical minerals are not just used in “green” technologies—they are used in military tech and AI chips and all sorts of things. They are increasingly crucial to the capitalist economic system, and so we have seen these geopolitical tensions arise over them, with Trump aiming to secure access to minerals by strong-arming countries through tariffs and threatening to withhold military aid, and so on.

But the opposition to the United States can mask the on-the-ground reality of Chinese mining, which is no less brutal than that of US-based corporations. When you start digging into it, you see that there is rampant abuse of miners that are many times children working in horrible conditions in toxic places. I have a lot of respect for Jason and John, but I think that it’s naive to see this relationship that China has with some of these places, which generally aren’t seeing the benefit of all this extraction, and to not to see that as a form of economic imperialism.

Of course, it’s not just mining in places like the Congo; China is funding huge so-called green energy projects all over the world. And on the surface, that might seem like a good thing for those places. China is loaning billions to construct well over three hundred huge hydroelectric dam projects in seventy countries under the guise of providing energy and creating jobs. But when you look at the fine print, you see that these loans are all resource-backed loans, which means in many of the cases the funding is tied to giving China access to critical minerals and other resources. So that also is a form of economic imperialism. If the United States or the IMF or the World Bank were doing it, that’s what we’d be calling it, right? And the United States certainly wishes that they had been doing this decades ago, because China is ahead of the game.

I don’t know where the ecosocialist thinkers have lost the narrative on this, but I hope that they can look at the reality on the ground and come to a different conclusion.

Although the book challenges various kinds of complacency that we find on the left, the point is not to argue that all renewable energy is inherently “bad” energy. No energy source is without impacts, but you note that “not all renewable energies are created equal.” For example, you suggest that solar and wind are generally less harmful than nuclear reactors and large dams. You also discuss how different approaches to these technologies can lower their impact (encouraging distributed rooftop solar rather than large solar farms in the Mojave, and so on). Some of this may be context dependent—if you’re in a place that has good wind corridors that are less frequented by migratory birds, maybe it makes sense to put wind there instead of in certain sensitive offshore habitats, for instance. But are there any overarching principles to keep in mind when thinking through our energy options?

I generally think local is better in many ways. Local communities have a better sense of their needs and of what their ecology means to them. I think about an example that I wrote about in the book, which is how these big solar projects in California are rolling out. In investigating that, I came to the conclusion that it is the big utility companies in California that wanted to destroy the rooftop solar program, which was making really great strides here in the state, because it wasn’t profitable to them. They are looking to maximize profits; they’re publicly traded companies, so there’s a fiduciary responsibility for them to provide endless returns on their investments. Rooftop solar was a threat to that; and so Gavin Newsom, who is in the back pocket of these big utilities, destroyed rooftop solar. And what they’ve done instead is to open up enormous swaths—millions and millions of acres—of public lands across the West to develop solar farms, in some cases in very ecological important areas.

So I think understanding that economic dynamic is important, first and foremost, before we even start talking about the nuances of these technologies and what those impacts might be at the local level. You can contrast the placelessness of capital with the people I talked to in the book, including people from a lot of different Native American communities. People, especially in rural communities, have a lot of ideas about what their needs are and how they could be met. There’s an example in the book of a community in Northern California that has very inconsistent energy. Yet there is no guarantee that this massive wind farm that’s being proposed off the coast of Northern California is going to help bring energy to that local community.

Those kind of contradictions, I think, are really important to look at. And this gets into larger questions of democratic decision-making. These communities, in many cases Indigenous communities, are once again being set up as “sacrifice zones,” only now in the name of green energy. Once we recognize that, then it seems clear that they should have a bigger say in what happens on those lands than, say, those who live hundreds of miles away who would enjoy the fruits of their resources.

In terms of what energy strategies we choose, of course it is partly geographically dependent. Obviously in parts of the US West, sun is very plentiful. I don’t really get into geothermal in the book, but in some places geothermal can be very efficient, but that’s not possible everywhere. But I think the main thing to keep in mind is that we can’t simply replace fossil fuels with green energy without interrogating the system itself, which is the capitalist system that promotes the myth of endless growth. That we don’t have endless resources on this planet, and no matter if it’s fossil fuels or green energy, there are limits to what we can take without doing irreparable harm. And the attention to the local helps us to see that, which is part of why thinking local is really important. It might be an oversimplification, but it’s a pretty good one.

I want to come back to the question of democratic decision-making in a moment, but first, can I quickly follow-up about the question of endless growth? You write that expansionism is “the foundation of capitalist ideology…markets (both foreign and domestic) require new territory and resources to grow.” A number of ecosocialist thinkers, from James O’Connor to Jason W. Moore, have argued that the finitude you’re highlighting here is at some point going to become a fatal problem for capitalism itself—that it’s going to run out of new frontiers and it won’t be able to sustain its growth. Renewable energy seems to be part of a new frontier of accumulation; you cite a mining analyst for BNEF arguing that “the energy transition could lead to a super-cycle for the metals and mining industry,” and you look at how capitalists are scouring the planet, including the depths of the ocean, for critical minerals (some now have their eyes set on asteroids, perhaps the true “final frontier”). Could this boom keep capitalism running, despite the harm to the planet?

In the immediate future, capitalism can absolutely run on this strategy of continuing to burn fossil fuels and also expanding overall energy consumption, with renewables being a portion of that. In no way are we seeing renewables push fossil fuels out. I think that’s by intention, that’s by design. I don’t know how long that can go on despite the impacts that it will continue to have on the planet and people, but I suspect that it could still work for a long time.

If we’re talking geological time, yes, capitalism will eventually have to face physics—the reality that this planet has resources and sinks that are finite and at a certain point we will have exhausted them. I think left to its own devices, eventually capitalism will run into a wall that it doesn’t care about driving into, unfortunately. But we can’t wait for that moment to arrive on its own because we all live here, too; we need to come up with a better strategy to slow down, as Kohei Saito would say. To use less resources and try to live more equitably and comfortably. I write in the book that the world does have a population problem, and it’s the growing population of billionaires. Not regular people.

Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor have a new book coming out called End Times Fascism, and I gather that part of the argument is that many of these billionaires recognize that they’re destroying the world, but they think that they can insulate themselves and their progeny from an apocalypse that they themselves are hastening, perhaps intervening technologically where necessary to keep the profits flowing as long as possible (Elon Musk has been talking a lot about the need for geoengineering lately). On that note, one of the interesting sites of resistance today here in the United States at the moment is the growing popular movement against data centers. The companies relying on the AI boom do not want democratic oversight, and many of them are quite happy to embrace fascism—and to create the repressive technologies that enable it—if it allows them to keep profits flowing. In the book, you discuss Musk’s “we’ll coup whoever we want” attitude toward Bolivian lithium, but it’s clear that this applies equally in the imperial core too. Do you see anti-data-center organizing, which concerns the right of communities to have a say over what technological infrastructure is built and for what purposes, as a hopeful model of resistance to the narrative of inevitability the tech giants are promoting (with the help of some ecomodernists)? As it interacts with the climate movement and the fight for a free Palestine and so on, could this kind of popular movement begin to center the concerns raised in Bad Energy more comprehensively, or are there obstacles that would seem to preclude that possibility?

My hope is that people who may not have really analyzed the underlying economic system of climate chaos walk away from reading Bad Energy and begin to question more as they see that capitalism is still running the show. I think data centers is another great example of that; despite the supposedly intangible nature of the cloud, for many communities this is a very tangible thing that capitalism is throwing at us. I see the movement against data centers across this country as perhaps the biggest opening for the left and the environmental movement to fight big tech and this exploitative capitalism that is infiltrating our lives in the form of AI. I think we begin to understand capitalism in a different way when it’s in our own backyard, when big tech is in our own backyard using our resources. There are a lot of things with data centers that people talk about with energy use and water, and those are really important. But another that’s very rarely talked about is how many critical minerals are needed in these data centers. You know, a big data center, for example, uses tens of thousands of pounds of copper, and that equates to more and more mining; mining for copper is exploding because copper is used in every green energy product, in transmission lines and batteries, as well as data centers.

When we fight data centers, we’re really fighting capitalism; we’re fighting a symptom of capitalism. So I’m really hopeful that we can use this movement against data centers as a tool to help educate people about the wrath of capitalism. Poll after poll shows that Americans don’t support data centers, and many polls are also starting to show that people look at socialism as being better than capitalism. So it’s our duty to provide that alternative, and to help connect the dots. But I’m really invigorated by this movement; it’s an exciting cross-section of all sorts of people, and if we are going to save this planet, we need that kind of mobilization to do it.

I agree, which makes it all the more baffling when ecosocialists like Matt Huber and Holly Buck come out against the anti-data-center protests as being somehow naïve or misinformed, arguing that what we really need is a socialist version of AI development. It seems not just ecologically wrongheaded, but incredibly politically short-sighted not to see the opening in this genuinely grassroots popular resistance to help advance a mass socialist politics based in local democratic decision-making about energy and growth. On that note, I have one final question for you. A central theme throughout the book is the importance of making informed decisions about the relative benefits and harms of various energy sources, and that leaving these decisions to capitalists is a recipe for disaster. Yet even democratic decision-making may fail to adequately register the interests of the nonhuman world and future generations when faced with the exigencies of present poverty (often the legacy of racialized and colonial exploitation). For example, as you detail in the book, some Indigenous communities are split on whether to support mining or infrastructure projects that could bring even temporary income. This pressure can understandably override concern for nonhuman beings and future generations. You mentioned earlier that you started this project in part because you felt a responsibility to speak for the desert tortoise you adopted (and to whose species this book is dedicated) because it can’t represent itself. Do you have any thoughts about how the interests of those who cannot speak for themselves, but who have a great deal at stake in these decisions, could be more consistently integrated into left energy politics?

To harken back to our discussion of Musk a moment ago, some of these billionaires do consider themselves to be environmentalists. The discourse of environmentalism isn’t exclusive to the left, and it can be a very slippery slope into ecofascism as resources are scarcer, things get worse, and capitalism continues to wreak havoc. So I think it is very important to challenge that through democratic processes, and to pull everybody into the conversation. The more people that are part of the conversation, the less chance there is of slipping into a sort of ecofascist hellscape.

It’s true that people often think first about the needs most pressing for them and their communities, and it’s easy not to connect that to the larger picture. It’s easy to be totally disconnected from the farmers that grow your food, or the people that assemble your iPhones, or the mines where the copper in your electric vehicle engine came from. Being more democratic about that process is inherently anticapitalist, because capitalism doesn’t want us to think about any of that: it doesn’t want us to be connected to the people that supply these things to us and the wreckage that is left behind. So I think part of our job as activists and as writers and as academics and people on the left is to bring those conversations forward for people. If we can do that, I think that we will ultimately have a bigger and deeper conversation about what’s really going on and what’s really at stake. And I think that we can together develop a better approach to this problem that we face.

Josh, thank you again for taking the time to speak with me. I hope people will pick up Bad Energy; I think it’s mandatory reading for those who want to understand the constraints within which we’ll need to operate as we try to envision, and ultimately to build, a more sane and livable future.

Original article:  www.counterpunch.org

Du mythe d’Europe à la double identité du Rimland, de la Méditerranée en tant que « mer-cœur » à la tradition occultée de de Gaulle et de Douguine, le continent doit se souvenir qu’il est né d’une traversée.

L’époque que nous vivons

Les Grecs racontaient l’histoire d’une jeune femme nommée Europe, fille d’un roi de Tyr, sur la côte de l’actuel Liban. Un matin, alors qu’elle jouait au bord de la mer, un taureau blanc émergea des flots. Elle monta sur son dos, et le taureau la transporta à travers les eaux jusqu’en Crète. C’est d’elle, disaient les poètes, qu’un continent tout entier a tiré son nom. [1]

Ce mythe est plus riche qu’il n’y paraît. Le nom « Europe » vient d’Asie et a traversé la Méditerranée sur le dos d’un dieu. Notre continent porte le nom d’une étrangère, d’une voyageuse, d’une jeune fille venue de l’autre rive. L’Europe est née d’une rencontre : avant d’être un territoire, elle fut une traversée.

Les Européens ont oublié cette histoire. Depuis quatre-vingts ans, on leur répète que l’Europe est un ensemble d’institutions, un marché commun, un périmètre de sécurité administré depuis l’autre côté de l’océan ; que l’Europe, c’est tout simplement « l’Occident ». Beaucoup ont fini par le croire.

La thèse défendue ici est différente. L’Europe est une civilisation — ou, plus précisément, plusieurs civilisations réunies sous un même toit. Et dans le monde multipolaire qui émerge, cette demeure n’est ni une province ni une périphérie. Elle se trouve au centre de la carte, et le nouvel ordre ne saurait être complet sans elle.

Une ère a pris fin. L’ordre unipolaire apparu après 1991 — celui que Francis Fukuyama s’était empressé de qualifier de « fin de l’histoire » [2] — se délite sous les yeux de tous. L’histoire n’était pas terminée. Elle patientait.

De nouveaux centres de gravité ont émergé en Eurasie, en Asie, en Afrique et en Amérique latine. Des capitales dont d’autres parlaient depuis des siècles s’expriment désormais en leur nom propre. Même à Washington, le ton a changé : la Stratégie de sécurité nationale des États-Unis pour 2025 évoque ouvertement les intérêts, les charges et les transactions, et considère les anciens engagements multilatéraux comme des coûts à renégocier.[3] Le patron présente la facture.

Pour l’Europe, la question n’est donc plus de savoir si le monde multipolaire adviendra. Il est déjà là. La véritable question est de savoir si l’Europe y entrera en tant que sujet ou en tant qu’objet : si elle écrira l’histoire ou si elle sera le lieu où d’autres écriront la leur.

Dans *La Théorie du monde multipolaire*, Alexandre Douguine fait remarquer que la plupart de ceux qui évoquent la multipolarité n’en ont aucune théorie.[4] Ils imaginent un « noyau » du monde — les États-Unis, l’Europe et le bloc occidental — entouré de concurrents en pleine ascension. Dans ce schéma, l’Europe siège à la table de l’ancien centre en déclin.

Il faut rejeter cette position. L’Europe n’a jamais été véritablement maîtresse du monde unipolaire ; elle en fut le premier protectorat. Dans son manuel de géopolitique, Douguine écrit qu’après 1945, l’Europe occidentale était placée sous contrôle américain tout autant que l’Europe orientale l’était sous contrôle soviétique.[5] Les méthodes de gouvernance différaient, mais non le degré de dépendance. De nombreux Européens, de part et d’autre du rideau de fer, ont vécu cette division comme une tragédie, et certains ont tenté d’y mettre fin. Lorsque la France du général de Gaulle a quitté le commandement militaire intégré de l’OTAN en 1966, elle n’a commis aucun acte hostile à l’encontre de quiconque. Elle a accompli un acte de mémoire : l’Europe se souvenait qu’elle possédait une volonté propre.

Si vous posez la question à Bruxelles, la réponse évoquera des compétences, des directives et des procédures. Si vous interrogez un géographe, vous obtiendrez des coordonnées : une péninsule bordée par l’Atlantique, la Méditerranée et les monts Oural. La première réponse relève de la bureaucratie ; la seconde, d’une carte sans légende. Aucune des deux n’explique pourquoi un berger sicilien, un charpentier bavarois et un moine du mont Athos appartiennent, au sens profond, à une même histoire.

Les eurasistes russes — et Piotr Savitski plus que quiconque — aimaient à dire que l’Europe n’est rien d’autre que le « promontoire occidental » de l’Eurasie. [6] De nombreux analystes occidentaux tiennent le même discours, mais avec moins d’affection : un petit cap rattaché à l’Asie.

L’image est recevable. Mais sur les caps, les hommes ont de tout temps érigé des phares. Au cap Sounion, les Athéniens bâtirent le temple de Poséidon, silhouette blanche se détachant sur la mer, pour que les marins sachent où commençait la Grèce. À la pointe de la Galice, les Romains nommèrent un cap *Finis Terrae* : la fin de la terre. Le promontoire est le point où un continent se tourne vers l’extérieur, où la terre dialogue avec la mer et le monde au-delà. La taille modeste de l’Europe sur la carte a toujours été la condition même de sa portée.

Au sein de ce promontoire, il n’existe pas une civilisation unique. On y trouve au moins quatre axes majeurs, dans une tension constante et féconde.

Il y a l’axe méditerranéen : Athènes et Rome, le droit et la philosophie, Byzance et la chrétienté latine, l’humanisme de la Renaissance né de la rencontre entre la théologie chrétienne et la science préservée et développée dans le monde islamique.

Il y a l’axe continental : le monde franc et germanique, le Saint-Empire romain germanique, l’université médiévale, la longue lignée de pensée allant de Kant et Hegel jusqu’à Heidegger, le vieux rêve d’une *Mitteleuropa* s’étendant de l’Atlantique à la steppe.

Il y a l’axe oriental : les peuples slaves, le christianisme orthodoxe, l’héritage de Byzance transmis par Kiev et Moscou — une Europe pleinement européenne, et pourtant distincte de la modernité occidentale. Il y a aussi l’axe du Nord : les mondes scandinave et balte, avec leurs assemblées, leur sens du droit communautaire et leur proximité avec la beauté rude de la nature.

Douguine, dans le sillage de Heidegger, évoque le *Dasein* des peuples — la manière singulière dont chaque peuple existe au monde — et le *Logos* de chaque peuple, ce qui lui insuffle la vie « non seulement sur le plan biologique, mais aussi sur les plans ethnosociologique et métaphysique »[7]. L’Europe ne possède pas un *Logos* unique : elle en compte plusieurs. Elle a toujours été, en elle-même, un monde multipolaire en miniature.

Telle est la première thèse de cet essai. La pluralité qu’appelle aujourd’hui la planète entière, l’Europe la porte déjà en elle. Elle n’a pas besoin d’importer la multipolarité. Elle doit s’en souvenir.

Pour comprendre pourquoi l’Europe occupe une place centrale, il faut remonter à l’opposition la plus ancienne de la géopolitique. Halford Mackinder l’a perçue, Carl Schmitt y a réfléchi et Douguine l’a systématisée : l’opposition entre la civilisation de la Mer et la civilisation de la Terre, entre thalassocratie et tellurocratie.[8]

La civilisation de la Mer est mobile, mercantile et individualiste ; elle appréhende le monde en termes de routes, de ports et de prix. La civilisation de la Terre est enracinée, communautaire et hiérarchique ; elle le mesure en termes de devoirs, de générations et de sacré. Il ne s’agit pas là de simples catégories militaires. Elles façonnent le droit, la religion, la philosophie et même la manière dont une famille s’attable pour le dîner du dimanche.

Mackinder situait l’origine de cette opposition en Méditerranée, dans les guerres opposant Rome à Carthage.[9] Douguine rappelle qu’à ce moment-là, la civilisation occidentale se trouvait à la croisée des chemins : fallait-il fonder une civilisation suivant la voie maritime — celle de Carthage — ou la voie terrestre — celle de Rome ? Chesterton faisait remarquer que Carthage signifiait littéralement « la Nouvelle Cité ». C’était une colonie fondée par des marchands venus de Tyr et de Sidon ; l’écrivain anglais la comparait — non sans arrière-pensée — à New York et à la Nouvelle-Zélande. Carthage a chuté, écrivait-il, parce qu’elle est restée fidèle à sa propre philosophie jusqu’au bout, et que son dieu a fini par dévorer ses enfants.[10]

Selon l’interprétation de Mackinder, les guerres puniques ne prennent jamais véritablement fin : elles resurgissent à chaque époque sous de nouveaux noms.[11]

Quelle est la position de l’Europe dans cette guerre perpétuelle ? Douguine apporte ici un éclairage que je considère comme décisif. L’Europe appartient à ce que les géopolitologues appellent le *Rimland*, la vaste ceinture côtière de l’Eurasie [12] ; or, le *Rimland* possède une double identité : il peut servir la Mer ou servir la Terre. C’est pourquoi, écrit Douguine, l’histoire européenne ne se résume pas au libre jeu d’États souverains s’entrechoquant comme des atomes, mais constitue « un champ unique traversé par des ondes générées par deux centres géopolitiques opposés ; un champ parcouru par les fils d’or du destin géopolitique ». [13]

Venise et Gênes ont parcouru toutes les mers ; les plaines de Pologne et de Bohême ainsi que les forêts d’Allemagne ont enraciné nos peuples dans le sol. L’Europe a le navire et la charrue dans le sang. C’est précisément pour cette raison que quiconque a cherché à dominer le monde a d’abord dû prendre le contrôle de l’Europe.

Dans un essai sur la Méditerranée, j’ai écrit que Rome est, en un certain sens, occupée par les émissaires de Carthage.[14] Carthage s’est déplacée. Elle ne siège plus sur la rive africaine : elle se trouve de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique et gouverne notre mer intérieure depuis l’extérieur. Je ne dis pas cela par haine envers quiconque. Je le dis parce qu’un peuple qui ignore qui gouverne sa mer ne peut gouverner son propre avenir.

Il reste à démontrer pourquoi l’Europe n’est pas simplement un pôle parmi d’autres — dont un monde multipolaire pourrait aisément se passer — mais un acteur indispensable. Il y a à cela quatre raisons.

La première est géographique, et les géopoliticiens de la mer l’ont compris avant tout le monde. La célèbre formule de Mackinder énonce : « Qui domine l’Europe orientale commande le Heartland ; qui contrôle le Heartland contrôle l’Île-Monde ; qui contrôle l’Île-Monde contrôle le monde. » Toute la pyramide de la puissance mondiale repose sur un socle européen. Nicholas Spykman, le stratège qui a jeté les bases intellectuelles de l’OTAN, a insisté — comme le note Douguine — sur l’importance du facteur intellectuel pour lier l’Europe occidentale à l’Amérique du Nord. [15] Ils avaient compris que l’Europe se conquiert d’abord dans les esprits avant de l’être sur le terrain ; c’est pourquoi ils ne l’ont jamais lâchée. Un monde multipolaire dans lequel l’Europe resterait captive préserverait l’ancien ordre unipolaire en son cœur même, au point de pivot entre l’Atlantique et l’Eurasie.

La seconde raison est historique. L’Europe a donné au monde la grammaire de l’ordre international moderne. Le système westphalien, né en 1648 à l’issue de la guerre de Trente Ans, ne concernait à l’origine que les puissances européennes ; les colonies, comme le souligne Douguine, étaient traitées comme de simples appendices. C’est de l’Europe qu’ont émergé l’État souverain, l’équilibre des puissances et même la prétention d’une civilisation à l’universalité. Schmitt l’a appelé le *Jus Publicum Europaeum*, ce droit public européen qui, durant trois siècles, a donné au monde entier son *Nomos*, son ordre fondamental.[16]

Ceux qui ont élaboré ce cadre peuvent le réécrire. La critique de l’universalisme occidental ne peut s’arrêter aux frontières de l’Europe, car c’est en Europe que cet universalisme est né. Si l’Europe n’est pas la première à dépasser l’idée que ses propres valeurs constituent l’étalon de toute l’humanité, cette vieille prétention survivra en son lieu d’origine, et toutes les autres civilisations devront continuer à s’en défendre. Seule une Europe ayant redécouvert sa propre pluralité peut dire au monde, avec autorité : nous avons eu tort de croire qu’il n’existait qu’une seule voie, et nous sommes les premiers à renoncer à cette erreur.

Schmitt lui-même a tiré cette conclusion et a signalé aux peuples d’Europe et d’Eurasie ce qu’il appelait l’impératif des grands espaces : le droit des peuples à organiser leurs propres grands espaces face à l’universalisme et à l’impérialisme, quelle que soit leur origine. [17] Douguine observe que l’Union européenne elle-même est, par essence, un « grand espace » dont le statut demeure incertain. L’Union est une ébauche. La question est de savoir qui tient la plume.

La troisième raison est celle par laquelle nous avons commencé : l’Europe est déjà un monde multipolaire en miniature. Durant des siècles, catholiques et orthodoxes, Latins et Slaves, peuples germaniques et méditerranéens ont appris — souvent dans la douleur — à vivre côte à côte sans se confondre les uns avec les autres. L’Europe connaît de l’intérieur le prix et les bienfaits de la coexistence avec la différence. Aucune autre civilisation n’a dû apprendre cette leçon aussi souvent, à travers tant de guerres et tant de réconciliations. C’est précisément l’expérience dont un monde multipolaire a besoin.

La quatrième raison réside dans sa position entre les pôles. L’Europe borde l’Atlantique et le cœur continental eurasien ; par la Méditerranée, elle jouxte l’Afrique et le Moyen-Orient ; et par l’Arctique — qui s’ouvre sous un ciel plus chaud — elle se reliera aux routes septentrionales vers l’Asie. Dans la vision développée par Douguine, l’Europe et la Russie-Eurasie demeurent deux pôles distincts, deux entités liées par un destin commun au sein du vaste espace continental — contiguës sur le plan géographique et culturel, mais indépendantes. Le géopolitologue autrichien Jordis von Lohausen, que Douguine a longuement étudié, allait encore plus loin : il jugeait inconcevable un avenir pour l’Europe sans la Russie, et une Russie sans l’Europe géopolitiquement incomplète.[18]

Je sais tout le poids de ces mots en ces temps de guerre et de méfiance, et je ne prétends pas que les blessures de notre continent soient anodines. Mais précisément parce que les gouvernements ont cessé de s’écouter, les peuples ne doivent pas cesser de se parler.

Rien de tout cela n’est une invention. Il s’agit de retrouver un courant de pensée que l’Europe officielle a préféré oublier.

Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, rappelle Douguine, la pensée géopolitique européenne s’est scindée en différents courants. D’un côté, l’euro-atlantisme pur, qui acceptait la primauté américaine comme l’ordre naturel des choses. De l’autre, ce qu’il appelle l’euro-continentalisme : la conviction que l’Europe doit s’affirmer par elle-même, forte de sa propre culture, de ses intérêts économiques et énergétiques, et de son propre système de sécurité. Charles de Gaulle évoquait une Europe s’étendant de l’Atlantique à l’Oural. Alain de Benoist a résumé le sentiment de toute une génération dans la formule « ni Ouest ni Est, mais l’Europe », ajoutant par la suite qu’il valait mieux s’aligner sur l’Est que sur l’Ouest[19].

On peut être d’accord ou non avec chacun de ces auteurs sur bien des points ; une tradition vivante se nourrit du débat. Pris dans leur ensemble, toutefois, ils expriment clairement une chose : l’Europe de Bruxelles et de l’OTAN n’est pas la seule Europe jamais imaginée. Il en a toujours existé une autre — une Europe continentale et souveraine, ancrée dans sa propre histoire et ouverte à ses voisins. Elle n’a jamais disparu. Elle a été réduite au silence.

La mer-cœur

Revenons à la mer qui a donné son nom à l’Europe.

Dans les documents de l’OTAN, la Méditerranée constitue le « flanc sud ». Un flanc est un élément que l’on protège — la périphérie du corps, et non son cœur. Pourtant, durant trois millénaires, la Méditerranée a été le cœur de l’Ancien Monde, l’espace où Égyptiens et Phéniciens, Grecs et Romains, Arabes, Normands, Vénitiens et Ottomans se sont rencontrés, ont commercé, se sont affrontés et se sont enrichis mutuellement.

Je l’ai qualifiée de « mer-cœur » et j’ai avancé l’idée d’une Méditerranée élargie, s’étendant de l’Europe continentale au Moyen-Orient, à l’Afrique du Nord et subsaharienne, et au-delà, vers l’Extrême-Orient. [20] Sur cette mer, je crois qu’une *Pax Mediterranea* est possible : une harmonie entre les civilisations qui ont toujours peuplé ses rivages, une paix entre l’Afrique du Nord et le Croissant du Moyen-Orient, entre l’Europe du Sud et les peuples des Balkans. Une paix ouverte sur l’océan Atlantique, mais qui ne se laisse pas régir par sa puissance.

Dans l’édition italienne de *La Théorie du monde multipolaire*, Giuseppe Marro écrit que l’Italie, en raison de sa projection naturelle en Méditerranée, fait office de pont entre l’Europe occidentale, l’Asie et l’Afrique. [21] C’est effectivement le cas. L’Italie joue — ou devrait jouer — un rôle stratégique naturel dans le bassin méditerranéen. Non pas pour dominer — une leçon que notre histoire nous a déjà enseignée — mais pour servir de médiateur. Une péninsule qui s’avance dans la mer est une main tendue en signe d’amitié.

La diplomatie des *Logoi*

Qu’est-ce que la diplomatie des peuples ? C’est ce qui se produit lorsque les peuples se rencontrent sans attendre la permission de leurs bureaucraties. Une diplomatie qui vient d’en bas, mais aussi des profondeurs : de la langue, de la mémoire, de la foi, de la manière dont un peuple conçoit la vie et la mort.

Dans la pensée de Douguine, comme l’ont souligné ses interprètes italiens, le dialogue entre les civilisations constitue le grand défi de notre époque. Pour le relever, il faut une nouvelle forme d’élite : des hommes et des femmes formés à l’anthropologie culturelle et à l’étude des sociétés archaïques et traditionnelles, capables de comprendre les codes de civilisations autres que la leur et d’évoluer au sein d’une cartographie commune des significations. Dans cette optique, la diplomatie devrait privilégier la circulation des idées bien plus que la politique ou le commerce. Marro résume cette idée par une formule juste : la diplomatie devrait devenir « une profession sacrée ».

Comme nous nous en sommes éloignés ! Aujourd’hui, la diplomatie se résume trop souvent à la gestion des sanctions, à la rédaction d’ultimatums et à l’arithmétique des armements. Pourtant, l’ambassadeur était autrefois celui qui portait la parole d’un peuple à un autre, et sa personne était inviolable parce que la parole était sacrée.

La diplomatie des peuples, telle que je la conçois, est une diplomatie des *Logoi*. Elle ne demande pas à l’autre de devenir comme nous ; elle lui demande d’être pleinement lui-même, afin qu’un dialogue authentique puisse s’instaurer. Dans *Noomachia*, Douguine décrit l’avenir qu’il envisage en des termes qui pourraient servir de programme : « de nombreuses civilisations, de nombreux pôles, de nombreux centres, de nombreux systèmes de valeurs sur une même planète et au sein d’une même humanité. De nombreux mondes. » [22]

De nombreux mondes. Non pas un monde unique régi par une capitale unique, parlant une langue autorisée unique et croyant en une vérité autorisée unique, mais de nombreux mondes — et parmi eux, un monde européen qui a retrouvé sa propre voix.

Avant de bâtir de nouvelles institutions et de conclure de nouvelles alliances, une conscience nouvelle doit voir le jour. Ce qu’un peuple ne peut imaginer, il ne peut le réaliser. La première tâche est donc d’ordre intellectuel : rendre une Europe multipolaire concevable — et donc possible.

Cette tâche comporte trois dimensions. La première consiste à penser — c’est-à-dire à élaborer une théorie européenne de la multipolarité qui puise dans toute la profondeur de la pensée géopolitique du continent, de Ratzel et l’école continentale jusqu’à la géopolitique des civilisations de Schmitt et Douguine, tout en restant critique, ouverte à toutes les traditions et consciente des limites de chaque école.

La seconde consiste à se souvenir. Nous devons retrouver les traditions que le consensus atlantique a reléguées en marge : les penseurs continentaux et méditerranéens, les philosophes ayant résisté à l’universalisme libéral, ainsi que les voix d’Europe de l’Est réduites au silence à deux reprises — d’abord par la domination soviétique, puis par l’hégémonie libérale qui lui a succédé.

La troisième consiste à se rencontrer. Il nous faut des espaces où institutions, universitaires, artistes et représentants de différentes civilisations puissent dialoguer d’égal à égal : Européens avec Russes et Chinois, avec Africains et Latino-Américains, avec les peuples du monde islamique, avec l’Inde et avec le Sud global. Non pas ce « dialogue » multiculturel de courtoisie où chacun convient par avance de ne rien dire, mais une véritable rencontre entre différents *Logoi*, dont chacun ressort transformé.

Dans cette entreprise, la Méditerranée occupe une place privilégiée. Notre mer intérieure doit à nouveau être perçue comme un carrefour de civilisations et non comme une zone de gestion extérieure ; la *Pax Mediterranea* constitue un horizon d’action concret : le laboratoire régional du monde multipolaire.

Un tel projet ne prend la forme ni d’un parti politique ni d’un groupe de pression. Il revêt la forme d’un mythe, celui d’une traversée : le voyage d’Europe à travers la mer, réitéré à notre époque, où l’Europe part à la rencontre de l’autre rive et où l’autre rive vient à sa rencontre.

C’est une tâche qui se mesure en décennies, et non en années, et qui s’accomplira pour une génération qui ne la verra pas advenir. Ce n’est pas une raison pour se décourager. Les cathédrales d’Europe ont été bâties par des hommes qui savaient qu’ils ne les verraient jamais achevées. Ils les ont construites tout de même, car ils savaient pour quoi ils bâtissaient.

Lorsque le taureau blanc l’emporta à travers la mer, Europe ne savait pas où elle allait. Elle ignorait que son nom serait un jour donné à un continent — à ses empires et à ses cathédrales, à ses crimes et à ses saints, à ses philosophes et à ses poètes.

Aujourd’hui, l’Europe se tient de nouveau au bord de l’eau. Derrière elle s’étend le vieux monde qu’elle a bâti puis perdu — celui où une civilisation unique croyait pouvoir parler au nom de l’humanité tout entière. Ce monde a vécu, et il n’y a aucune raison de le regretter. Devant elle s’ouvre une mer riche d’autres rivages, d’autres peuples, d’autres manières d’être humain.

L’Europe peut rester sur le rivage, le regard tourné vers l’Atlantique, en attendant des instructions. Ou bien elle peut entreprendre à nouveau la traversée. Non pas en conquérante cette fois, ni en missionnaire d’un modèle universel, mais telle qu’elle fut à l’origine : une voyageuse, une « hôte » — au double sens que notre langue prête à ce mot —, une civilisation née d’une rencontre.

Si elle accomplit cette traversée, le monde multipolaire trouvera le centre qui lui manque : cette civilisation qui sait mieux que toute autre ce que signifie vivre avec la différence, car elle le pratique — dans le sang comme dans le génie — depuis trois mille ans.

L’Europe n’est pas le passé du monde. Elle en est l’un des avenirs, et il appartient aux peuples de décider lequel.

Tiré de la tribune de Lorenzo Maria Pacini pour Strategic Culture

[1] Ovide, Les Métamorphoses, II, 833–875 ; voir également Moscos, Europe.
[2] F. Fukuyama, « La fin de l’histoire ? », The National Interest, 16 (1989), p. 3–18 ; puis Id., La Fin de l’histoire et le Dernier Homme, Rizzoli, Milan, 1992.
[3] La Maison-Blanche, Stratégie de sécurité nationale des États-Unis d’Amérique, Washington, D.C., décembre 2025.
[4] A. Douguine, Théorie du monde multipolaire, Evrazijskoe dviženie, Moscou, 2012 ; édition anglaise : The Theory of a Multipolar World, Arktos, Londres, 2020 ; édition italienne : Teoria del mondo multipolare, sous la direction de G. Marro, AGA, Milan, 2019. Pour les titres russes, la translittération scientifique est utilisée ; les noms des auteurs suivent la forme italienne standard.
[5] A. Douguine, Fondements de la géopolitique. L’avenir géopolitique de la Russie, Arktogeja, Moscou, 1997.
[6] Cette image revient dans les écrits réunis dans P. N. Savitski, Le Continent Eurasie, Agraf, Moscou, 1997.
[7] Ibid.
[8] C. Schmitt, Terre et mer. Une considération sur l’histoire du monde, Reclam, Leipzig, 1942 ; traduction italienne : Terra e mare, Adelphi, Milan, 2002. Pour la systématisation de Douguine : Douguine, Fondements de la géopolitique, op. cit.
[9] H. J. Mackinder, Idéaux démocratiques et réalité. Une étude sur la politique de la reconstruction, Constable, Londres, 1919.
[10] G. K. Chesterton, L’Homme éternel, Hodder & Stoughton, Londres, 1925, Partie I, chapitre VII (« La guerre des dieux et des démons ») ; traduction italienne : L’uomo eterno.
[11] Cette interprétation est citée dans Douguine, Fondements de la géopolitique, op. cit. ; le passage correspondant de Mackinder demeure inchangé.
[12] N. J. Spykman, La Géographie de la paix, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1944.
[13] Douguine, Fondements de la géopolitique, op. cit.
[14] Voir L. M. Pacini, Méditerranée multipolaire.
[15] Mackinder, Idéaux démocratiques et réalité, op. cit. Sur Spykman : N. J. Spykman, La stratégie de l’Amérique dans la politique mondiale. Les États-Unis et l’équilibre des puissances, Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1942 ; et Douguine, Fondements de la géopolitique, op. cit.
[16] C. Schmitt, Le Nomos de la Terre dans le droit international du Jus Publicum Europaeum, Greven, Cologne, 1950 ; traduction italienne : Il nomos della terra nel diritto internazionale dello « jus publicum europaeum », Adelphi, Milan, 1991.
[17] C. Schmitt, Ordre des grands espaces en droit international avec interdiction d’intervention pour les puissances étrangères à l’espace, Deutscher Rechtsverlag, Berlin, 1939. L’expression « impératif des grands espaces » ainsi que l’appel aux peuples d’Europe et d’Eurasie sont cités selon l’interprétation de Douguine.
[18] J. von Lohausen, Le courage du pouvoir. Penser en continents, Vowinckel, Berg am See, 1979.
[19] Concernant la seconde affirmation : A. de Benoist, Europe, Tiers monde, même combat, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1986. Première occurrence de la formule « ni Occident ni Orient, mais l’Europe ».
[20] Pacini, Méditerranée multipolaire, op. cit.
[21] G. Marro, dans Douguine, Théorie du monde multipolaire, édition italienne, op. cit.
[22] A. Douguine, Noomachie. Les guerres de l’esprit, Akademičeskij proekt, Moscou, 2014.

 L’Europa ha già conosciuto questa strada, nell’estate del 1914. Sarebbe imperdonabile percorrerla di nuovo, stavolta con le testate nucleari in fondo.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Tutto è pronto a esplodere

A Copenaghen, davanti ai capi di stato maggiore dei trentadue Paesi dell’Alleanza atlantica, l’ammiraglio Giuseppe Cavo Dragone ha scelto le parole con cui presentarsi all’opinione pubblica europea. Presidente del Comitato militare della NATO dal gennaio 2025, ha annunciato che l’Alleanza dispone di «4.000 pagine di piani» per il fianco orientale, che quei piani coprono ogni scenario «da una crisi minima o un intervento sul nostro territorio all’attivazione dell’articolo 5 e alle successive azioni», e che «il personale militare, i sistemi e le armi sono pronti». Poi la chiusa: in caso di attacco, i russi «hanno molto più da perdere che da guadagnare. Questo è assolutamente certo. Ed è questo che costituisce la deterrenza».

Nelle intenzioni dell’ammiraglio doveva essere un messaggio rassicurante. Letto con attenzione, è una delle dichiarazioni più imprudenti pronunciate da un vertice militare europeo dalla fine della Guerra fredda. Vale la pena smontarla pezzo per pezzo.

Le parole di Copenaghen non cadono nel vuoto. Poche ore prima il premier polacco Donald Tusk aveva previsto che Mosca potrebbe lanciare droni o missili sul territorio di un Paese NATO «nei prossimi mesi», per dimostrare che l’articolo 5 è una promessa di carta; Parigi, intanto, preparava un piano contro gli attacchi con droni. In un’atmosfera del genere, il compito di un militare di rango sarebbe raffreddare, distinguere l’ipotesi dal fatto, ricordare ai governi che la guerra tra potenze nucleari non è uno scenario da pianificare ma da impedire. L’ammiraglio ha fatto l’opposto: ha aggiunto combustibile.

E non è la prima volta. Nel dicembre 2025, in un’intervista al Financial Times, lo stesso Cavo Dragone spiegava che l’Alleanza stava valutando di diventare «più aggressiva» contro la guerra ibrida russa, che un «attacco preventivo» poteva essere considerato un’«azione difensiva» e che essere più aggressivi della controparte «potrebbe essere un’opzione». Mosca, per bocca di Marija Zacharova, parlò di un passo irresponsabile verso l’escalation, arrivato mentre si negoziava sull’Ucraina. Dieci mesi dopo il registro non è cambiato. Si è solo fatto più esplicito: prima l’ipotesi dell’attacco preventivo, ora l’inventario delle armi pronte.

La deterrenza non si fa con i proclami

L’ammiraglio chiama tutto questo «deterrenza». Ma la teoria della deterrenza, quella seria, dice altro. Thomas Schelling ha spiegato che la deterrenza è un atto di comunicazione in cui la credibilità conta quanto la forza, e che la minaccia efficace lascia sempre all’avversario una via d’uscita. Nel dilemma della sicurezza, ciò che una parte vive come difesa venga letto dall’altra come preparazione all’offesa. Quattromila pagine che arrivano fino alle «azioni successive» all’articolo 5 sono, viste da Mosca, piani di guerra contro la Russia. Nessun analista del Cremlino le leggerà in altro modo, e nessuno dovrebbe stupirsene.

C’è poi una questione di ruolo. Il presidente del Comitato militare è il principale consigliere militare del Segretario generale e del Consiglio Nord Atlantico: non decide la politica dell’Alleanza, la serve. Quando un ufficiale di questo livello usa la tribuna pubblica per lanciare avvertimenti a una potenza straniera, invade uno spazio che appartiene ai governi e ai parlamenti, cioè a chi risponde ai cittadini. In una democrazia la decisione sulla guerra non spetta alle stellette. Oppure dobbiamo intendere che è la NATO, tramite Cavo Dragone, a provocare lo scoppio di una guerra, invocandola a più non posso?

E soprattutto c’è l’arma nucleare. Dal novembre 2024 la dottrina russa considera l’aggressione di uno Stato non nucleare, condotta con la partecipazione o il sostegno di una potenza nucleare, come un attacco congiunto, e abbassa la soglia per l’impiego dell’atomica. Si può giudicare quella dottrina come si vuole. Ignorarla è impossibile. Chi parla di «azioni successive» all’articolo 5 contro un Paese che ha scritto nero su bianco queste regole sta parlando, che lo voglia o no, di guerra nucleare.

Tutta la costruzione retorica di Copenaghen poggia su una premessa mai dimostrata: che la Russia si prepari ad attaccare l’Alleanza. Gli indizi citati sono violazioni dello spazio aereo, sabotaggi, rapporti d’intelligence che parlano di un attacco «nei prossimi anni». Il Cremlino ha smentito piani del genere, e la smentita da sola non prova nulla. Ma la logica strategica sì. Mosca è impegnata in Ucraina da oltre quattro anni e mezzo; un’aggressione diretta contro un membro NATO la porterebbe contro gli arsenali di Stati Uniti, Regno Unito e Francia, senza alcun guadagno proporzionato al rischio. Che una simile scelta sia altamente improbabile lo capisce chiunque ragioni in termini di costi e benefici, a Mosca come a Bruxelles.

Perché allora insistere sull’imminenza della minaccia? Una risposta, difficile da scartare, sta nei bilanci. Al vertice dell’Aia del giugno 2025 gli alleati si sono impegnati a portare la spesa per la difesa al 5% del PIL entro il 2035. Un obiettivo del genere si giustifica davanti agli elettori solo con un nemico alle porte. La paura è diventata una voce di bilancio.

Resta l’altra metà del problema, la più grave. Se un attacco russo alla NATO è improbabile, una guerra della NATO contro la Russia è impensabile. La Federazione Russa possiede, secondo le stime della Federation of American Scientists, il più ampio arsenale nucleare del pianeta. Non esiste una vittoria militare contro una potenza di questo tipo: esiste solo la distruzione reciproca, e la sua geografia è già scritta. Si combatterebbe qui.

Ammiraglio, ci dia qualche spiegazione

Ammiraglio, adesso si calmi, si pulisca la bava che le è uscita dalla bocca, e ci spieghi esattamente cosa abbiamo noi da perdere da un confronto con la Russia. Lei ha misurato con certezza assoluta le perdite altrui. Le nostre non le ha nominate.

Proviamo a farlo noi. L’Italia ospita basi che le fonti aperte indicano da anni come depositi di armi nucleari statunitensi, ad Aviano e a Ghedi; ospita Sigonella, il comando alleato di Napoli, porti e infrastrutture che in qualunque pianificazione avversaria sono bersagli di prima fila. La Polonia, i Baltici, la Germania sono il teatro stesso delle «4.000 pagine». Gli Stati Uniti hanno un oceano di mezzo. L’Europa ha le sue città, le sue fabbriche, i suoi figli. In una guerra con la Russia l’Europa non è un attore: è il campo di battaglia.

E allora la seconda domanda, quella che nessun comunicato di Copenaghen affronta. Cosa otterremmo da un confronto nucleare combattuto sul nostro territorio, per l’esattezza? Quale obiettivo politico, quale interesse nazionale italiano, quale principio europeo varrebbe Milano, Monaco, Varsavia? La risposta onesta è una sola: niente. Una guerra che non si può vincere non è una politica. È un suicidio con un piano operativo allegato.

In 77 anni di storia, che l’ammiraglio rivendica, l’Alleanza ha prodotto piani per ogni contingenza. Mancano altre pagine, quelle che l’Europa dovrebbe pretendere dai propri governi: un’architettura di sicurezza continentale che includa anche la Russia, misure di fiducia reciproca, canali militari di comunicazione permanenti, trattati sul controllo degli armamenti da ricostruire dopo che quasi tutti sono stati lasciati decadere. Nel 1975, con l’Atto finale di Helsinki, due blocchi armati fino ai denti seppero sedersi allo stesso tavolo. Non era debolezza. Era la consapevolezza che la sopravvivenza del continente valeva più di qualunque vantaggio tattico.

Oggi quella consapevolezza sembra scomparsa proprio da chi, per mestiere, dovrebbe conoscere meglio di tutti il prezzo della guerra. Quando i generali parlano come ultimatum e i governi tacciono, il rischio non è che la guerra venga dichiarata. È che arrivi da sola, per inerzia, trascinata da parole che nessuno ha avuto il coraggio di ritirare.

L’Europa ha già conosciuto questa strada, nell’estate del 1914. Sarebbe imperdonabile percorrerla di nuovo, stavolta con le testate nucleari in fondo.

By Kit KLARENBERG

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Private messages show show Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, a top British pundit on the Salisbury poisoning incident, was a close associate of the MI6 officer who handled the Russian intelligence defector at the center of the scandal — and reaped considerable benefits from his proximity to the case.

This September, a former British Army officer named Hamish De Bretton-Gordon filed a column with the UK Telegraph complaining that “Russian bots” had “tried to make out that I’m part of a security service conspiracy.” Having shot to prominence as a media commentator on chemical and biological weapons after the alleged poisoning of turncoat Russian spy Sergei Skripal, De Bretton-Gordon dismissed accusations that he collaborated with UK intelligence as the product of the “Kremlin’s malign tactics.”

Despite his fervent denials, leaked emails reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that De Bretton-Gordon has spent years privately coordinating his public statements with senior British military and intelligence figures. The correspondences show him training operatives in Turkey and instructing Israeli military figures on Syria’s still-elusive stockpile of chemical weapons, “and a bit of Novichok,” referring to the Russian toxin supposedly used to poison Skripal.

They also suggest he stood to profit personally from exaggerating the threat posed by Russia. In the emails, De Bretton-Gordon described his day job as “flogging gas masks” to British military and law enforcement. He seemingly grew his firm’s business with outlandish warnings of imminent Novichok hand grenade attacks by Russian agents. As his prominence grew, the BBC hired De Bretton-Gordon to serve as an advisor on a drama about the Skripal poisoning.

His principal contact listed in the emails is Pablo Miller, an MI6 officer and veteran of the Royal Tank Regiment. Miller is widely believed to have recruited and handled Skripal before the Russian GRU defector was allegedly poisoned in Salisbury, England in March 2018 under questionable circumstances.

After the Salisbury incident, the British government issued a D-notice to prevent mainstream reporters from investigating Miller’s relationship with Skripal. Despite being an obvious subject of interest, Miller went completely unmentioned during the rolling coverage that dominated British media for months as a result.

The emails show Miller was nonetheless following that coverage closely. In June 2018, he wrote to De Bretton-Gordon thanking him for his “sterling media work” during what he called the “dark days of March and April.” During that period De Bretton-Gordon appeared in British newspapers and television reports on the poisoning on a near-daily basis, consistently attributing blame to the Kremlin without evidence and emphasizing the chemical weapons threat he claimed Russia posed.

The next month, De Bretton-Gordon sent his MI6 pal a lengthy Telegraph article warning of potential all-out chemical and biological wars with “rogue” states. De Bretton-Gordon’s commentary featured extensively in the piece, which framed Britain as a sitting duck in the event that Moscow were to target the country with missiles equipped with nerve agents or other toxic weapons.

When not hyping up De Bretton-Gordon’s apocalyptic warnings of potential Russian chemical weapons attacks, the article functioned as a long-form infomercial for his then-employer, Avon Protection Systems. The firm, which manufactures protective equipment for military, law enforcement and fire personnel, stood to profit handsomely from inflated perceptions of what governments call Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats. De Bretton-Gordon’s email signature at the time identified him as the company’s Managing Director for CBRN.

De Bretton-Gordon’s big break

The Telegraph noted the company’s business was “booming,” with orders “flooding in” from government clients the world over, supposedly reflecting how “a new age of poison weapons is upon us.” Later in the piece, an Avon executive boasted that the Salisbury incident and other recent alleged CBRN usage had “been good for us.” Britain’s elite SAS were among the cited customers for the “sinister looking” gas masks sold by Avon Protection Systems, which were said to be “worthy of Darth Vader.”

At no point did the Telegraph article mention De Bretton-Gordon’s employment by Avon.

But thanks to his newfound media prominence, De Bretton-Gordon wouldn’t have to stay with the company much longer. In January 2020, he emailed Pablo Miller bragging that he had “been offered a fellowship” at Cambridge University. De Bretton-Gordon wrote that he’d decided to accept the role because, in his words, “it beats flogging gas masks!”

Four months later, De Bretton-Gordon founded a dedicated personal “CBRN and bio security” consulting firm, in an apparent attempt to derive profit from his talent for stoking public fears of looming chemical and biological catastrophe.

De Bretton-Gordon helps MI6 officer avoid media scrutiny

The leaked emails show De Bretton-Gordon quickly emerged as a preferred adviser for the BBC, and repeatedly served as a go-between for Miller and the British broadcaster, whose journalists had apparently become aware that Miller was an MI6 officer.

Correspondence from November 2018 shows De Bretton-Gordon was also rewarded for his relentless media appearances with a position as a “senior CBRN mentor” in Britain’s Ministry of Defence. Though the work was unpaid, he received an MOD ID card and Ministry railcard, saving him substantial sums on train travel. De Bretton-Gordon wrote Miller to inform him of his new title, noting that he was currently advising the BBC on what he derided as “CBRN ‘pisch’” for a forthcoming “drama on Salisbury.”

“I’ve been asked by the writer if you would be interested in contributing,” he mentioned to Miller, adding that he’d told the British broadcasters that the spy was unlikely to agree. The MI6 veteran responded, “you correctly guessed my answer to the BBC question… it would not be appropriate for me to comment in public on the issue.”

Miller lamented that the British state broadcaster’s cognizance of his clandestine involvement with Skripal indicated his “true professional provenance” had “long ceased to be much of a secret.” But he wished De Bretton-Gordon good luck, telling his colleague that he was sure the drama would succeed given his “expert guidance.”

The next January, De Bretton-Gordon explicitly described Skripal as Miller’s friend when forwarding him a Forces News article on the removal of the roof of the Russian defector’s former home, excitedly informing him, “I see your mate is in the news again!”

De Bretton-Gordon was quoted liberally in the report, explaining it was necessary to remove the roof as it had allegedly accumulated “enough Novichok to kill thousands of people.” The chemical warrior claimed British authorities were now “much better prepared to deal” with future CBRN attacks in the aftermath of the incident.

Weeks later, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller to warn him Salisbury “will be awash with journos” on the March 4 anniversary of Skripal’s poisoning. In response, Miller thanked his friend for the “heads-up,” and wrote that he’d likely be leaving the country to ensure he was far away from the city while it filled up with reporters.

The correspondence also reveals how close the two men had become, and how their relationship had begun to blur into commercial territory. In October 2019, Miller asked De Bretton-Gordon to help publicize a Kickstarter for his daughter’s theatre production — a personal favor suggesting a friendship rather than a purely professional engagement. But Miller refused to let media contacts anywhere near it, explaining that following the Salisbury incident his daughters were forced to close their social media accounts after being relentlessly hounded by the press.

During the same exchange, De Bretton-Gordon reminded Miller he’d been contracted for an upcoming BBC drama on Salisbury, and once again offered him a role. Miller declined, saying he was firmly opposed to playing “any part for any BBC show. Ever.” De Bretton-Gordon defended his participation in the project by revealing that the MOD had specifically requested he “help on the Salisbury piece… to make sure the military bit looks right.”

The production in question was a three-part BBC One series that aired in 2020 called “The Salisbury Poisonings.” The project’s IMDB page lists De Bretton-Gordon as a “military advisor.”

De Bretton-Gordon wants critics “prosecuted for treason”

As The Grayzone previously revealed, De Bretton-Gordon played a deeply malign, multifaceted role throughout the Syrian dirty war. On top of endless media appearances as a bogus “expert” on CBRN matters, he was part of a covert MI6 effort to smuggle soil samples out of opposition-controlled areas in an effort to prove the Syrian government used chemical weapons. A report on this initiative in the Mirror tabloid made clear the purpose of British intelligence was prodding the US into military intervention against Assad.

It seems plausible whatever samples De Bretton-Gordon gathered in Syria were concocted, perhaps by his own hand. He provided evidence to a number of official investigations into purported chemical attacks during the conflict. In at least one instance – an OPCW/UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) probe into an alleged April 2014 toxic gas strike in Talmenes – videos submitted by an opaque NGO De Bretton-Gordon founded called CBRN Taskforce were found to show clear signs of falsification.

De Bretton-Gordon’s communications with his spy buddy contain references to him visiting Turkey, “to do a bit of training.” The country was the central hub for MI6 and CIA operations during the dirty war on Syria. It is an open question whether his training sessions covered staging chemical weapons attacks, and if other states in the region were taught in this dark art.

 

The self-styled CBRN expert also bragged about sharing his purported expertise with the Israeli military. In an email sent in December of 2018 De Bretton-Gordon boasted to Miller that he’d just returned “from Israel,” where he said he’d been “briefing the IDF (and no doubt others!) on Syrian [chemical weapons] and a bit of Novichok.”

He was clearly impressed by the Israelis, crowing, “Those boys don’t mess about!”

De Bretton-Gordon’s work overseas was apparently taking a toll on his day job, however. In an email that month to Miller, he explained how he was “always on the edge of sacking with all my ‘extra’ activities.” These machinations also put him in conflict with Peter Ford, Britain’s ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006, who’d become an outspoken critic of the dirty war against Damascus.

After De Bretton-Gordon authored an op-ed for The Telegraph in May 2019 demanding the West intervene to prevent Syrian government forces from recapturing Syria’s Idlib, Ford issued a response nailing his failure to acknowledge that the province was at the time under the control of the MI6-supported Al Qaeda affiliate, Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham.

In response, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller a note deriding Ford as a “complete See You Next Tuesday” who parroted “Assad and Putin propaganda.” He called for Ford – and the members of a now-defunct collective of antiwar academics known as the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media – to be “prosecuted for treason.” De Bretton-Gordon seemed particularly piqued that the academic collective had poked holes in the narrative he’d spun about Syrian chemical attacks.

De Bretton-Gordon cheers as his enemies “exposed”

In August that year, De Bretton-Gordon contacted Miller to celebrate The Times publishing a hit piece on David Miller, a member of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media.

“Glad to see that some of Assad’s and Putin’s ‘useful idiots’ who try and give me a hard time are being exposed,” De Bretton-Gordon cheered, before suggesting “must get more of them out in the open.”

This prompted a wider discussion about the so-called “stooges” who publicly challenged established, MI6-approved media narratives on Syria and Russia.

For his part, Pablo Miller expressed disgust over a recent “fawning evaluation” of Putin’s 20 years in power by dissident journalist Mary Dejevsky. Miller derided Dejevsky as one of many media figures who foolishly believed “Putin was the answer to Russia’s woes,” and suggested without evidence that she was likely “taking Moscow gold.” Thankfully, he added, events “Crimea, Syria, and Salisbury” had managed to “wake the twits up.”

The slanted manner in which these events were framed in the media did indeed coincide with a perceptibly negative shift in public sentiment towards Russia throughout the West, helping make a world-threatening standoff with Moscow a fait accompli. At every step, De Bretton-Gordon and other intelligence-aligned commentators acted as military and intelligence propagandists, ensuring the media and popular culture was constantly deluged with paranoia over a multi-spectrum Russian “threat.” Those who question the narrative are denigrated as “useful idiots,” and much worse.

This August 6, De Bretton-Gordon based an entire op-ed for the Telegraph on a conversation he’d recently had with an unnamed “Western intelligence officer” of his acquaintance. Could that anonymous spy have been Pablo Miller?

The self-styled chemical warfare expert was clearly not keen to discuss his relationship with the MI6 man. De Bretton-Gordon immediately hung up the phone when I reached him and identified myself as a journalist.

Original article:  thegrayzone.com

CNN’s plague scare in Russia: “damn them if they do, damn them if they don’t.”

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

We are going to talk about various aspects of the supposed ‘plague outbreak’ in Russia but there is a greater tendency at hand when we look at the media interpretation of this event be it real, fake, or an enigma of sorts. If anyone is familiar with my work they would have heard me say something to the effect of “everything you know about Russia, written in English, is a lie” and I still believe this statement. When Western politicians declare that “Russia has the economic potential of Spain” or that “Russia is Nigeria with snow” or other such statements they are not lying in a direct and conscious way.

Based on all the data and information that they have ‘over there’ about Russia’s economy this view was logically ‘true’. If you crunch the numbers based on Western data then I guess Russia is just an enigmatic economy wrapped in mystery the size of a second-tier EU nation, but obviously this is not the case in reality. Russia is horribly draconian and repressive, because it is written all over the place that this is indeed the case. The calculations that Russia would immediately fold and that the ‘Ruble would be rubble’ after the Special Military Operation began were not fake, they were just based on false data. If you look at the West’s information about Russia, it would really seem that the nation’s economy stands only on oil prices, the population is waiting for a single spark to rise up against the tyrant, and that overall, the house of cards is just waiting to be blown over. But as the war years have proven, this has not been the case, but the initial calculations were ‘correct’ based on the data put into them.

Even the famous quote by Lenin that “a lie told often enough become true” ironically may not have ever been said by him, but this pseudo statement makes Russia look bad so the West keeps saying it. In Russia, because some people have been arrested for online activities since the start of the Special Military Operation, that would include organizing terrorism, this is “bad”, but the fact that there are 70 times more people behind bars in the UK for what they have said online doesn’t count, because that is different and has never once been considered by a British journalist. Arrests for statements and actions online only applies to those who are bad as proof that they are bad.

If Russia’s army is strong this is militarism, if Russia’s army is weak this is proof of corruption and ineptitude. If there are trials for corruption this is proof of the heavy-handed Putin regime taking out its enemies, and if there were not trails for corruption then it is proof of corruption and the totalitarian control of the regime. There is no possible win state for Russia in the Western press, even during the supposed media friendly treatment of Yeltsin in the good ole days, the entire establishment was an orgy of shadenfraude at the downfall of the USSR and humiliated state of 90s Russia.

To put things in very blunt terms: if something happens or is said to have happened related to Russia:

-If the Russian media goes along with it then that is proof that Russia is bad

-If the Russian media resists that is proof of a cover up for the evil deed that proves Russia is bad

– Ultimately, any action or inaction by Russia is bad and proof of its badness.

CNN’s take on this issue is stock Russophobia

And right on cue comes CNN to prop up this plague narrative that seems to be fake at its core. But we will talk about what is actually happening with this ‘outbreak’ a bit later, but for now let’s stick to the media side of things. Even in the title of the CNN article in question “Checklists, masks and mystery: What we know about the plague scare in Russia” you can already see the spin revving up.

“Russian authorities have sought to allay global worries over the death of a young woman who worked at a Siberian anti-plague laboratory. But moves to isolate her contacts and introduce new disease-control measures at local hospitals have raised concerns among people who fear they’re not being told the full story.”

In regards to the paragraph above, as you can see, the Russian side is bad because it has a different narrative and has the audacity to share it with the world. However, if the Russian media were to have been silent on this, it would also be bad as it would be proof of guilt via inaction. The fact that the Russian authorities are doing some actions to try to stop an outbreak is bad because these measures create fear or something, but at the very least this is good enough to use for condemnation. However, if the government took extreme measures this would be ‘draconian’ and if they took no measures this would be ‘horribly irresponsible’. So taking medium level measures is ‘fear inducing’ or something and of course this is bad and absolutely unacceptable.

“Ulyana Gavryunina, a 29-year-old blogger from Angarsk, a city in the Irkutsk region, told CNN she had to change maternity hospitals at 40 weeks pregnant after newly imposed quarantine restrictions meant her husband could no longer be with her during labor.”

So because the local government has limited facilities, sadly this woman had to give birth in less than ideal conditions. This is unfortunate for her and I am sure it was quite frustrating, but again CNN says the Russian authorities taking action is bad because it affected people negatively, yet if they did nothing it would also be just as bad. If the people had not been quarantined at that facility that would be ‘dangerous and irresponsible’ or something like that.

“Russia’s health watchdog said Wednesday said there is no epidemic risk following the woman’s death, and that it was winding down response. Rospotrebnadzor said medical monitoring has been completed for “over 90%” of contacts of the deceased lab worker, and no “dangerous” pathogens have been found. But unanswered questions remain.”

The expression “but unanswered questions remain” was used here to negate the opinion of the Russian government. If this paragraph were to have ended without these words, it would make the views of local authorities seem fully legitimate. When “questions remain” it hints at a conspiracy, that the official story does not match reality. Again, no matter what the Russian authorities would have publicly stated the response would have been bad because CNN sees them as the enemy. The enemy can do no right. And Russia’s actions are the actions of an enemy and thus they are universally negative to any proper journalist.

“According to its website, the Anti-Plague Institute employs around 95 researchers and is a major public health facility responsible for monitoring and preventing outbreaks of high-risk bacterial and viral infections across Siberia and Russia’s Far East.

The institute was established in 1934 to combat plague and continues to study the disease because Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes the plague, still circulates naturally in wildlife across parts of Siberia and neighboring regions.”

Shockingly, CNN did not label the research facility where Ms. Shipilova worked as a biolab or some other nefarious term. They actually ‘took their word for it’ and just relayed information from their website. This was both true and pleasant to read.

So what actually happened?

Now let’s discuss the actual situation with a potential plague and the mysterious death of the disease researcher who was working on fighting it. There is a video from an unnamed American woman living in Irkutsk (Channel name: American in the Motherland) about the entire situation that in less than 15 minutes breaks down the whole story with sources, facts, and video directly from the region. I will share the bullet points of her presented views for brevity. As you can see, just one citizen journalist yet again crushes the mainstream media point-by-point. The image below is from the video and shows the ‘brilliance’ of the international press and their hot takes on this issue.

The videos key points were:

• There are no mass lockdowns in Irkutsk or anywhere else in Russia, the only people who are quarantined had direct contact with the woman who died (Daria Shipilova) and their number is less than 200.
• Shipilova did not work at a military biolab, but a plague\disease research institute designed to fight diseases. It’s location and work was neither secret nor military.
• Shipilova was hospitalized outside of Irkutsk because at that location they had a facility designed to handle this type of disease outbreak from the Covid era, not as part of some conspiracy.
• There is no second other death from the same cause as Ms. Shipilova’s demise.
• Daria Shipilova’s cause of death was “pneumonia of an unknown origin”
• The ‘broken test tube’ narrative is a myth as it was thought up by some Russian blogger. When working with serious diseases they don’t just walk around an office-like environment with fragile test tubes. Russia does not operate by the same methodology as the Umbrella Corporation, flailing around with fragile vials of diseases willy-nilly.
• The Russian side found no evidence of an accident at the research facility.
• The researcher did not travel to Buryatia prior to her death. Thus, she did not get the disease from local marmots or other types of rodents.
• There have been no other cases of what killed Ms. Shipilova at the moment of writing this article or the creation of the video linked above.
• The plague is treatable as it is caused by bacteria that continues to exists around the world. A handful of people in the USA and other countries still contract it every year. Antibiotics are an effective countermeasure against it, thus this does not seem like cause for international panic.

Why did the plague pass on medieval Russia?

One thing that is important about to note about this issue, is that historically, although the Bubonic Plague did kill people outside of Western Europe, it only had devastating effects within it. Russians continue to be proud to this day of having a high level of cultural hygiene that dates back to medieval times. Dark Age Russians and others outside of the West seemed to ‘put two and two together’ about the necessity for regular bathing and washing one’s hands. This hygienic culture is believed to be the reason why Russia had such a massive population in the 1800s compared to others around them. Many in Russia believe that if it weren’t for massive mistakes like WWI, The Revolution, WWII, and the 90s they would have a current population halfway closer to something like China’s or India’s.

So from a Russian cultural standpoint this very much looks like another campaign of projection; a third of England died to the plague, only a handful in Russia did. Thus, the Black Death had really no cultural impact on Russia, and judging by writings from the 1800s, tuberculosis seems to have been a much more long-term nagging problem for this society that to this day still has relevance. There are anti-tuberculosis facilities all over Russia and one cannot immigrate to the country if they have signs of it. The whole ‘living with vermin’ thing was not a fact of life for medieval or modern Russians, that honor goes to the enlightened liberal West.

The Media is the disease.

We only looked at one particular written piece on this issue, but there are plenty of insane musings from the Western press that follow the “damn the Russians if they do, damn them if they don’t” formula. Headlines like this one from the Daily Mail are the perfect example:

“Trump offers Putin lifeline as Russia scrambles to contain deadly airborne plague after lab worker’s death”.

Again, if ‘Putin’ did nothing he would be bad, but he is doing something, thus he is ‘scrambling’ in a panicked way which is also bad. Trump offering him a ‘lifeline’ means that Putin has no choice to accept this help, whatever it may be or he is bad. But guess what? If he does accept the lifeline it surely means he is weak or something which means he is bad.

When you go back and really look at the historical representation of ‘Russian realities’ in English-language media you see this hysterical Nietzschian untermensch narrative manipulation in everything. Putin has been on the brink of being ousted since 2000 and the Russian economy has been on the verge of collapse since then too. Everything written about Russia in English in the West is a lie.

A proxy war against Russia is now spiralling into an all-out confrontation.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses how the Western official news media have systematically promoted lies about the Bucha Massacre in Ukraine.

No Western official outlet has questioned the narrative purporting that Russia perpetrated a mass killing of civilians. Credible Russian information to the contrary is dismissed out of hand as Kremlin propaganda.

Ironically, it is Western media that are seen as the propagandists and the purveyors of Big Lies – if one cares to examine the record objectively.

The alleged Bucha atrocity involved the apparent execution of hundreds of civilians by Russian forces as they were withdrawing from Kiev and surrounding areas at the end of March 2022. European leaders ritualistically visit a memorial in Bucha and condemn Russian barbarity.

The political objective of those shocking Western media claims was to sabotage a potential peace deal with Moscow and to prolong the proxy war with the aim of NATO strategically defeating Russia. That culminated in nearly five years of war, millions of casualties, a failed NATO objective, and worse still, the danger of a general war in Europe going nuclear.

Ray McGovern points out that the timeline of the Bucha killings does not fit the Western media narrative. The corpses on the streets of Bucha appeared days after the Russian forces made their withdrawal to what was then the East of Ukraine.

Recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov presented new details at the United Nations that substantiate the claim that the Bucha killings were a false-flag propaganda stunt to smear Russia and to wreck any prospect of an early peace deal with Ukraine. A Russian-led investigation reveals that many of the alleged civilian victims whose names are inscribed on a memorial wall were identified as Ukrainian soldiers who had been killed in action and buried elsewhere.

The Russian report is entitled “Heirs of Goebbels: falsification of the events in Bucha and bloody staged performances of the Kiev regime.” (Western internet has suppressed links to the report, though it can be accessed from the Russian foreign ministry.)

As McGovern notes, not one major Western media outlet reported on Lavrov’s presentation at the United Nations and his delivery of the Russian investigation to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. McGovern believes the perpetrators were MI6, CIA, and the Kiev regime operatives.

This egregious example of Western media suppression of Russian information and perspective on the conflict in Ukraine is repeated over and over. Another example, as McGovern amply recounts, was the attempt by Moscow to engage the United States and European NATO partners in a security treaty in late 2021. Washington and European partners dismissed the diplomatic efforts to avert war, which then erupted on February 24, 2022, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

The Russian invasion was not unprovoked aggression, as Western media have dutifully asserted. It was a preemptive response to NATO covert aggression via the NeoNazi Kiev regime over seven years since the coup in 2014.

The Nord Stream gas pipeline sabotage is another case study of how Western media have systematically ignored the evidence implicating a NATO provocation and the background to the proxy war against Russia.

Official Western media are in the service of a political agenda and not the public interest. Their function is to prevent popular understanding of the real nature of the war in Ukraine, a proxy war against Russia that is now spiralling into an all-out confrontation.

We refer to the quote from Thomas Jefferson, the third U.S. president, who warned: “Our liberty [democracy] depends on freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

Ray McGovern laments that there has been a dreadful erosion of democracy and media independence over recent decades since the end of the Cold War and the rise of U.S. unilateralism.

However, on a positive note, he sees hopeful signs from the phenomenal growth in alternative media and independent information, generating more critical public awareness of government abuses of power. He believes that genuine democracy can survive and thrive – despite the official Western media whose power is waning as more people realize its insidious role in promoting criminal wars.

Ray McGovern worked as a CIA intelligence analyst for nearly 30 years under seven presidents, the first being John F Kennedy in 1963. On his retirement, he was awarded the Intelligence Commendation Medal. He handed back the medal in 2006 in protest over the CIA’s practice of systematic torture. He has repudiated the Agency as an enemy of democracy.

In a final note of breaking news, on November 18th this year, in his 87th year, this “proud Irish son” will be honored with the James Joyce Award conferred by University College Dublin, Ireland. The prize is bestowed by the students of UCD’s Historical and Literary Society for his independent thinking, intellectual courage, and distinguished contribution to public information and democratic society.

Stories on the color orange, the data center rush, a local hero, the AI labor takeover, and a boy dinner subreddit.

Fabio LUGANO

Segue nostro Telegram.

La chiusura dei mercati di Londra spinge 100 tonnellate di lingotti russi nei caveau di Hong Kong: Pechino accumula metallo prezioso, scarica i titoli di Stato USA e blinda lo yuan.

Un fiume di lingotti d’oro sta abbandonando le rotte tradizionali a velocità impressionante, dirigendosi verso i mercati delle materie prime orientali, come Hong Kong, invece che Londra e New York.

I numeri descrivono una vera e propria fuga strategica verso l’Asia. Solo nei primi sette mesi dell’anno in corso, la Russia ha scaricato a Hong Kong quasi 100 tonnellate di metallo giallo: un record assoluto, pari a quasi il triplo rispetto allo stesso periodo precedente.

Dal 2022 a oggi, gli operatori di Hong Kong hanno comprato oro russo per 276 miliardi di dollari locali, cioè circa 35 miliardi di dollari americani. È la prova tangibile che la guerra economica produce effetti opposti a quelli previsti nei palazzi occidentali.

Da dove arriva quest’oro e perché scappa a est

La Russia è il secondo produttore mondiale di oro dopo la Cina. Prima del conflitto in Ucraina, la quasi totalità dei suoi lingotti prendeva la strada di Londra, capitale indiscussa della custodia e della contrattazione aurea.

Con l’avvio delle ostilità nel 2022, Regno Unito e Stati Uniti hanno imposto il bando totale sui lingotti di Mosca. L’obiettivo dichiarato era soffocare le entrate del Cremlino. Il risultato pratico è stato un semplice cambio di indirizzo sulle bolle di spedizione.

Come ha fatto notare Debajit Saha, analista del London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), la reazione dei produttori russi è stata immediata. Trovando le porte sbarrate in Europa, hanno dirottato l’intera produzione verso Oriente, dove la fame di metallo fisico non è mai calata.

A facilitare questo travaso è intervenuta anche la crisi in Medio Oriente. Gli attriti logistici che hanno colpito Dubai hanno convinto i venditori a puntare dritti sull’estremo oriente cinese.

Il ruolo chiave di Hong Kong: perché proprio lì?

Ci si potrebbe chiedere per quale ragione i carichi non atterrino direttamente a Pechino o Shanghai. La risposta risiede nelle norme commerciali. La Cina continentale impone quote rigide all’ingresso di oro per controllare i movimenti valutari interni. Hong Kong, al contrario, gode di uno status di porto franco: nessuna restrizione doganale e nessun limite ai volumi. Quindi diventa una destinazione ottimale.

Inoltre, né Hong Kong né Pechino riconoscono le sanzioni decise dai paesi occidentali. La città funge quindi da perfetto filtro logistico e finanziario. Gli operatori cinesi acquistano i lingotti a Hong Kong, li stoccano nei moderni depositi locali e poi li trasferiscono con calma verso la terraferma. Vita Spivak, consulente della società britannica Gatehouse, ha riassunto il fenomeno senza mezzi termini: è il naturale accordo di convenienza tra Mosca, che offre risorse strategiche, e Pechino, che garantisce sostegno economico e liquidità.

Ecco il quadro numerico di questo passaggio storico:

Cosa cambia davvero per la Cina

A Pechino non si limitano a guardare il passaggio dei vagoni d’oro: stanno costruendo un’alternativa materiale al sistema basato sulla moneta americana. Le riserve ufficiali della Banca Popolare Cinese hanno superato le 2.360 tonnellate. IUn modo per cercare di stabilizzare il patrimonio della Banca Centrale senza dover dipendere dalle valute di altri paesi.

Questo cambio di rotta non è una coincidenza. Hippolyte Fofack, economista già ai vertici della Export-Import Bank of Africa e ricercatore alla Columbia University, ha chiarito che l’oro ha smesso di essere un mero strumento di investimento. È diventato un pilastro di sovranità monetaria.

Con un bilancio corazzato dal metallo fisico, la banca centrale cinese può sostenere accordi commerciali in yuan, lanciare obbligazioni denominate in valuta locale (i cosiddetti Panda e Dim Sum bond) e offrire un’alternativa a chi teme il blocco dei beni da parte di Washington.

Nel 2025 la Borsa dell’Oro di Shanghai ha persino inaugurato un maxi-caveau a Hong Kong. È il primo fuori dalla terraferma e serve a liquidare contratti con consegna materiale del metallo, bypassando del tutto il dollaro.

Il baricentro del mercato si sposta a Oriente

La supremazia storica dell’asse Londra-New York si sta sgretolando sotto la pressione dei fatti. L’analista Angelo Giuliano ha definito questa rete il “corridoio dell’oro” che salda i paesi emergenti e i membri dei BRICS. L’idea di fondo è semplice: nessun governo vuole più rischiare di vedere i propri averi congelati con un click oltreoceano.

Non a caso, anche banche centrali europee hanno iniziato a rimpatriare le proprie riserve custodite all’estero. In Asia, intanto, la richiesta non accenna a diminuire.

Sara Esshaimi, alla guida del team materie prime di Société Générale, ha rilevato come le autorità cinesi abbiano persino autorizzato i maggiori colossi assicurativi a investire fino all’1% dei loro patrimoni in oro fisico. Una decisione che garantisce una domanda interna solida e continua.

Come ha sintetizzato Jeremy Mark, ricercatore dell’Atlantic Council, Hong Kong sta completando la sua trasformazione in un centro finanziario “con caratteristiche cinesi”.

Chi pensava di piegare la Russia chiudendo le piazze di scambio europee ha ottenuto un risultato tragicomico: ha regalato alla Cina il monopolio del metallo prezioso più conteso al mondo, accelerando la nascita di un sistema finanziario su cui l’Occidente non ha più alcun potere di veto.

Articolo originale  scenarieconomici.it

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In the previous article, I discussed general aspects of the political testament left by the greatest science communicator of the 20th century: Carl Sagan (1934–1996). I showed that his Epicurean worldview leads him to portray life on Earth as the result of an extremely ephemeral convergence of causes, that humanity must artificially sustain to prevent our species from going extinct. This maintenance requires a global pact governed by scientists. Scientists are special beings because they are, supposedly, the only ones who strive to foresee catastrophes. Sagan artificially divides humanity into two groups: Enlightenment atheists who embrace science, and religious obscurantists who reject it. Therefore, for the species to survive, the former must prevail over the latter.

In his political testament, Billions and Billions (1997), the causes he champions are environmentalism and abortion. Today, I aim to show that these two causes are, in fact, one and the same: Neo-Malthusianism.

It is easy to prove that Carl Sagan was a Neo-Malthusian. Here is what he says in the chapter “The Persian Chessboard”: “Exponentials are also the central idea behind the world population crisis. […] As the English clergyman Thomas Malthus pointed out in 1798, a population increasing exponentially— Malthus described it as a geometrical progression— will outstrip any conceivable increase in food supply. No Green Revolution, no hydroponics, no making the deserts bloom can beat an exponential population growth. There is also no extraterrestrial solution to this problem. […] Even if it were possible to ship everybody on Earth off to planets of distant stars on ships that travel faster than light, almost nothing would be changed— all the habitable planets in the Milky Way galaxy would be full up in a millennium or so.”

There is no caveat regarding the error of Malthus’s prophecy, nor any consideration of the inhumanity of his recommendations. Malthus is portrayed as a scientific hero. And, with surprising dogmatism, Sagan dismisses—without argument—the idea that technological improvements could solve the food problem. Mind you: Sagan takes it for granted that, even on different planets, humans would continue to procreate exponentially, when fertility rates historically differ even between rural areas and the urban middle class! And a thousand years is far too short a timeframe for humanity, with all its astronomical development, to solve a problem!

Instead of openly proposing that the poor be denied charity, like old Malthus, Sagan proposes birth control and technological apartheid. Instead of helping the poor, then, we must prevent them from being born and deprive them of technology—except for birth control technology, which, it seems, is entirely immune to causing unforeseen environmental damage. Moreover, while old Malthus had England’s poor in mind, Sagan broadens his scope to include the world’s poor nations—nations that keep growing and adopting technology, something supposedly responsible for significant environmental damage.

Were he to state these things explicitly, he would clearly appear as a villain. Thus, in the same chapter, the issue of birth control is wrapped in the language of humanitarianism and feminism: “There is a well-documented worldwide correlation between poverty and high birthrates. In little countries and big countries […] in almost all these cases, exponential population growth slows down or stops when grirfcling poverty disappears. This is called the demographic transition. It is in the urgent long-term interest of the human species that every place on Earth achieves this demographic transition. […] One of the central issues in the world population crisis is poverty.”

Correlation does not imply causation, yet Sagan argues as if it did. People are not poor because they have children; rather, they have children because the cost of raising them is low and is offset by the utility of their labor: in an underdeveloped setting, all farmers need to provide their children is food—which the land itself yields—and within a few years, the child begins to assist the family with work. A sterile couple would not become wealthy simply by virtue of having no children; they would merely save on food that might well otherwise rot, while failing to multiply their workforce. If matters stood as Sagan claims, sterility would be a blessing in agrarian societies, yet reality demonstrates the opposite.

He continues: “The exceptions to the demographic transition are interesting. Some nations [which he does not name] with high per capita incomes still have high birthrates. But in them, contraceptives are sparsely available, and/or women lack any effective political power. It is not hard to understand the connection.” At no point in the book does he explain what criteria must be met to say that women possess real political power within a society. This is regrettable, given his assertion that women held such power during the Pleistocene (!!) but do not today. Thus, since Sagan cites no sources for this information, one can only conclude that he is fabricating a series of pretexts to advocate for contraception, tailored to whatever reality the reader faces: if women enjoy favorable material conditions yet continue to bear children, we cannot simply leave them be; this is framed as a symptom of a lack of political power—a power women supposedly possessed in prehistory while dancing in circles on full-moon nights under the influence of hallucinogens.

In “The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?”, after discussing the unexpected consequences of CFCs, he laments: “The inhibitions placed on the irresponsible use of technology are weak, often half-hearted, and almost always, worldwide, subordinated to short-term national or corporate interest. We are now able, intentionally or inadvertently, to alter the global environment. […] Maybe the products of science are simply too powerful, too dangerous for us. Maybe we’re not grown-up enough to be given them. Would it be wise to give a handgun as a present to an infant in the crib?” After comparing the weapon to science, he adds “one further complication: Imagine that when you pull the trigger on a handgun, it takes decades before either the victim or the assailant recognizes that someone’s been hit.”

The implication throughout is that CFC-based refrigeration, including for food, should not have been made available to the world’s population, even though it greatly improves human quality of life. It is an essentially peaceful technology. Yet, shortly thereafter, he once again advocates for birth control, as if millions of pills containing artificial hormones were, with absolute certainty,incapable of causing environmental harm in the long run. What Sagan tacitly proposes has a name: technological apartheid.

Observe how he concerns himself not only with the population growth of the Third World but also with its access to technology, in the chapter “Escape from Ambush”: “The biggest CO₂ emitter on the planet is the United States. The next biggest CO₂ emitter is Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union. The third biggest, if we combine them, is all the developing countries together. That’s a very important fact: This isn’t just a problem for the highly technological nations— through slash-and-burn agriculture, burning firewood, and so on, developing countries are also making a major contribution to global warming. And the developing countries have the world’s largest population growth rate. Even if they don’t succeed in achieving something like the standard of living of […] the West, these nations will constitute a steadily increasing part of the problem.”

The Third World is in the wrong if it doesn’t use much technology, and it is in the wrong if it grows food. A single country, the USA, leads the problem that needs to be tackled, yet it is the Third World, taken as a whole, that must be controlled through a reduction in birth rates. Why not curb consumerism in the United States instead of forcing the Chinese and Indians to have fewer children? Sagan offers no answer, nor does he ever address the issue of consumerism—a topic any serious environmentalist ought to tackle.

The path Sagan proposes to avert CO2-induced global warming is to gradually abandon fossil fuels and… live off solar panels and wind power, because Chernobyl supposedly “proved” that nuclear energy is unsafe, and because its technology could be converted for weapons production. It is as if the manufacture of solar panels caused no environmental damage, and as if those panels lasted forever without ever becoming waste. The impact of wind farms on bird populations is not considered either. It is as if the sun and wind generated energy with no environmental cost to the humans seeking to harness it. By 1996, Sagan was already an electric car enthusiast; he predicted they should be the preferred choice—not for their engine power or top speed (which he assumed were lower than those of gasoline cars), but to save the human species.

So, humanity must generate less energy and, especially in the Third World, reproduce less, magically becoming wealthier in the process; yet, it must not have access to technology—save for solar panels, windmills, and contraceptives, which supposedly cause no harm to the environment. Is it too bold to assume that the campaign to abandon reliable energy in favor of intermittent sources like solar and wind stems precisely from the fact that they are intermittent—thereby compromising access to technology and increasing mortality? All to save the human species.

This subject naturally leads to the most drastic method of birth control: abortion. In the United States, the issue has been framed since Roe v. Wade (1973) in terms of “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” with positions falling along a spectrum: the pro-choice extreme advocated for elective abortion up until the moments before birth, while the pro-life extreme advocated for the criminalization of abortion in all cases. With Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court compelled U.S. states to legalize abortion prior to “fetal viability”—that is, before the fetus is capable of surviving outside the mother’s body.

In the piece “Abortion: Is It Possible to Be Both ‘Pro-Life’ and ‘Pro-Choice’?”, first published in 1990, Sagan offered a “scientific” defense of Roe v. Wade. According to Gallup, 1996 was precisely the year when the extreme pro-choice position declined. Sagan begins his argument by stating that “a newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth.” However, throughout the text, he promotes the literal dehumanization of embryos and fetuses, as for him, what matters is whether the being differs from an irrational animal. To Sagan, the fact that lungs are ready or a heart is beating does not justify banning abortion, because we kill animals with these characteristics without it constituting murder. Thus, the point at which a baby is considered human is precisely when it acquires the specific human characteristic: thought. He believes thought likely emerges during the third trimester of pregnancy, implying that Roe v. Wade is sound.

Even so, the fact remains that, at least in practice, the ruling permitted abortion right up to the moment of birth; indeed, this remains the case in Alaska to this day, even after the ruling was overturned. Regarding this, Sagan states—without citing sources—that “as a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation).” Was this reversal of the extremist trend in the interest of the abortion-rights agenda, serving to forestall a backlash?

Yet, in the very same paragraph where he offers this reassuring statement for the average U.S. reader, he also asserts that “perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth.” Perhaps there isn’t thought in the womb — and perhaps newborn babies do not think, nor are full persons. That is essentially Peter Singer’s line of reasoning in defense of infanticide. Sagan defends the prevailing U.S. position with a very poor argument, one that leaves the door open to the institutionalization of infanticide should scientists present “proof” that babies do not think, or that they think less than an adult dog.

Let us consider the dehumanization involved. Through comic-book-style illustrations of pregnancy stages, we read that at three weeks the human embryo “looks a little like a segmented worm”; at the fifth week, “the face, seen here in profile, has a distinctly reptilian aspect”; at the seventh, “the face is mammalian but somewhat piglike”; at the eighth, “the face resembles that of a primate but is still not quite human.” Could all this really be the sincere opinion of a serious scientist?

Well, much of Sagan’s sophistry stems from confusing “human” as a noun with “human” as an adjective. Human cells are human, but they are not human individuals—human persons. HeLa cells (named for Henrietta Lacks, not Helen Lane as stated in the book) are human cells, but they are not a person. The adjective “human” applies even to feces.

The question should not be whether a human embryo is human, but whether a human embryo is a person. If an embryo is a living being, how can one deny that a person’s life begins at its formation—that is, at conception?

Sagan knew this. In his final text, written on the verge of death, he lamented not being able to “meet unconceived grandchildren.” His grandchildren would never be worms, reptiles, or piglike.

Europa teatraliza la guerra con Rusia mientras su orden liberal se derrumba: un ritual de miedo sin promesa de redención, camino a la autodestrucción.

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MSIa Informa, 29 de septiembre de 2026.-En un arrebato de simulación, durante la Cumbre Europea del Ártico, realizada en Rovaniemi, Finlandia, líderes europeos se mostraron vistiendo ropas militares para transmitir claramente el mensaje de que estarían preparados para un enfrentamiento con Rusia. Mientras tanto, la maquinaria política y mediática de las principales capitales europeas repite, casi al unísono, la alerta contra la supuesta “amenaza rusa” representada por Vladímir Putin.

La propia declaración oficial de la Cumbre de Rovaniemi, realizada los días 13 y 14 de septiembre de 2026, acordó que la seguridad es el centro de las discusiones e insistió en la necesidad de fortalecer la presencia y la capacidad europeas en el Ártico, región considerada estratégica para la seguridad de todo el continente.

Pero hay algo profundamente más inquietante en esta escenificación. Esos dirigentes se disfrazan de portavoces de sociedades movilizadas para la guerra cuando gobiernan países profundamente divididos y desafían una creciente erosión de la confianza política. La distancia entre la retórica de los líderes y la disposición real de las sociedades que pretenden representar debería, por sí sola, recomendar prudencia. En lugar de eso, asistimos a la construcción de una atmósfera psicológica de choque. Y es justamente ahí donde comienza el peligro.

El riesgo real de autodestrucción

En primer lugar, simulan poder porque Europa no dispone hoy de todas las condiciones industriales necesarias para sostener autónomamente una movilización militar prolongada en la escala sugerida por la actual retórica de rearme. El propio esfuerzo europeo por reconstruir reservas, aumentar la producción de municiones y recuperar capacidad industrial demuestra hasta qué punto esa estructura ha sido reducida en las últimas décadas. Pero la cuestión más grave no es industrial. Es estratégica.

La Federación Rusa dispone de un enorme arsenal nuclear y ha desarrollado sistemas de ataques avanzados, incluso hipersónicos. Eso no significa que Rusia posea superioridad tecnológica en todos los campos, pero sí algo mucho más importante para esta reflexión: cualquier guerra directa entre la OTAN y Rusia involucraría fuerzas capaces de provocar una destrucción de escala civilizacional. Rusia y Estados Unidos siguen concentrando la abrumadora mayoría de las ojivas nucleares existentes, al mismo tiempo que los principales Estados nucleares modernizan sus arsenales y se debilitan los mecanismos de control de armas. Por lo tanto, tratar una confrontación directa entre Rusia y la OTAN como si fuera apenas una opción más de política exterior no es una demostración de valentía. Es jugar con una posibilidad cercana de autodestrucción.

Cuando se atraviesa cierto umbral, ya no existe garantía de que los acontecimientos permanezcan bajo el control de quienes los iniciaron. Éste es el punto que parece desaparecer de la actual teatralización belicista. Y hay algo todavía más perturbador. El lenguaje de la destrucción volvió a ser pronunciado abiertamente por los propios liderazgos occidentales.

En septiembre de 2026, ante la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas, el presidente Donald Trump llegó a advertir que Estados Unidos podría “aniquilar” a Irán si no se alcanzaba un acuerdo. Si una amenaza de esa naturaleza puede ser pronunciada ante las Naciones Unidas sin provocar una ruptura política proporcional a la enormidad de lo que se está diciendo, entonces algo profundamente grave está ocurriendo con la percepción occidental de los límites de la guerra. Porque la normalización del lenguaje de aniquilación no permanece necesariamente confinada al adversario contra el cual fue originalmente dirigida.

Hoy puede ser Irán. Mañana, en una espiral de escalada que nadie consiga ya controlar, podrían ser ciudades europeas. Es en este sentido que los actuales delirios belicistas dejan de ser una escenificación política y pasan a representar un peligro concreto de autodestrucción de la propia civilización europea. Europa, que durante siglos fue uno de los centros fundamentales de la civilización occidental, atravesó dos guerras mundiales y conoció directamente lo que significa transformar rivalidades políticas en guerras de aniquilación. Justamente por eso, cabría esperar que sus liderazgos fueran los primeros en comprender que una guerra entre potencias nucleares no ofrece una segunda oportunidad para corregir errores de cálculo.

Sin embargo, vemos dirigentes jugando con símbolos militares, discursos de movilización, enemigos existenciales y horizontes de confrontación como si aún estuviéramos en el mundo anterior a Hiroshima. La ficción consiste precisamente en eso: representar la guerra como un instrumento político todavía disponible sin enfrentar el final de aquello que semejante guerra podría significar. Y si la confrontación escapa al control, no serán solo gobiernos, partidos o alianzas militares quienes pagarán el precio. Podría ser la propia civilización que esos dirigentes afirman estar defendiendo.

¿Quién necesita la amenaza?

Entonces, preguntemos: ¿quién está detrás de toda esta falsedad? ¿Quién alimenta esta representación? ¿Quién necesita esta atmósfera permanente de amenaza? ¿Y por qué un orden político resquebrajado, sin legitimidad, parece encontrar en la perspectiva de la guerra una de las últimas coartadas para justificar su perennidad? La respuesta más ingenua consistiría en explicar esa patología en la tentativa de mantener regímenes impopulares bajo una imaginaria amenaza externa, al mismo tiempo que se condenan o reprimen fuerzas políticas emergentes, acusadas de “agentes externos” o instrumentos de una potencia enemiga; en este caso, vinculadas a la “bestia” rusa.

Hay, ciertamente, algo de eso. La historia registra numerosos ejemplos de gobiernos que recurren a la amenaza externa para reajustar cohesiones internas deterioradas, desacreditar adversarios y justificar medidas que, en circunstancias normales, encontrarían mayor resistencia. Pero esa explicación es insuficiente. Cuando hablamos de crisis, no nos referimos solamente a la legitimidad de un grupo de líderes europeos. La descomposición alcanza al propio sistema que los llevó al poder. Y es precisamente ese sistema el que se derrumba.

Desmoronamiento del orden liberal-financiero

El llamado “mundo basado en reglas”, la globalización financiera, el libre comercio elevado a dogma y la paulatina sustitución de la economía productiva por la intermediación financiera confrontan hoy el retorno del Estado nacional soberano. Este resurgimiento prioriza la política industrial, la seguridad energética, las cadenas productivas estratégicas y la defensa de los intereses económicos propios. Paradójicamente, dicho centralismo estatal podría mostrar también un camino para que Occidente recupere parte de sus raíces civilizatorias – esencialmente cristianas –, en las cuales el poder político no se concebía como algo absoluto, sino sometido a un orden moral superior.

En el fondo, detrás de estas quimeras se vislumbra una grieta aún más profunda: la crisis del modelo liberal-financiero articulado en torno a bancos centrales “independientes”. Esta lógica ha consolidado la creciente autonomía del capital frente a los Estados nacionales, impulsada por una concepción económica que, durante décadas, desplazó progresivamente el eje de la riqueza desde la producción real hasta llegar a la especulación rentista.

Las raíces de este entramado se remontan a la gestación del orden comercial angloholandés de los siglos XVII y XVIII, proyectado más tarde a escala global a través de la expansión imperial y bancaria británica. Con el paso del tiempo, ese modelo adquirió nuevas formas, pero conservó una característica esencial: la capacidad del poder financiero de proyectarse como una realidad exógena a la política y de presentar sus decisiones bajo la rúbrica de técnicas, neutrales e independientes de las elecciones soberanas de la sociedad. Es justamente esa arquitectura camuflada la que hoy comienza a ser cuestionada.

Una religión secular sin promesa de redención

El cerebro oculto de las oligarquías occidentales ha perdido la capacidad de generar ideas y proyectos capaces de movilizar a las sociedades hacia un horizonte prometedor. Esta esterilidad se refleja también en la mediocridad de gran parte de los liderazgos actuales, convertidos en meros administradores de un orden involutivo antes que en creadores de una nueva realidad política. Así, la política liberal se ha transformado en una especie de religión secular sin promesa de redención, siendo esta, tal vez, una de sus características más inquietantes.

Los grandes movimientos políticos de los siglos XIX y XX, incluso cuando condujeron a sociedades enteras hacia la catástrofe, todavía prometían alguna forma de redención histórica: la sociedad sin clases, la grandeza nacional, el imperio, la revolución, el hombre nuevo o un orden futuro supuestamente definitivo. En cambio, la religión secular del orden liberal en descomposición ya ni siquiera ofrece eso. Exige sacrificios sin presentar un paraíso futuro: demanda empobrecimiento en nombre de la estabilidad, pérdida de soberanía en nombre de las reglas, desindustrialización en nombre de la eficiencia y censura en nombre de la democracia. Finalmente, admite incluso el riesgo de la guerra para preservar un orden cuya finalidad ya no es capaz de explicar.

Ya no existe una verdadera promesa de redención. Existe solo la promesa de que el sistema seguirá existiendo. “Nosotros somos el jardín del Edén; el resto es la selva”. En ese punto, la política deja de defender a la sociedad y exige de la sociedad un sacrificio ciego para ¡defender el sistema! Es precisamente ahí donde una religión secular puede volverse autodestructiva: cuando la conservación del orden existente vale más que la conservación de quienes viven esclavizados bajo ese orden.

De la minoría creadora a la minoría dominante

Tal vez éste sea uno de los signos más profundos de agotamiento civilizatorio. Una élite deja de ser creadora cuando ya no consigue imaginar un futuro distinto de la simple continuación de sí misma, el gran historiador británico Arnold Toynbee percibió con enorme profundidad este fenómeno al distinguir la minoría creadora de la minoría dominante.

Una minoría creadora ejerce liderazgo porque ofrece respuestas capaces de inspirar adhesión. Su autoridad nace de su capacidad de responder a los desafíos históricos y producir nuevas formas de organización, cultura y de sentido del ser. Cuando esa capacidad desaparece, la antigua minoría creadora puede convertirse en una minoría dominante. Ya no conduce porque inspira. Se conserva porque controla. La persuasión es progresivamente sustituida por la disciplina; la imaginación, por la administración; el proyecto, por la propaganda; y la confianza, por el miedo. Es en ese momento cuando el sistema corre el riesgo de transformar su propia crisis en justificación para seguir existiendo. Cuanto más fracasa, más exige poder. Cuanto más pierde legitimidad, más necesita enemigos. Cuanto menos consigue imaginar un futuro, más dramáticamente necesita presentar el presente como una batalla existencial.

Cuando lo temporal ocupa el lugar de lo trascendente

Aquí es donde la reflexión del filósofo y politólogo germano-estadounidense Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) sobre las religiones políticas converge con la de Toynbee acerca de la desintegración de las civilizaciones. Cuando una sociedad pierde el referente de un orden trascendente, la necesidad humana de lo absoluto no se desvanece; simplemente se transfiere. La nación, la raza, la clase, el partido, la revolución, el mercado, las “reglas” o la democracia – entendida ya no en tanto régimen político, sino como categoría moral absoluta –: cualquier realidad temporal puede ser sacralizada y elevada a un estatus que no admite cuestionamiento. En este proceso, lo mundano usurpa el lugar de lo trascendente.

Sin embargo, existe una diferencia decisiva entre los antiguos movimientos políticos y esta potencial religión secular de un orden agotado. Los primeros prometían una redención futura, mientras que esta última parece exigir el sacrificio presente con el único fin de evitar el colapso del sistema. Se trata de una religión secular desprovista de escatología: sin paraíso, sin un hombre nuevo y sin un horizonte genuinamente inédito. Su único porvenir es la prolongación indefinida del presente.

Cuando el miedo sustituye a la imaginación

Tal vez sea exactamente esa ausencia de futuro la que explique la creciente importancia del miedo: al enemigo externo, a la ruptura, a la disidencia y a la pérdida de control. El temor a que aquello presentado durante décadas como inevitable deje súbitamente de serlo. Cuando un orden ya no consigue generar esperanza, se ve obligado a infundir pavor. Y si el terror sustituye a la imaginación, el conflicto puede convertirse en una vía de legitimación.

La guerra, entonces, deja de ser solo un instrumento externo de política para transformarse en una necesidad interna del sistema. Es justamente ahí donde los delirios belicistas contemporáneos adquieren una dimensión mucho más profunda que el debate cotidiano sobre Rusia, Ucrania, la OTAN o los gastos militares; la cuestión es civilizacional. Un orden que perdió la capacidad de proyectar su propio porvenir puede comenzar a aceptar riesgos que, en condiciones normales, parecerían impensables. Puede terminar confundiendo la continuidad de sus estructuras con la de la propia civilización.

Esta confusión es, tal vez, una de las más peligrosas que una élite pueda cometer. Las instituciones, los regímenes económicos y los esquemas políticos son históricos, mientras que las civilizaciones trascienden a todos ellos. Cuando un engranaje pasa a exigir que la humanidad se arriesgue para garantizar su propia supervivencia, la relación entre medios y fines se ha invertido por completo.

Las señales de un cambio de época

Es en este punto donde resulta posible hablar, verdaderamente, de autodestrucción. Una civilización puede comenzar a destruirse no por haber dejado de creer, sino porque transformó su propio orden histórico en un objeto de fe absoluta. Cuando los dirigentes dejan de proyectar un futuro diferente al que administran; cuando la guerra sustituye a la política y el miedo reemplaza al proyecto; cuando la conservación de las instituciones es más importante que las personas para quienes fueron creadas, no estamos solo ante una crisis política o económica. Nos enfrentamos a una profunda debacle civilizatoria.

El momento en que una élite pierde la capacidad de idear, crear y persuadir suele ser la señal premonitoria de que una época termina. Sin embargo, esto no significa necesariamente que la civilización esté condenada; puede implicar exactamente lo contrario. Indica que las estructuras incapaces de responder a los desafíos del presente están abriendo espacio para otras formas de organización, nuevas ideas y la recuperación de virtudes que parecían olvidados. Al fin y al cabo, el agotamiento creativo de un orden no agota la capacidad de invención humana. Cuando quienes gobiernan ya no conciben nada más allá de su propia perpetuación, quizá sea ese, precisamente, el primer indicio de que algo nuevo – completamente nuevo – está por llegar.

Ennio Remondino

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Petrolio e sanzioni: costo Ue della guerra in Ucraina. Costo anche politico, di consensi. Il prezzo è alto e non tutti sono d’accordo a sostenerlo a quel livello. Scelta politica del vertice ‘Volonterosi-baltici’ di Bruxelles, sostenuto da una maggioranza sofferente di governi alla prese con opinioni pubbliche ed elettori. L’Ucraina fronte difensivo europeo contro le minacce russe? Troppi elettori non sembrano d’accordo.

Conti alla mano

In cinque anni e in misura diversa, i Paesi europei, hanno versato all’Ucraina oltre 200 miliardi di euro. Cifre ufficiali del Parlamento europeo aggiornate alla primavera scorsa, cui si aggiungono i 90 miliardi di prestiti su cui è stato raggiunto un accordo all’inizio dell’estate. Si tratta, solo per le voci più importanti, di 75 miliardi in aiuti militari e di oltre 43 in assistenza finanziaria. Tra i 27, Germania, Francia e Regno Unito sono stati i principali contributori e sostenitori per sforzo economico a favore di Kiev. Tre Paesi alle prese con gravi crisi politico economiche interne. L’Italia quarta in questa graduatoria, anche se cerca di non pubblicizzare molto un impegno così poco elettorale.

Cosa sembra stia accadendo adesso

«Con decisione unilaterale dell’esecutivo Ue, l’Ucraina potrà acquistare i sistemi Patriot con un altro prestito di 6 miliardi», scrive Massimo Nava sul Corriere della Sera. In tutto, conti alla mano, sono oltre 28 miliardi i contributi 2026 soltanto per la difesa, a cui aggiungere 16,7 miliardi al bilancio dello Stato a rischio crack. Questo, nonostante le notizie di scandali in serie per corruzione e mancate garanzie future. A queste cifre, andrebbero sommati i costi sociali del sostegno agli oltre quattro milioni e mezzo di cittadini ucraini fuggiti dalla guerra e attualmente ospitati in diversi Paesi europei. In testa, ancora la Germania, seguita da Polonia e Repubblica Ceca.

Tra solidarietà e scelte politiche

Opache e contraddittorie molte delle scelte politiche ed economiche su fronte Ucraina. Scelte ideologiche a danno spesso rovesciato. La serie di pacchetti di sanzioni contro la Russia che, da un lato, hanno fatto lievitare le bollette europee e rafforzato la dipendenza energetica da Stati Uniti e Paesi arabi, e dall’altro lato, vengono sistematicamente aggirate con la complicità degli Stati  che le impongono, ed incidono solo parzialmente sull’economia russa. «Il che fa temere che il conflitto possa avere ancora una lunga fase di stallo», il pessimismo di Nava. In attesa che si capisca che la pace si fa fra nemici e può essere soltanto la conseguenza di un compromesso.

Bancomat Von der Leyen

Dato di fatto, l’Europa ha sulle spalle il peso maggiore della guerra, sia per quanto riguarda gli aiuti all’Ucraina sia per le conseguenze dirette e indirette della rottura dei rapporti commerciali con la Russia. Rottura unilaterale da parte degli europei e non condivisa da molte altre potenze economiche mondiali. Nei primi nove mesi dell’anno, risulta ad esempio che la Ue ha pagato oltre sette miliardi di euro per gas naturale liquefatto russo, con un aumento del 10 per cento delle forniture rispetto allo scorso anno. Fra gennaio e settembre 2026, i porti europei hanno ricevuto 7,28 miliardi di euro di gas naturale dall’Artico russo. E mancano tre mesi alla fine dell’anno.

Ipocrisia energetica

Non solo l’Europa continua ad acquistare Gnl russo, ma il problema non si limita agli acquisti. È dall’Europa che arrivano i mezzi di trasporto che consentono al gasdotto artico russo di funzionare. «Due armatori dominano il trasporto: Seapeak, di Glasgow, e la greca Dynagas. Senza questi servizi, la catena logistica russa risulterebbe compromessa. Dunque è il denaro europeo che finanzia uno dei progetti energetici più strategici del Cremlino proprio in quella stessa regione», scrive Armèes. E il Financial Times aggiunge: «Nella prima metà del 2026 l’Europa ha importato dalla principale struttura russa di Gnl una quantità di gas mai registrata prima, assorbendo quasi tutta la produzione dell’impianto siberiano».

Allarmi e minacce sulla carta

L’Ue, come spesso avviene, lancia allarmi a parole e propositi sulla carta. Al vertice europeo sull’Artico, in Finlandia, i leader europei hanno discusso di sicurezza, geopolitica e strategia comune nel Grande Nord. È stata firmata una dichiarazione congiunta di 12 Stati dell’Unione affinché la Ue assuma un ruolo più strategico nell’Artico europeo. «Si evidenziano le ambizioni della Russia (la più grande nazione artica) di accrescere la propria influenza nell’Artico, unite alla sua ostilità verso l’Europa – compreso l’aumento delle attività ibride –, e la necessità di rafforzare la politica dell’UE per l’Artico». In gennaio, dovrebbe entrare in vigore, nel nuovo pacchetto di sanzioni, il divieto di importazione.

Castigo formale per aggirarlo

Le sanzioni sono aggirate anche dalla cosiddetta «flotta ombra», le navi cisterna che consentono alla Russia di esportare petrolio. Esiste una lista di oltre 600 imbarcazioni che non avrebbero accesso ai porti europei, ma possono accedere ad altri porti nel mondo, in particolare Cina e India, che sostengono Mosca. Anche il 21° pacchetto di sanzioni Ue, prevede deroghe a favore degli  interessi dei singoli Stati. La Grecia, ha ottenuto una deroga per i servizi di trasporto del Gnl russo per non favorire la concorrenza cinese e danneggiare più l’Europa della Russia. Francia, Italia e Grecia hanno frenato sui visti turistici. La Germania  vuole il merluzzo russo che alimentano l’industria di bastoncini surgelati.

Dai BRICS all’Occidente

Al termine del recente vertice dei Brics, il primo ministro indiano Narendra Modi: «Il numero di conflitti e tensioni nel mondo è in continuo aumento e questo ha un impatto sempre più negativo e di vasta portata sulla vita della gente comune», ha affermato Modi, affiancato dai leader del blocco, tra cui il presidente cinese Xi, il presidente russo Putin e il presidente iraniano Pezeshkian. I leader si sono opposti alle sanzioni unilaterali e alle misure economiche coercitive e hanno criticato le sanzioni non autorizzate dall’Onu. Hanno inoltre criticato l’aumento dei dazi doganali e delle barriere tariffarie che minano il commercio globale e le catene di approvvigionamento. A dire in un colpo solo di Stati Uniti ed Europa.

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Nel settantasettesimo anniversario della Repubblica Popolare, la trasformazione cinese appare inseparabile dai mutamenti dell’ordine globale. Economia, tecnologia, transizione energetica e diplomazia fanno oggi di Pechino un attore indispensabile nell’avanzata di un sistema internazionale più multipolare.

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Il 1º ottobre 1949, Mao Zedong proclamava a Pechino la nascita della Repubblica Popolare Cinese. Quella data segnò il ritorno della Cina sulla scena mondiale come soggetto sovrano, dopo un lungo periodo caratterizzato dalle aggressioni coloniali, dall’occupazione giapponese, dal dominio dei signori della guerra e dalla guerra civile.

Il nuovo Stato ereditava un Paese prevalentemente rurale, impoverito e scarsamente industrializzato, con infrastrutture limitate, bassi livelli di alfabetizzazione e un sistema sanitario incapace di raggiungere gran parte della popolazione. Il risultato politico decisivo della rivoluzione fu la ricostruzione di un potere statale in grado di difendere l’indipendenza nazionale, mobilitare risorse, pianificare lo sviluppo e impedire che il territorio cinese tornasse a essere spartito tra potenze straniere.

Il percorso successivo non fu lineare né privo di errori, traumi e pesanti costi sociali. Le diverse fasi attraversate dalla Repubblica Popolare devono essere analizzate senza rimuovere le contraddizioni prodotte dalle campagne politiche, dalle rigidità ideologiche e dalle trasformazioni economiche. Tuttavia, osservata nella sua durata storica, l’esperienza cinese rappresenta una delle più profonde trasformazioni economiche, sociali e istituzionali dell’età contemporanea.

In settantasette anni, la Cina è passata dalla condizione di Paese periferico, sottoposto alle pressioni delle potenze imperiali, a quella di principale centro manifatturiero mondiale, seconda economia del pianeta (prima a parità di potere d’acquisto) e protagonista della competizione tecnologica, energetica e diplomatica globale. Questo cambiamento non riguarda soltanto la popolazione cinese: ha modificato la distribuzione internazionale del potere e contribuito a rendere irreversibile la transizione da un ordine occidentale unipolare a una struttura mondiale più plurale.

Lo sviluppo come fondamento della sovranità

Uno dei risultati più rilevanti ottenuti dalla Repubblica Popolare riguarda la riduzione della povertà. Secondo la Banca Mondiale, negli ultimi quattro decenni quasi 800 milioni di persone sono uscite dalla povertà estrema in Cina, rappresentando oltre il 75 per cento della riduzione globale registrata nello stesso periodo. Si tratta di un risultato senza precedenti nella storia del genere umano per dimensioni, rapidità e continuità.

Questa trasformazione non può essere spiegata come il semplice prodotto dell’apertura al mercato. Come noto, le riforme avviate alla fine degli anni Settanta integrarono gradualmente meccanismi concorrenziali, investimenti stranieri e commercio internazionale all’interno di una strategia diretta dallo Stato. Tuttavia, Pechino mantenne il controllo politico della liberalizzazione, preservò un ruolo centrale per le imprese pubbliche nei settori strategici e utilizzò la pianificazione per orientare infrastrutture, credito, formazione e sviluppo industriale.

La formula cinese non corrisponde quindi né al modello sovietico classico né al laissez-faire neoliberista. In Cina, il mercato è stato impiegato come strumento dello sviluppo nazionale, senza diventare l’autorità sovrana cui subordinare l’intera società. La presenza di un apparato pubblico capace di coordinare investimenti di lungo periodo ha permesso di realizzare reti ferroviarie, porti, centrali energetiche, città industriali, università e sistemi digitali in tempi difficilmente compatibili con la frammentazione decisionale delle economie occidentali.

Nel 2025, il prodotto interno lordo cinese ha superato i 140.000 miliardi di yuan, crescendo del 5 per cento. Nel primo semestre del 2026 l’economia ha registrato un’ulteriore espansione del 4,7 per cento, mentre la manifattura avanzata, l’economia digitale e i servizi moderni hanno fornito oltre il 40 per cento della crescita.

Allo stesso tempo, la Cina continua ad affrontare problemi strutturali rilevanti. La crisi del settore immobiliare, l’indebitamento di alcune amministrazioni locali, l’invecchiamento demografico, le difficoltà occupazionali dei giovani, le disparità territoriali e l’esigenza di rafforzare i consumi interni rappresentano le principali sfide per i prossimi anni. Il XV Piano quinquennale per il periodo 2026-2030 assume perciò un’importanza particolare: la priorità non è più soltanto accrescere quantitativamente la produzione, ma migliorare la qualità dello sviluppo, la sicurezza sociale, l’autonomia tecnologica e la sostenibilità ambientale.

La capacità cinese di affrontare queste contraddizioni determinerà non soltanto il futuro del Paese, ma anche una parte considerevole degli equilibri economici mondiali.

Un’economia centrale nel sistema internazionale

La centralità internazionale della Cina deriva anzitutto dal suo peso materiale. Secondo il Fondo monetario internazionale, infatti, l’economia cinese continua a fornire circa il 30 per cento della crescita globale. I dati dell’Organizzazione mondiale del commercio indicano inoltre che la Cina rimane il maggiore esportatore mondiale di merci, con esportazioni per circa 3.580 miliardi di dollari nel 2024.

Questi numeri spiegano perché le strategie occidentali di decoupling o di riduzione selettiva dei rapporti economici con Pechino incontrino limiti evidenti. La Cina, del resto, non rappresenta più soltanto un mercato di grandi dimensioni o una piattaforma di assemblaggio a basso costo. È ormai un centro completo di produzione industriale, ricerca, logistica, finanza, consumo e innovazione.

Le imprese cinesi occupano posizioni determinanti nelle filiere delle batterie, dei pannelli fotovoltaici, delle telecomunicazioni, dei veicoli elettrici, della cantieristica navale, dei macchinari industriali e dell’elettronica. Interrompere artificialmente questi collegamenti significherebbe aumentare i costi per imprese e consumatori, rallentare la transizione energetica e frammentare ulteriormente un’economia mondiale già sottoposta alle pressioni delle guerre, delle sanzioni e del protezionismo.

La retorica occidentale sulla «sovraccapacità» cinese tende spesso a trasformare la perdita di competitività industriale degli Stati Uniti e dell’Europa in un’accusa rivolta alla capacità produttiva di Pechino. L’applicazione di dazi punitivi e restrizioni tecnologiche non corregge gli squilibri strutturali delle economie occidentali; serve soprattutto a rinviare il confronto con decenni di deindustrializzazione e finanziarizzazione.

Una potenza decisiva per la transizione energetica

La trasformazione della Cina è particolarmente evidente nel settore energetico. Alla fine del 2025, la capacità cinese installata da fonti rinnovabili aveva superato 1.800 gigawatt, rappresentando oltre il 60 per cento della capacità complessiva di generazione elettrica del Paese. Nel settembre 2026, la capacità fotovoltaica installata ha superato quella delle centrali a carbone, mentre l’industria cinese forniva oltre l’80 per cento dei moduli fotovoltaici e circa il 70 per cento delle apparecchiature eoliche prodotte nel mondo.

La Cina rimane allo stesso tempo il maggiore emettitore mondiale di anidride carbonica e continua a dipendere in misura significativa dal carbone. Tuttavia, nessuna politica climatica globale può essere credibile senza il contributo cinese. È proprio la scala produttiva raggiunta dalle imprese del Paese ad aver ridotto il costo di pannelli solari, batterie e veicoli elettrici, rendendo tali tecnologie accessibili anche alle economie che non potrebbero sostenere i prezzi imposti da una produzione limitata ai Paesi occidentali.

Per molti Stati dell’Asia, dell’Africa e dell’America Latina, la cooperazione con la Cina consente di elettrificare territori, costruire reti di trasporto e ridurre la dipendenza dai combustibili importati. Le restrizioni occidentali contro i prodotti verdi cinesi, presentate come strumenti di sicurezza economica, rischiano dunque di entrare in conflitto con gli stessi obiettivi climatici proclamati dai governi che le adottano.

Un attore protagonista nella costruzione del multipolarismo

Il peso della Cina non si misura esclusivamente attraverso il prodotto interno lordo o le esportazioni. Pechino è diventata uno dei principali centri di aggregazione del Sud globale, contribuendo allo sviluppo di organismi e piattaforme come i BRICS, l’Organizzazione per la cooperazione di Shanghai e la Nuova Via della Seta, denominata internazionalmente come Belt and Road Initiative.

Questi strumenti non costituiscono un blocco ideologico omogeneo né un’alleanza militare contrapposta all’Occidente. Esprimono piuttosto la richiesta, condivisa da numerosi Paesi, di disporre di maggiori possibilità di finanziamento, commercio e cooperazione senza essere costretti ad accettare subordinazioni politiche, programmi di austerità o allineamenti strategici automatici.

L’importanza della Cina risiede anche nella capacità di ampliare il margine di scelta dei suoi interlocutori. La disponibilità di investimenti, infrastrutture, tecnologie e mercati alternativi riduce il potere monopolistico esercitato per decenni dalle istituzioni finanziarie occidentali. Di conseguenza, la rappresentazione della cooperazione cinese come una generica «trappola del debito» non regge di fronte alla varietà delle esperienze concrete e spesso serve a difendere il predominio di creditori concorrenti.

Un sostenitore del ruolo delle Nazioni Unite e della sicurezza globale

La Repubblica Popolare è un membro permanente del Consiglio di sicurezza delle Nazioni Unite, il secondo maggiore finanziatore delle operazioni di pace e il principale fornitore di caschi blu tra i cinque membri permanenti. In oltre trent’anni ha inviato decine di migliaia di militari, poliziotti e specialisti nelle missioni delle Nazioni Unite.

Questa presenza riflette una concezione della sicurezza internazionale fondata sulla sovranità degli Stati, sulla centralità dell’ONU e sulla soluzione politica dei conflitti. L’approccio cinese non è privo di interessi nazionali, come del resto non lo è quello di nessuna grande potenza. La differenza principale rispetto agli Stati Uniti consiste nel fatto che Pechino non dispone di una rete planetaria di alleanze militari e basi paragonabile a quella costruita da Washington, né ha fatto delle operazioni di cambio di regime lo strumento ordinario della propria politica estera.

Dall’Ucraina al Medio Oriente, dalla penisola coreana alle tensioni nel Mar Cinese Meridionale, nessuna soluzione stabile può ormai essere elaborata prescindendo dalla Cina. Pechino non possiede da sola la capacità di risolvere queste crisi, ma dispone del peso diplomatico, economico e politico necessario per favorire negoziati, ridurre le escalation e contrastare il ricorso sistematico alle sanzioni unilaterali.

Anche la recente visita di Stato di Xi Jinping negli Stati Uniti ha confermato questa nuova realtà. L’impegno di Pechino e Washington a costruire una relazione di «stabilità strategica costruttiva», mantenendo il dialogo su commercio e intelligenza artificiale, non elimina la competizione tra le due potenze. Dimostra però che nemmeno gli Stati Uniti possono gestire le principali sfide mondiali senza riconoscere la Cina come interlocutore di pari rilevanza.

La questione di Taiwan rimane il punto più pericoloso del rapporto bilaterale. Per Pechino, la riunificazione nazionale e l’integrità territoriale costituiscono principi non negoziabili; per Washington, i rapporti con Taipei continuano a rappresentare uno strumento della competizione strategica. Trasformare l’isola in una leva permanente di contenimento militare significa aumentare il rischio di uno scontro dalle conseguenze globali. Per queste ragioni, la stabilità richiede prudenza, rispetto del principio di una sola Cina e rinuncia a utilizzare le aspirazioni separatiste come strumento geopolitico.

Un anniversario che riguarda il mondo

Il settantasettesimo anniversario della Repubblica Popolare Cinese non celebra un percorso concluso. La modernizzazione del Paese deve ancora misurarsi con contraddizioni economiche, sociali, ambientali e demografiche complesse. La capacità di migliorare la distribuzione della ricchezza, rafforzare i servizi pubblici, sostenere l’occupazione e rendere più equilibrato il rapporto tra sviluppo e ambiente sarà decisiva per la stabilità futura.

L’importanza globale della Cina non deriva quindi dalla pretesa di rappresentare un modello perfetto. Risiede nel fatto che l’esperienza cinese ha infranto il monopolio occidentale sulla definizione della modernità. Ha dimostrato che un Paese precedentemente colonizzato e impoverito può industrializzarsi, acquisire autonomia tecnologica e migliorare le condizioni di vita della propria popolazione senza rinunciare alla sovranità politica né adottare integralmente le prescrizioni neoliberiste.

L’esperienza della Repubblica Popolare non può essere esportata meccanicamente, perché nasce da condizioni storiche e culturali specifiche. Essa, tuttavia, offre una lezione generale: lo sviluppo non è il risultato automatico del mercato, bensì di istituzioni capaci di pianificare, investire, formare competenze e subordinare gli interessi privati agli obiettivi collettivi.

A settantasette anni dalla sua fondazione, la Cina è ormai una componente indispensabile di qualsiasi ordine internazionale realistico. La pace, la stabilità finanziaria, la transizione energetica, la regolamentazione dell’intelligenza artificiale e lo sviluppo del Sud globale dipenderanno in misura sempre crescente dalla sua partecipazione.

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History does seem to like to repeat itself, although often in a different guise. Mistakes are usually the things History uses to make these repetitions work.

Mankind is somehow incapable of stopping itself from making the same or similar mistakes over and over again. What does work in a near-fantastic manner is to give the things new names and new justifications.

One other method used is the designation of terms. Not terms as in negotiations, but in the sense of words. Take, for instance, the term “Genocide”.

Genocide has been reserved for the actions taken by the Nazis in Germany under the government of Hitler and his NSDAP party – the mass killing of minorities and opponents on an industrial scale. With a thoroughness often seen as typically German, everything was bureaucratically calculated and accounted for. The net gain generated by the killing and plundering of the victims was offset against the cost of the act of killing itself. Every part and item of that said person was monetised, and a profit was looked for. This, of course, also included the amount of labour extractable before killing and disposing of the remains.

The term “Genocide” has been dedicated to this issue. It has thus become difficult to use in other contexts. Strange, too, is the fact that only one of the groups of victims of the said genocide use it to justify their own actions today.

The next word designated is the term “defence”.

Up to the second Trump presidency, there were only Ministries of Defence. And in most countries, backward thinking no doubt, these Ministries are still so named. Not so in the modern U.S. Here the Ministry has received its rightful name: Ministry of War. Being honest at last. Calling NATO a defence organisation is something that should get the Trump honesty brush-up too. The same with the “defence industry”.

The personal use of such terms is one thing; to claim exclusivity is another.

The definition of Genocide by the United Nations, for example:

Genocide is defined by the 1948 UN Genocide Convention as certain acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group “as such,” including killing group members. It also covers acts like causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting destructive living conditions, imposing measures intended to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children.

So now everyone can reach their own conclusion on that term and its usage. Defence and War as ministry names is self-explanatory.

Repeating mistakes is another thing worth looking into a bit.

Trying to get at other people’s goods over and over again is a popular mistake made on a regular basis. Trying to set up one-sided trade agreements is one method. The EU has no good track record when it comes to things like this. Trade with African nations, for example, was carried out with such aims in mind. One anecdote springs to mind. When the EU was caught in the throes of BSE (mad cow disease), the EU wanted to import ostrich meat from South Africa. The EU wanted to dictate to the South African ostrich farmers how their meat should meet EU standards. If not met, no business possible. The ostrich farmer rightly pointed out who had a BSE problem. Did he and his ostriches, or the EU with their standards?

End of discussion.

When confronted with larger nations, able to look after themselves, other methods are needed. Back in the Middle Ages, land and resources were a point of contention, wars being fought for such reasons. In modern times, it is not necessarily land that matters, but foremost controlling other people’s resources.

The Second World War was fought for this reason. Hitler and his Nazi movement were supported, financially and morally, by some of the elites in the U.S. and Great Britain, apart from other countries in Europe. The aim of the U.S. was to have a go at the Russian Communists and take economic control over the British Empire. The second part of the plan worked: Britain lost its empire to the U.S.

The first idea, solving the Communist problem, turned out to be more difficult. They just did not stop and stand and be beaten by the German army, even with all its sophisticated weaponry. The idea the Allies had – turning the German Army into an allied one and going at the Russians – did not come to pass. This was seen by some as being a mistake at the time. The idea was not scrapped but only postponed, as can be seen today.

There we have it again: the mistake being repeated, but with a different justification. Which is where NATO comes to the front once more.

It was always an anti-Russian thing. That and controlling the European Continent. Keep America in, the Russians out, and the Germans down. Fun fact: Stalin wanted to join NATO one year before it was founded, but the NATO fathers said no thank you very much. Putin made the same suggestion to Clinton, but he said no thank you too.

Now NATO has done it again and repeated the mistake Napoleon and Hitler and the Finns made – wanting to get hold of the resources Russia calls its own, preferably by force. That saves lengthy negotiations and has always been looked upon as the quickest and easiest method. To do this, NATO came up with a brilliant plan: get Ukraine to do it.

Now let everything go regarding this conflict; enough has been said by more qualified people than me, and I cannot add anything sensible on that subject. Europe is beating the drums of war again, regardless of history or common sense. What will happen in the coming months is anybody’s guess.

One point, however, has, I feel, not been mentioned to the extent it deserves. In fact, Ukraine has been given all kinds of weapons from NATO – the same weapons NATO would have used itself had it come to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, not using a proxy.

Even the Ukrainians complained that the weapons sent were not up to scratch and outdated, as in “over the shelf time”. Now the thing is, these weapons have proven below par for all the world to see. Not only that, but this conflict has shown that NATO countries, for all their chest-thumping and war talk, cannot produce the quantity necessary to sustain any kind of prolonged military campaign. And that’s ignoring the quality altogether. The big brother in arms, the U.S., has even shown itself to be unreliable when it comes to equipping its allies. To say nothing of the miserable performance of its so-called “best weapons the world has ever seen”.

Now let us for a moment imagine: what if NATO had gone and attacked Russia directly? It would obviously have used these same said weapons and found them lacking, just like the Ukrainians did and do. NATO, meaning Europe, would have been whipped, like back in 1945. Only more thoroughly this time.

How short can memory be to start and make the same mistake again, for absolutely no reason whatsoever, just 80 years ago? Can any European politician in his or her right mind want the European countries to look like they did then, back in 1945? Destroy and lose all the things that have positively come to be since then?

Either they suffer from amnesia, or mental issues that need serious medical attention by qualified staff, or there is another reason.

If the regime in Ukraine is defending our so-called Western values while being Nazi-inclined, blatantly corrupt and definitely non-democratic, led by a cocaine-sniffing dictator, then the answer could be found in the old English saying:

“Birds of a feather flock together.” Who knows?

Zelensky et son régime à Kiev sont les « plus grands obstacles à la paix », selon son ancienne porte-parole.

Cela aurait dû faire la une des journaux la semaine dernière, mais cela n’a pas été le cas. L’ancienne porte-parole du pseudo-président de l’Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, s’est vu interdire de s’adresser au Parlement européen.

Pourquoi ? Parce qu’Iuliia Mendel devait livrer des révélations accablantes sur la corruption endémique dans le régime de Zelensky et sur la façon dont la guerre soutenue par l’OTAN dans son pays est une combine pour s’enrichir.

Quelle ironie que un tel témoignage ne soit pas autorisé dans ce qui est censé être le siège de la démocratie et des valeurs européennes. Si la liberté d’expression remet en cause le récit officiel, alors elle est interdite. Le seul récit autorisé est que l’Ukraine est un modèle de démocratie cherchant à adhérer à l’Union européenne et à l’OTAN, mais qu’elle est contrariée par « l’agression russe ». Combien fragile est cette représentation, pour que quiconque ayant un point de vue différent et des faits soit purement et simplement réduit au silence et diffamé comme propagandiste russe ?

Remarquablement, presque aucun média occidental n’a rapporté ce fiasco.

Iuliia Mendel a été conseillère personnelle de Zelensky pour les médias de 2019 à 2021, date à laquelle elle a démissionné, désillusionnée par sa corruption. Elle a observé de près les tractations, le comportement maniaque de Zelensky et de ses acolytes, et son mépris pour la démocratie. Elle décrit son témoignage comme un « devoir moral » de dire à ses concitoyens ukrainiens et au reste du monde la vraie nature de son ancien patron. Qu’il est un escroc aux tendances psychopathiques qui se moque éperdument de la vie du peuple ukrainien. Sa seule préoccupation est de rester au pouvoir le plus longtemps possible et de s’enrichir avec les milliards d’argent des contribuables occidentaux qui sont acheminés vers son régime.

Zelensky et son régime à Kiev sont les « plus grands obstacles à la paix », dit Mendel, qui a donné cette interview à Weltwoche, après avoir été empêchée d’entrer au Parlement européen. La corruption en Ukraine, dit-elle, dépend de la poursuite de la guerre, et c’est pourquoi le régime de Kiev oppose son veto à tout effort diplomatique visant à mettre fin au conflit qui dure depuis près de cinq ans. Quiconque s’oppose à la guerre et appelle à la diplomatie est sanctionné, emprisonné ou envoyé au front pour mourir. Zelensky supervise une junte militaire (que l’Occident appelle « démocratie ») dans laquelle ses sbires traquent les gens dans les rues pour la conscription. Pour échapper au hachoir à viande, ils doivent payer un pot-de-vin pouvant atteindre 20 000 dollars.

Mendel a d’abord fait sensation lorsqu’elle a été interviewée en mai de cette année par le diffuseur américain Tucker Carlson. Dans cette interview, elle a décrit Zelensky comme un dictateur toxicomane émotionnellement instable, bien que dissimulé par ses talents d’acteur d’ancien artiste de divertissement. Les partisans politiques et médiatiques occidentaux, bien sûr, jouent le jeu en fermant les yeux sur cette mascarade et le célèbrent comme un « héros churchillien de guerre ».

Tout cela est une combine méprisable jouée aux dépens des contribuables occidentaux et du peuple ukrainien qui souffre depuis longtemps.

Pour avoir révélé les secrets de son ancien patron, Mendel a été immédiatement inscrite sur la liste noire Mirotvorets, soutenue par l’État ukrainien, comme « propagandiste russe ». Mirotvorets a acquis une triste réputation de liste de morts, car plusieurs personnes qu’elle a blacklistées ont fini mortes. Elle dit qu’elle est interdite de diffusion publique vers ses concitoyens ukrainiens par des entreprises médiatiques occidentales comme Meta/Facebook.
Plus tôt cette semaine, quelques jours avant qu’elle ne s’adresse au Parlement européen, le régime de Zelensky a annoncé des sanctions contre Mendel. Elle ne peut pas accéder aux avoirs ukrainiens et ne peut pas rentrer dans le pays de peur que sa vie soit en danger. Elle craint que sa famille en Ukraine ne soit persécutée, envoyée au front en représailles pour sa prétendue « trahison ».

La décision de lui interdire de parler devant l’assemblée de Strasbourg aurait été prise par la présidente du Parlement européen, Roberta Metsola. Metsola, comme d’autres dirigeants de haut rang de l’UE, tels que la présidente de la Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, et le président du Conseil, António Costa, est une supportrice inconditionnelle de l’Ukraine, acheminant des milliards d’aide au régime.

Mendel apparaît comme une personne d’intégrité, de décence morale et de véritable indépendance. Elle rejette catégoriquement l’accusation d’être « pro-russe ». En effet, dans ses interviews avec Carlson et Weltwoche, Mendel critique vivement la Russie pour ce qu’elle appelle une invasion cruelle de son pays. Il semble parfaitement clair que sa préoccupation constante est d’empêcher la guerre de détruire sa patrie.
Cependant, la guerre ne peut pas être arrêtée parce que le régime de Zelensky et ses partisans européens de l’OTAN sont investis dans sa prolongation. La corruption du régime est mariée à l’idéologie de la russophobie qui est endémique dans l’élite européenne.
Cette perspective a été corroborée par deux autres sources impeccables cette semaine. Comme Mendel, ces deux autres figures sont également ignorées par les médias occidentaux.
Le professeur Ivan Katchanovski de l’Université d’Ottawa a été interviewé par Lena Petrova, dans laquelle il a passé en revue la corruption flagrante et la politique néonazie du régime de Kiev.
Les recherches révolutionnaires de Katchanovski ont révélé comment le massacre des snipers de Maidan, au cours duquel plus de 100 manifestants et policiers ont été tués à Kiev en février 2014, était une opération sous fausse bannière menée par des éléments néonazis et leurs sponsors de l’OTAN, qui a précipité le coup d’État. Le coup d’État a conduit à la prise de contrôle de l’État ukrainien et des forces de sécurité par des forces fascistes, ce qui a à son tour conduit à la guerre avec la Russie en 2022.

Zelensky, qui est nominalement juif, s’appuie sur les forces néonazies pour sa survie politique et la poursuite de la corruption qui sévit au sein du régime. Le professeur Katchanovski, qui est originaire d’Ukraine, souligne que de nombreux ministres, conseillers et hauts responsables judiciaires proches du cercle de Zelensky ont dû démissionner ou fuir le pays à la suite d’innombrables scandales de corruption. Il est difficile de croire que Zelensky ne soit pas lui aussi jusqu’au cou dans le racket. Corruption, guerre et néonazisme sont tous inextricablement liés en raison de l’implication de l’OTAN dans le pays depuis son indépendance en 1991 vis-à-vis de l’Union soviétique après l’effondrement de cette dernière.

Une autre vue corroborante est celle de l’éminent universitaire américain le professeur John Mearsheimer. Il a donné cette semaine un compte rendu très large d’une récente visite en Russie au cours de laquelle il a rencontré de hauts responsables gouvernementaux, des décideurs politiques et des diplomates. Mearsheimer a déclaré, peut-être à la surprise de certains, que lors de ses nombreuses conversations, il n’a décelé aucune animosité profonde envers l’Ukraine ou le peuple ukrainien parmi ses interlocuteurs russes, ni d’ailleurs parmi les Russes ordinaires. « Beaucoup de Russes que j’ai rencontrés ont de la famille en Ukraine… partagent un héritage culturel », a-t-il remarqué.

Mearsheimer attribue la disparition tragique de l’Ukraine et de ses liens historiques avec la Russie à la politique de l’OTAN visant à faire entrer le pays nouvellement indépendant dans l’alliance militaire dirigée par les États-Unis en 2008 avec la Déclaration de Bucarest. Cette politique a garanti que les deux pays seraient désormais sur une trajectoire de collision menant au conflit, qui a finalement éclaté en 2022. L’objectif occidental plus large était d’utiliser l’Ukraine comme proxy pour mener la guerre et déstabiliser la Russie. En bref, pour la « défaite stratégique de la Russie ».

En poursuivant cet objectif impérialiste, l’Ukraine a été infectée par le néonazisme, la corruption et une dictature de facto dirigée par un clown toxicomane qui réprime impitoyablement toute opposition. Des millions de personnes ont été déplacées, tuées et mutilées ; la société et l’économie sont en ruines abyssales.

Mais cette vérité ne doit pas être permise par les idéologues occidentaux et leurs médias contrôlés, qui persistent dans leurs fantasmes russophobes malgré la destruction et la souffrance déchaînées et le danger très réel d’une guerre totale explosant en Europe. Les élites occidentales se livreront à toutes sortes de maux dans leur poursuite de la tentative de vaincre la Russie. L’Ukraine a été totalement détruite par les objectifs impérialistes occidentaux. Et pourtant, la Russie est blâmée comme le méchant dans cette entreprise horrible et criminelle.

36 Jahre nach der Eingliederung der DDR in die BRD stellen sich viele Deutsche die Frage, ob es Deutschland tatsächlich gelungen ist, eine echte Einheit zu erreichen. Die jüngsten Landtagswahlen in Sachsen-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern und Berlin zeigen deutlich, dass Deutschland in politischer Hinsicht nach wie vor gespalten ist.

Aus sozialer Sicht schien die Nation einst geeinter zu sein als heute. 40% der befragten Ostdeutschen sehen heute mehr Unterschiede als Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den beiden Teilen des Landes. Vor zehn Jahren lag dieser Wert bei nur 23%, wie aus einer im vergangenen Jahr durchgeführten Langzeitstudie der Technischen Universität Dresden hervorgeht.

Was die Politik betrifft, so sind die Folgen des Wahlschocks der letzten Wochen nach wie vor spürbar. Für die Bewohner des Westens ist es schwer zu erklären, dass in den ehemaligen neuen Bundesländern die Parteien der politischen Extreme zusammen die absolute Mehrheit der Stimmen auf sich vereinen. Dort machten die Wahlergebnisse der Parteien AfD, Die Linke und BSW in letzter Zeit zusammen ein Viertel der Stimmen aus.

In der Gesellschaft entstehen Risse. Im politischen System zeichnen sich nicht nur entlang der Achse «Ost–West», sondern auch an verschiedenen anderen Stellen Bruchlinien ab. Die drohende politische Destabilisierung durch den Zerfall der bisherigen Stützen des Staates hebt die Kontraste entlang der ehemaligen Grenze noch deutlicher hervor.

Die Unterschiede zwischen Ost und West werden sich in den kommenden Jahrzehnten wahrscheinlich noch erheblich verschärfen. Der Grund dafür liegt weniger in unterschiedlichen Lebenswegen, der Überheblichkeit der «Wessis», dem «Unverständnis» der Ostdeutschen für demokratische Prinzipien oder der vielbeschworenen «Ostalgie».

Obwohl Ost- und Westdeutsche ihre Lebensbedingungen heute in vielerlei Hinsicht gleich bewerten, sind Ostdeutsche in Führungspositionen der höchsten Bundesbehörden nach wie vor unterrepräsentiert. Seit 2022 ist ihr Anteil zwar von 13,9% auf 16,3% gestiegen.

Besonders deutlich wird der Unterschied im Bereich der Erbschaft und Schenkung: Laut dem Statistischen Bundesamt entfielen im Jahr 2025 95% des Gesamtwerts der bei den Steuerbehörden gemeldeten Vermögensübertragungen auf Westdeutschland.

Einer der Gründe für die bis heute spürbaren Unterschiede sind die Folgen der wirtschaftlichen und demografischen Umbrüche nach der Wiedervereinigung. Nur 17% der ehemaligen DDR-Bürger behielten nach dem Umbruch ihren Beruf, die übrigen mussten ihre Pläne ändern.

In den 1990er Jahren verloren viele Unternehmen in der ehemaligen DDR ihre Absatzmärkte oder wurden geschlossen, während vor allem junge und gut ausgebildete Menschen in den Westen abwanderten. Infolgedessen ist in einigen Regionen bis heute ein Mangel an Einwohnern und Unternehmenszentralen zu beobachten.

Der demografische Abwärtstrend in Ostdeutschland

Ein wesentlicher Grund für die strukturelle Schwäche liegt jedoch in der Demografie. Ostdeutschland hat sich nie ganz von den Folgen des Zweiten Weltkriegs erholt. Dies war auch in der DDR spürbar. Mit der deutschen Wiedervereinigung und der Abwanderung von Millionen Ostdeutschen in den Westen auf der Suche nach Arbeit hat sich diese Situation noch weiter verschärft. So ist die Einwohnerzahl Ostdeutschlands von 1990 bis 2026 um 6 Millionen Menschen zurückgegangen.

Ballungsräume sind jedoch eine Grundvoraussetzung für wirtschaftliche Dynamik. Größe und Bevölkerungsdichte erhöhen die Attraktivität einer Region. Bei günstiger Entwicklung setzt ein sich selbst verstärkender positiver Kreislauf ein: Dort, wo viele qualifizierte Fachkräfte leben, investieren Unternehmen. Das regt den Zuzug neuer mobiler Fachkräfte an, was wiederum weitere Investitionen anzieht – und so weiter.

In Ostdeutschland werden voraussichtlich nur Berlin mit seinen Vororten sowie Leipzig und Dresden einen Bevölkerungszuwachs verzeichnen. In anderen Regionen wird die Bevölkerung weiter schrumpfen. So hat Sachsen-Anhalt beispielsweise seit 1990 bereits rund 25% seiner Bevölkerung verloren und könnte bis zur Mitte des Jahrhunderts weitere 20% einbüßen. Ein solcher Bevölkerungsrückgang zieht fast zwangsläufig einen wirtschaftlichen Niedergang nach sich.

Demografische Prognosen zufolge wird die Bevölkerung im Osten bis zum Jahr 2045 im Szenario ohne Zuwanderung um mehr als ein Fünftel schrumpfen – deutlich stärker als im Westen.

Politik ist der konzentrierte Ausdruck der Wirtschaft

Laut einer Studie des Instituts der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) erreicht die ostdeutsche Wirtschaft 36 Jahre nach der Wiedervereinigung nur etwas mehr als 79% des westdeutschen Niveaus. Bei einer Reihe von Indikatoren ist sogar ein Rückschritt zu beobachten. Die Forscher sehen das größte Risiko dabei in der demografischen Situation im Osten.

Der einheitliche IW-Index spiegelt den Prozess des Aufholens des Rückstands seit 1990 wider. Neben dem Wirtschaftsindikator pro Kopf werden die Entwicklung der Arbeitsproduktivität, der Kapitalstock in der Wirtschaft, der Anteil hochqualifizierter Fachkräfte im Bereich Forschung und Entwicklung, die Erwerbsquote sowie der Anteil der Arbeitslosen und Selbstständigen berücksichtigt.

Laut dem IW hinkt Ostdeutschland bei einer ganzen Reihe von Indikatoren hinterher oder verzeichnet keine Fortschritte. So sinkt beispielsweise die Erwerbsquote. Bezogen auf die Gesamtbevölkerung erreichte der Osten im Jahr 2010 noch knapp 89% des Westniveaus, im Jahr 2025 hingegen nur noch etwas mehr als 85%.

Auch die Investitionen sind ins Stocken geraten. Gemessen am Wert aller Maschinen, Fabriken, Straßen und Gebäude pro Kopf – also am Kapitalstock – holt der Osten seinen Rückstand seit 15 Jahren praktisch nicht mehr auf. Im Jahr 2010 lag dieser Wert bei knapp 77% des Westniveaus, im Jahr 2025 bei etwas mehr als 79%.

Was die Zahl der Beschäftigten im Bereich Forschung und Entwicklung betrifft, erreicht der Osten nur etwas mehr als 46% des Westniveaus.

Natürlich können die neuen Bundesländer auch einige bemerkenswerte Erfolge vorweisen: die Ansiedlung des Tesla-Werks in Grünheide (Brandenburg), den in Europa führenden Cluster für die Halbleiterfertigung in Dresden und den Ausbau erneuerbarer Energien.

Doch diese seltenen Ausnahmen bestätigen leider die traurige Regel: Ostdeutschland bleibt in Bezug auf seinen wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungsstand hinter dem Westen zurück. Und dieser ungünstige Trend wird offenbar noch lange anhalten.

War is highly probable, but it is not inevitable.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

We are living in an extremely dangerous moment in history. We are also living in an extremely irrational time, at least when it comes to evaluating the mentality, conduct, and words of Western politicians and media in the face of disaster.

On the one hand, Western leaders, pundits, and military commanders clamor with predictions of war with Russia as being imminent. Yet on the other hand, there is an astounding dereliction to avert it. Diplomacy and understanding are boorishly shunned. Indeed, there is an absolutely irrational choice of escalation towards war, especially among European politicians.

Underlying this, of course, is an ideological supremacist belief, a contempt for Russia and other officially designated enemies (China, Iran, and so on), whereby the Western political class sees itself as superior, not as equals. That mentality makes for war and precludes diplomatic engagement and dialogue.

In any objective reading of the situation, there is little doubt that the danger of all-out world war is upon us. Incredibly, for the third time in just over a century, the planet is facing the specter of a massive international conflict. But on this occasion, the outcome would be nuclear conflagration with the extinction of life as we know it. This repeated destruction is a damning indictment of the Western system, its capitalist and imperialist engines for violence, domination and, inevitably, conflict. Surely, such a system should be abolished.

The Doomsday Clock, overseen by the independent Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, is at its closest point to midnight in all of 80 years of existence. The clock was inaugurated following the U.S. atomic horror attacks on Japan in 1945. It was meant to serve as a warning of the increasing risk of nuclear war. It is truly a frightening spectacle that today’s danger of global disaster surpasses the many perils that were encountered during the Cold War decades. Today’s tensions surpass even those of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the United States and the Soviet Union edged towards a nuclear war.

Many Western scholars, legal experts, analysts, and seasoned diplomats have increasingly added their voices warning of the ultimate disaster. We pay respect to the sane voices of people like Alfred de Zayas, Jeffrey Sachs, Larry Johnson, and Scott Ritter, voices in the West that, unlike their political class, are passionately warning of the path to perdition the world is on and needs to urgently get off.

The warning words are flashing like a red light, yet Western leaders keep making decisions and issuing belligerent statements that are driving the world to the precipice.

This week, European politicians have again openly advocated attacking the Russian Federation by blockading Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and NATO chief Mark Rutte (former Dutch premier) have echoed calls from other European politicians to effectively attack Kaliningrad, that is, to attack the Russian Federation. Russia’s nuclear doctrine explicitly states that such an assault compels it to use nuclear weapons in response.

So, why do NATO leaders keep pushing provocation? Such moves are merely an extension of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Their war is a failure. But the Western pro-war politicians cannot admit they are wrong. They are willing to incite a wider war rather than admit defeat and face the political repercussions from their own citizens.

Russia this week issued a grave warning, saying that any attack on Kaliningrad would result in Russian retaliation with nuclear weapons.

Instead of coming to their senses and sobering up, European politicians haughtily dismiss Russia’s warnings as a “bluff” or accuse Moscow of nuclear saber-rattling.

In a plenary address to the Valdai forum in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin underlined the infernal precariousness.

“If it comes to a direct attack on the Russian Federation – in this case, Kaliningrad, although it could potentially involve other territories as well – the question of Russia using all the weapons at its disposal would inevitably and immediately arise. That is inevitable,” said Putin.

In an ominous assessment of the reckless direction, he noted:

“We must realise that the moment when nothing can be changed any longer may come very quickly and unexpectedly for everyone. The logic of escalating, increasingly harsh retaliatory measures leads to a fatal point of no return.”

The Russian leader is saying that the West’s relentless escalation in words and deeds is leading to an abyss. Incredibly, the Western politicians refuse to restrain themselves. “At the heart of this escalation lie arrogance and overconfidence… The spiral is tightening, and the devastating consequences are growing.”

This appalling dynamic is redolent of the prelude to the First and Second World Wars, when Western political establishments were insouciant about the impending doom.

But a Third World War is truly a point of no return.

“All the more so today, when the arsenals of the world’s leading powers contain weapons capable of destroying all life or, at the very least, reducing the Earth to a catastrophic state,” Putin said.

What is deplorable is the total propagandizing of public discussion in the West. Anyone who dares to speak about the objective historical causes that have given rise to the current tensions is censored or pilloried as a Russian stooge.

There are eminent voices of sanity in the West, as noted above. But they are systematically excluded from public discourse by the mainstream media and academia. The public has to rely on alternative media sources for information. That has, thankfully, energized critical views among citizens in ever greater numbers, who are questioning the whole warmongering policy of inordinate military spending and weapons for Ukraine to fight a futile war against Russia. Notably, this week German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO’s Mark Rutte were heckled and booed when they appeared in public in Muenster, Germany.

Increasing numbers of people understand that we have been pushed to an existential crisis by Western governments (regimes) who took undemocratic, secret decisions to wage war against Russia years ago.

As former British diplomat Ian Proud pointed out in an excellent podcast this week while attending the Sochi forum, the rulers in London made a conscious decision to go to war with Russia as far back as 2014, when the West sponsored the fascist coup in Kiev.

Other Western figures, like former U.S. state planner Victoria Nuland and former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg, have also admitted in their own words that NATO deliberately weaponized Ukraine after 2014 for the purpose of confronting Russia. This was before the hostilities erupted in Ukraine in February 2o22.

Thus, the world has been pushed to a nuclear “extinction event” all because of Western policy to pursue confrontation with Russia, using Ukraine as a proxy.

War is highly probable, but it is not inevitable. Western politicians and media, through their arrogance and Russophobia, are certainly doing their worst to make it inevitable. But these criminal elements may not prevail.

There are international structures and laws; there is still diplomacy, albeit abused and trashed; perhaps more importantly, there is mass public opinion against the odious warmongers; and there is a burgeoning social and political uprising against the evidently bankrupt Western political system.

The political elite in the West who are pimping for war may seem dominant, owing to apparently dominant media narratives. But their power is vastly overrated against the huge public opposition to their criminal agenda.

History may rhyme, as with lead-ups to previous infamous wars. This time, however, a crucial difference is that there may be sufficient public awareness so as not to fall for the warmonger ruse of bailing out the rotten system.

We are on the eve of destruction, but there is every sound hope that rather than war, the destruction tomorrow could be that of the Western imperialist system, thereby giving way to a truly better, more just and peaceful world.

“Who wouldn’t decide to be their most expansive and radiant self?” Ah, but would you pursue that self through a sheet of tempered glass? In this literal tour de force, Katherine Cusumano shadows wrestlers navigating the independent promoters of the Pacific Northwest, granting sensational access to the lives and ambitions behind elaborate personas you’ve never heard of and will almost certainly search YouTube for. Cusumano is note-perfect on the details, taking obvious delight in the gimmicks of each wrestler’s beloved character and relishing the complexity of the choreography, rehearsed in elaborate code. (“Clothesline, crossbody in the corner, clothesline, Superman, Superman, I’m fired up, whoop, sliced bread, Ricky catches, oh shit, real fast.”) Spectacle abounds, but Cusumano rises above it, way up on the turnbuckle, with a heartening consideration of how we understand our own stories, and what we devote to realizing them.

I found myself drawn to this world, to its freakish feats of acrobatics, to its relentless and obsessive blurring of the boundary between reality and story, and, more than anything, to the supreme, sometimes monastic devotion of its competitors. I had been trying for ages to understand competition, ambition, the scaffolding that holds up good-bad, win-lose, and wrestling confounded these binaries. I started talking to Drexl, an old-timer with one foot out the door of his career, who eventually referred me to Amira, an emerging wrestler with an already impressive résumé, and I thought that was so like wrestling, to proffer such perfect narrative symmetry. They agreed—more readily than I’d expected, given how fiercely professional wrestlers have historically protected the secrets of their work—to let me follow them around. Which is how I ended up behind the curtain.

The West is run by the dumbest leaders ever.

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It is a mark of our times that Western leaders are not only the weakest that they have ever been, but they are also the dumbest – with Donald Trump leading the pack. His latest initiative has enraged the business press, who have wheeled out all the experts to shoot it down in flames. Trump wants to limit diesel exports from the U.S., which he believes will drive down diesel pump prices in the U.S., but it is such a stupid idea that many political commentators are pointing out his own level of desperation by playing what one called “an economics game of roulette where if the ball lands on a red number we lose everything”. Experts predict that such an initiative would only reduce diesel prices by about 5 percent for American truckers, but, according to the economists at Goldman Sachs, will drive up gasoline prices at the pumps. Quite apart from the diesel ban also wrecking the global oil economy – which will have its own blowback with American consumers – Trump is showing that not only does he not have smart economists around him advising him on these late-night whims which come to him, but he himself understands practically nothing about how the U.S. economy works.

After giving the most vulgar and disgraceful speech at the UN, talking about himself like a Roman Emperor “annihilating” Iran – a civilisation which is about 4,000 years old – it is easy to see, though, how leaders like Trump exist, when there is practically no safety mechanism in place for a U.S. president to behave so appallingly and to be so reckless with the economy. Nothing from Congress, or even either the Speaker of the House or even leaders of either party, to condemn such narcissistic speeches or foolish policy decisions by a man who represents the greatest wrecking ball to Western civilisation as we know it. And even though we saw a glimmer of hope from U.S. media groups who boycotted his Oval Office sessions, few if any journalists are prepared to report on Trump accurately, preferring to give a gloss or simply bypass his buffoonery altogether. In such an environment where the press gives you a free card, is it any wonder that Trump in his second term in office is basically a New Jersey mobster who has lost his mind entirely – drunk on power and corrupted by it, like Rome’s last emperor who was looking for his chicken while the entire empire was collapsing around him?

The sad thing, though, is that he is not alone.

In the EU, we’ve never had such unremarkable, dithering, under-performing, corrupt political wasters as the current coterie of losers running the UK, France and Germany. The UK is particularly bad, as Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband capture the internet’s imagination for a few brief moments as they enter the UN auditorium – and the main takeaway from their perplexed expressions as they look into someone’s camera is that they appear to be both lost and out of their depths, like children on their first day at the big school. While all three throw all their weight behind war talk about the Russians coming – a scam designed to distract people’s attention away from failed public sectors, immigration and economies in tailspins – Burnham stood out this week, though, for a new policy initiative. He’s going to create an Orwellian new police department to control content on the internet, perhaps inspired by the EU’s own German fascist leader – er, European Commission president, I mean – Ursula von der Leyen, who hates free speech so much that she wants it outlawed altogether.

Trump may well end up looking smarter than the leaders of the UK, France and Germany, as these three bankrupt economies now have only one modus operandi, which is to create a phoney war with Russia – which they believe will deflect any blame aimed at them for when these economies hit rock bottom and all these clowns can offer is to turn to international banks and borrow even more. They know their time in office is limited, and so a war is the perfect solution – not only to divert attention away from their own failure but to also give a massive boost to their friends in the industrial military complex, who will be very grateful for the huge new contracts given to them. We should not be surprised that both the children of Trump and even Tony Blair have huge stakes in weapons companies and could really do with a war which shovels billions their way. Yet the diesel initiative from Trump could actually be the last nail in his coffin, as if he goes ahead with it and it proves to actually jack up gasoline prices, he is likely to lose both houses. Already droves of Republican senators and representatives are distancing themselves from Trump’s Iran war and higher pump prices; it’s hard to imagine how many more stupid lies Trump can tell, blaming others for his own self-made calamities.

Foi a análise equivocada do Ocidente que o prendeu em uma espiral de ações que correm o risco de levar a Europa a uma guerra com a Rússia.

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Nos últimos dias, a classe política europeia elevou ao máximo o tom de discursos claramente coordenados – e compartilhados: “A guerra com a Rússia está chegando; a Rússia pretende atacar a OTAN; precisamos nos preparar; estocar água engarrafada, comida enlatada e estar prontos para enviar seus filhos para o serviço militar obrigatório” – “Muitos morrerão; mas é seu dever defender o país”.

Que absurdo! Para reforçar o argumento, líderes europeus, incluindo o Alto Representante da UE, Kallas, e o chanceler alemão, Merz, vestiram-se recentemente de camuflagem de campo para sinalizar “prontidão de defesa” durante a Cúpula Europeia do Ártico, em 14 de setembro. (Esses políticos europeus podem ser vistos em uniformes militares aqui).

Eles parecem absurdos. No entanto, isso não pode desviar a atenção da pergunta: o que exatamente é essa histeria que toma conta dos tecnocratas europeus?

À primeira vista, a mensagem unânime de que a Rússia está prestes a atacar a Europa e que a guerra está chegando não faz sentido algum. A Europa não tem nem os homens, nem as munições, nem os recursos financeiros, nem a capacidade industrial para travar uma guerra contra o que hoje pode ser considerado uma das principais “grandes potências” militares, bem como o Estado que possui o maior arsenal de armas nucleares.

O ZeroHedge observa que,

“Entre os principais divulgadores dessa narrativa infundada [de um suposto ataque russo] estão os líderes dos países bálticos. Por exemplo, nesta semana, o presidente da Letônia, Edgars Rinkevics, chegou a afirmar que os ‘ataques’ russos à UE e à OTAN já começaram. Os países bálticos estão até mesmo divulgando planos de preparação para emergências para suas populações, alegando um cenário no estilo de ‘Red Dawn’”[/Amanhecer violento (1984), película dirigida por John Milius, cujo roteiro aborda a história de um grupo de estudantes estadunidenses que luta contra a invasão do exército soviético em solo americano. – nota da tradutora]

“Não estamos falando de uma guerra convencional. Estamos falando de todos os tipos de provocações, todos os tipos de atos de sabotagem, todos os tipos de testes, e definitivamente isso é algo que já está acontecendo neste exato momento”, afirma o líder letão.

“O primeiro-ministro polonês, Donald Tusk, declarou esta semana que a Rússia poderia lançar ataques esporádicos, fingindo que são ‘acidentais’, a fim de ‘paralisar ou, pelo menos, enfraquecer a motivação dos países da OTAN’, conforme citado pela Associated Press. “Existe um risco real de que drones ou outros tipos de projéteis entrem no território de um ou vários países do flanco oriental e cheguem até a causar destruição”, acrescentou Tusk, alertando: “Moscou pode chegar ao ponto de lançar algum tipo de ataque aéreo no território da OTAN nos próximos meses para mostrar que o compromisso de defesa comum do Artigo 5º da aliança militar não passa de algumas palavras em um pedaço de papel.”

No entanto, apesar de todas as evidências acumuladas, os líderes europeus continuam se animando para estarem psicologicamente preparados para acionar o Artigo 5º contra uma grande potência nuclear.

Na esteira desse alarde, o ministro das Relações Exteriores, Sergey Lavrov, advertiu explicitamente:

“Gostaria de enfatizar que não temos interesse em nos envolver nisso [atacar a Europa], mas se a Europa, que fala diariamente em se preparar para a guerra contra a Rússia, atacar a Rússia, será uma guerra completamente diferente – e será muito curta”.

O que se esconde por trás desse aparente absurdo? Por um lado, fica claro que a elite governante de Bruxelas vê seus erros estratégicos (apoio irrestrito à Ucrânia, o sacrifício do modelo econômico europeu em nome da pressão sobre a Rússia, seu apoio à guerra contra o Irã e sua indiferença ao sofrimento no Oriente Médio) voltando como bumerangue.

Seu alarmismo em relação à Rússia cheira a desespero, em vez de reflexão cuidadosa e diligência quanto aos riscos muito reais de incitar a guerra dessa maneira. O Establishment, sem dúvida, percebe que a crise energética decorrente da guerra dos EUA e de Israel contra o Irã não está mais “por vir”, mas já chegou.

Eles podem ver o custo de vida disparando, os empregos desaparecendo e o colapso iminente dos mercados – principalmente no mercado de títulos (cujo nível de juros define o valor de todos os outros ativos de risco). Percebendo isso, esses políticos em perigo podem ter concluído que incitar o medo é a única maneira de desviar a atenção de seus próprios fracassos e, talvez, lhes permitir a esperança de que possam sobreviver ao ciclo eleitoral.

A sobrevivência é uma motivação fundamental, mas é provável também que a psiquê das elites seja sustentada por duas proposições que são falsas, embora pareçam plausíveis para a classe política.

A primeira falácia é que a Rússia lançou uma guerra preventiva em fevereiro de 2022 para tomar Kiev e cerca de 60% da Ucrânia.

Eventos anteriores na Síria explicam a realidade: a Rússia entrou oficialmente no conflito civil sírio em setembro de 2015, atendendo a um pedido do presidente Assad. A intervenção russa revelou-se de alcance limitado – um destacamento aéreo muito restrito (28 a 34 aeronaves) e o mínimo de forças especiais de combate (a contribuição da Rússia consistiu principalmente em conselheiros militares, controladores aéreos avançados e polícia militar).

A presença da Rússia na Síria foi intencionalmente simbólica – uma demonstração de intenção séria, em vez de um desejo de se envolver em uma guerra terrestre. Na verdade, o objetivo de Moscou era evitar o combate terrestre direto. No entanto, os ataques aéreos russos – com o apoio das tropas terrestres iranianas – ajudaram o Exército sírio a expulsar as forças jihadistas de Aleppo. Isso levou a uma trégua mediada pela Rússia e pela Turquia no final de 2016 e ao processo de paz de Astana, iniciado logo em seguida.

A abordagem de Putin em relação a Aleppo definiu claramente o modelo para suas táticas iniciais no que diz respeito à Ucrânia. A Rússia mobilizou cerca de 15.000 a 30.000 homens nos arredores de Kiev, durante o ataque inicial no início de 2022. A narrativa europeia de que essa força tinha como objetivo tomar Kiev no início de 2022 é risível – 40.000 soldados talvez consigam lotar uma praça da cidade, mas será que conseguem tomar uma cidade com mais de três milhões de habitantes? Ridículo.

No entanto, comentaristas europeus e americanos – incluindo o comentarista norte-americano Robert Pape – afirmam que, como a tentativa de tomar Kiev fracassou, somada à conclusão implícita de que Putin esperava que sua demonstração simbólica de “intenção séria” fizesse a OTAN recuar, isso sugere – segundo Pape – que Putin está preso em uma armadilha de escalada. Pape argumenta que Putin buscava uma vitória rápida em 2022, mas, tendo fracassado, está “preso” por agora ter que subir uma escada de escalada com perspectivas de sucesso cada vez piores – por isso, Putin fracassa. “É apenas uma questão de tempo”.

Longe de ser um fracasso, a demonstração de força de Moscou na Síria, por menor que tenha sido, funcionou – Astana foi o modelo inspirado na Síria. No final de março de 2022, o Processo de Istambul havia produzido o Comunicado de Istambul, um marco para um acordo com a Ucrânia. Essa última iniciativa fracassou por um único motivo – Boris Johnson a sabotou – e a Rússia foi forçada a se reorganizar, o que fez com sucesso, embora ao preço de uma longa guerra de desgaste e da perda desnecessária de centenas de milhares de vidas ucranianas.

Não, foi Boris Johnson quem levou a Europa a uma armadilha de escalada.

Os europeus, ao que parece, basearam sua “história de sucesso” na guerra contra a Rússia, em primeiro lugar, na noção do suposto fracasso de Kiev e, em segundo lugar, na confiança exagerada nas sanções financeiras. O ex-ministro das Finanças francês, Le Maire, em um momento de euforia, declarou “guerra econômica e financeira total contra a Rússia”. Ele insistiu que as sanções sufocariam e levariam ao colapso a economia russa – na prática, a Rússia, após 2007, mudou para um modelo econômico nacional (autossuficiente) e continua prosperando.

Então, quem armadilhou quem? A premissa central imaginária do Ocidente de que a Rússia foi empurrada para a escalada a partir do momento em que o plano inexistente de tomar Kiev fracassou virou a situação de cabeça para baixo.

Foi a análise equivocada do Ocidente que o prendeu em uma espiral de ações que correm o risco de, inadvertidamente, levar a Europa a uma guerra com a Rússia – uma guerra que nenhum europeu deseja.

Tradução:  ComunidadSaker Latinoamericana