60,000 security personnel were deployed across India’s national capital on October 10. This included the police of Delhi and neighboring states, as well as paramilitary forces pulled from regions of India affected by armed insurgencies.
They sealed off central Delhi to stop protesters opposing the mass disenfranchisement of 130 million voters from reaching Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site on Parliament Street.
The railways cancelled over 250 trains to Delhi. “So far as I remember, it has never happened in the history of Indian Railways that so many trains were cancelled just because of a protest or agitation,” said Shiv Gopal Mishra, general secretary of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation (AIRF).
Scores of activists already travelling to the national capital from other states of India were detained on moving trains and forced to alight at numerous railway stations in multiple states. Many grassroots activists in several other states were placed under preventive detention in their homes ahead of the protest. Paramilitary forces were deployed at checkpoints on Delhi’s borders, where vehicles were searched for any signs of protesters, placards, etc.
Within the national capital, 45 metro train stations were closed. Internet and telecommunications were down in the four-kilometer radius of Jantar Mantar. Around Parliament Street alone, where Jantar Mantar is located, over 3,000 security personnel were deployed, with multi-layer barricades, each manned by about a hundred.
Even outside this garrisoned zone, police held up commuters entering central Delhi at numerous checkpoints, causing traffic jams while enquiring about their purpose of travel before letting them through, to ensure they were headed to work, not to protest.
Evading this anticipated hurdle, hundreds of activists from the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) had already positioned themselves the previous night just over three kilometers northeast of Jantar Mantar at HKS Surjeet Bhavan.
A memorial to the freedom fighter and veteran communist leader, HKS Surjeet, it serves as an education center of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPIM] and also hosts SFI’s Central Committee office.
The Delhi Police's midnight attempt to intimidate students at the SFI Central Committee office in HKS Surjeet Bhawan was promptly rebuffed by the CPI(M) party leaders there. pic.twitter.com/x45gOglsCk
— CPI (M) (@cpimspeak) October 10, 2026
“But the police knew we were there,” recalled SFI activist Asikul. The police had tried over the last two nights to enter the premises to take stock of the preparations, but were stopped. Activists worried the police could barricade the gates and stop this mobilization of hundreds from stepping out to protest the following morning.
Quietly, after midnight, student activists slipped out of HKS Surjeet Bhavan in groups of five, one after another, with cover stories for travel reasons if intercepted on the way. By six in the morning, about 250 of them had relocated to the CPIM’s national headquarters, AKG Bhavan, to the west of Jantar Mantar.
Back at HKS Surjeet Bhavan, where hundreds more stayed behind, barricading began between 10 and 10:30 am, just 100 meters from its gate, recalled Aman Saini, the Delhi State Secretary of the DYFI.
About 300-350 activists stormed out of the gates and made it through before the barricades could cut them off. Waving red flags and holding placards calling for the dismissal and arrest of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, they marched barely a kilometer before facing a police cordon. The police lined up shoulder to shoulder, batons held horizontal to block the protesters’ way forward.
Continuing to march, the protesters headed straight into the cordon. A tussle ensued amid chorus chants of ‘vote chor, gaddi chhod’, demanding the “vote thief” CEC’s resignation. As the protesters in the front line grappled with the police – each engaging multiple officers by dropping to the ground and resisting detention – others broke through the cordon and sprinted ahead.
Barely 300 meters ahead, a line of barricades blocked the road. Protesters stormed ahead and engaged the police. Slipping through the tussle, “I pulled the barricade from below and shoved its top. Thaad! – it fell over,” explained Aman.
Wrangling themselves free from the security personnel, many more dashed ahead, several slashing their feet against the metal of the fallen barricade, only to turn left on Minto Road and drop another barricade.
They had covered nearly half the distance to Jantar Mantar, reaching within 150 meters of the Connaught outer circle, one curve away from Parliament Street hosting the protest site.
“But the barricade there was re-enforced. We had almost managed to pull one down when the police charged at us with batons,” added Aman. Having lost numbers at each of the previous barricades, “we were only about 50 left. So they managed to detain us and shove us into buses. At least six of us were injured.”
Those who had evaded detention at the previous barricades, but were unable to push ahead, regrouped outside HKS Surjeet Bhavan and started sloganeering. Police, accompanied by paramilitary, charged with batons and detained them, and even allegedly tried to break into the premises, but were held back at its gate.
The contingent of activists who had relocated to AKG Bhavan under the cover of darkness did not have it any easier. They had only managed to stretch the security personnel and their barricades across two fronts. A paramilitary force began assembling outside its gates around 10 am, roughly the same time as the barricading began at HKS.
Several members of CPIM’s Central Committee (CC) and Politburo, including current and former Members of Parliament, many of them grey-haired, were staying at the AKG Bhavan for a CC meeting. They joined the students as they marched out.
“Some 20 people were detained right outside the gate – almost the whole frontline. The rest of us behind them pushed through. We kept running,” recalled Asikul.
About 15-20 minutes into the march, SFI activist Noel was detained. “I was not taken to a detention bus, where others were held. I was held alone in a bus used to transport the police. There I was beaten for two hours,” he said, sharing pictures of the injuries he sustained on his face.
“Two of my comrades realized that I was being held alone. So they intentionally got themselves detained near my bus and joined me. They also got beaten up,” he added. Later, when the police started marching them to the detention bus, allegedly prodding them forward by jabbing the blunt ends of their batons into their backs, “we managed to escape.”
Meanwhile, others had pushed ahead. Among them were SFI National Joint Secretary Aishe Ghosh and the DYFI’s national president, AA Rahim. They marched about a kilometer from AKG Bhavan before being apprehended at the roundabout near Gurudwara Bangla Sahib. The SFI alleged that “Aishe Ghosh was assaulted by male police personnel in the absence of women officers.”
A showdown ensued. Dropping to the road and bracing in a huddle, Aishe and other female activists held ground as female police personnel who arrived later grappled with them, eventually dragging them away to detention buses, about 1.5 km away from Jantar Mantar.
Other activists, including Asikul, had strode ahead, breaking through three barricades, and reaching within 400 meters of Jantar Mantar. “We were not able to break through the fourth. We were only about 35 left,” said Asikul.
“Using chokeholds and baton charges, they detained us. Some managed to escape detention by breaking out through a bus window,” an increasingly popular mode of resistance by the younger generation of activists, determined to make detentions as costly and as strenuous as possible.
Asikul and the rest of the detainees were driven almost 50 km to Bawana in northwest Delhi and held at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium, where hundreds more were already being held. Among them was 77-year-old Manik Sarkar, a senior communist leader and Tripura state Chief Minister from 1998 to 2018. He was accompanied by the northeastern state’s current opposition leader, Jitendra Chaudhury. Veteran trade unionist and former Member of Parliament (MP) Tapan Sen, along with other ex-legislators, were also held there.
“There was not a drop of water in any tap in the toilet. We were not even provided with clean water to drink. When we demanded, we were asked to drink from” an old, ill-maintained leaky tank in the premises, said SFI activist Utkarsh, who was also held here. “We challenged the police to drink that water. They refused.”
When detainees began falling sick, Utkarsh and other activists warned the senior police officer in charge of this detention of consequences for mistreating a former Chief Minister and ex-MPs. They reminded him of his responsibility if one of these elderly political leaders fell seriously ill. Only then did the police “finally provide us with water and some snacks.”
Seven other stadiums in the city, along with several other public facilities, were reportedly turned into detention centers that day, when security personnel detained over 7,000 people from the streets of the national capital, including protesters, journalists and even pedestrians suspected of being protesters.
More than 7 km south of Jantar Mantar, near the INA market, outside barricaded central Delhi, police detained protesting activists of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), led by Neha Bora, one of the most recognizable faces of the protest movement.
Detentions were also reported in Raj Ghat, about 4.5 km northeast of Jantar Mantar, where the Revolutionary Workers’ Party of India (RWPI) and its affiliated mass organizations had organized a protest.
At the airport, almost 15 km to the southwest of Jantar Mantar, the police boarded a plane as soon as it landed from Mumbai – even before the passengers could disembark – to detain Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das, and Ashutosh Ranka from their seats. They are the top leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP).
The pressure group started as a satirical protest on social media in May, after the Chief Justice of India said: “There are youngsters like cockroaches, who don’t get any employment or have any place in profession. Some of them become media, some of them become social media, RTI activists and other activists.”
The CJP has since become a material force, playing a key role in the protest against exam paper leaks that forced the Union Education Minister to resign in July.
About two months after his resignation, an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper exposed irregularities in the conduct of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar. Several times, his two fellow election commissioners had flagged their concerns about his potentially illegal and unconstitutional decisions.
These pertained to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, still underway after already deleting the names of 130 million people from India’s voter rolls – in an unprecedented shrinking of India’s electorate. Opposition parties have long alleged that this exercise is meant to help the ruling far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, consolidate its hold on power.
Earlier this month, on the birth anniversary of Gandhi on October 2, protests began, calling for the scrapping of the SIR and the CEC’s resignation. On October 7, the CJP called on youngsters to take Jantar Mantar again on October 10.
In response to its call, thousands of youngsters, most in their late teens and early 20s, kept arriving in small groups to central Delhi throughout the day, only to be whisked away by the police.
“These youngsters, who were not part of any cadre-based organization, were particularly harassed by police because they identified them as vulnerable. They were threatened, their phones and keys were snatched,” said DYFI’s Delhi State Vice President, Rikta Krishnaswamy, who was held with hundreds of them at a makeshift detention center in Jafar Kalan, over 45 km west of Jantar Mantar.
Bundled into a bus at the final barricade reached by the march from HKS Bhavan that morning, Rikta was brought here by midday, when “the electrician was still installing the fan. We were held until evening with nothing to eat – not even a cup of tea. The police are trying to make detention as much of a deterrent as possible.”
But the protesters were not deterred. The very next day, DYFI activists, including several central committee members, gathered at Connaught Place, a 15-minute walk from Jantar Mantar, which remained cordoned off, even as the overall restrictions on movement in central Delhi had eased.
Soon after they began staging a protest, security personnel swarmed in. The detained protesters “were not taken to any police station,” according to a petition alleging custodial torture, filed in the Supreme Court by AA Rahim, the youth organization’s national president and an MP.
“Instead, while still near Connaught Place, the bus was driven to a closed and heavily guarded space in front of the Daryaganj restaurant, away from public view, out of the reach of the media and without any CCTV cameras. There, the detainees were sorted according to gender and then forcibly shifted into a specialized police van divided into five separate cells.”
These vehicles “functioned as unrecorded, mobile places of detention, wholly outside the safeguards of the Constitution,” added the petition. “Inside the cells of the van, the detainees were beaten on the face, kicked on the backbone with boots and struck on the head. Several of the personnel wore no name badges.”
At a press conference on October 12, women activists of the SFI showed bruises and alleged sexual harassment by security personnel.
But even the alleged custodial torture and sexual harassment has not deterred the protests, which are widening, drawing in more sections of society into the agitation.
Representatives of India’s largest and oldest farmers’ union, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), the All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU), the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), along with SFI and DYFI leaders, met at the HKS Surjeet Bhavan on October 14.
Several public intellectuals and artists also participated in this meeting of mass and class organizations’ leaders, where they jointly formed the All India Platform of People Against SIR. This platform announced October 23 as a Nationwide Street Action Day Against SIR.
Condemning the central government’s denotification of Jantar Mantar as a designated protest site on October 12, the platform gave a slogan to turn every street and every village into Jantar Mantar.
Macron, com 15% de aprovação, prepara guerra com Rússia e dissolve associação Egalité et Réconciliation de Alain Soral por “extremismo político”.
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Macron é, hoje, muito possivelmente, o presidente mais impopular do planeta, contando com apenas 15% de aprovação, segundo uma enquete Ipsos BVA-Cesi. Sob seu comando, a França se depara com a estagnação econômica (crescimento de 0,6% em 2025) e com o endividamento (120% do PIB). Sob Macron, a França viu também a desindustrialização acelerada do país, com as indústrias correspondendo a apenas 9% do PIB, menor patamar da União Europeia, e não surpreendentemente, o poder de compra despencou, com metade dos franceses dizendo que sua renda dá apenas para o essencial e apenas 70% dos cidadãos em idade ativa ocupando um posto de trabalho, atualmente.
Como se isso já não fosse o bastante, em aproximadamente 10 anos de governo Macron, aproximadamente 4 milhões de imigrantes entraram no país (muitos dos quais não trabalham, mas recebem benefícios sociais); quantia que torna impossível a absorção econômica bem como a assimilação etnocultural dos recém-chegados. Naturalmente, ao descontrole imigratório estão vinculadas taxas de criminalidade, favelização de centros urbanos e aumento das tensões sociais. Muitos franceses étnicos sentem-se demograficamente substituídos em sua terra natal, e não por acaso, tudo indica que Marine Le Pen ganhará (finalmente) as eleições presidenciais francesas em 2027.
Não sabemos quais seriam os resultados de uma presidência Le Pen e é razoável ser cético a respeito, mas claramente o atual curso da França é perigosíssimo, inclusive em sua política externa.
Gradualmente, nos últimos 2 anos, começaram a aparecer inúmeros sinais de que Macron estaria preparando o país para uma guerra com a Rússia. O governo francês criou um serviço militar voluntário e aprovou a expansão das forças armadas permanentes a 275 mil homens, bem como um aumento orçamentário para a defesa. O general Fabien Mandon, do Estado-Maior, afirmou em 2025 que a França deveria se preparar para um conflito de alta intensidade com a Rússia no prazo de três a quatro anos, e agora em setembro de 2026 Macron declarou que a França “poderia” se tornar alvo de drones explosivos. Constantemente, também, se ouve discursos sobre a necessidade de transformar a economia francesa numa “economia de guerra”.
Por isso, talvez seja surpreendente para muitos (mas não para nós) que em meio a tudo isso que tem acontecido no país, o governo Macron ainda encontre tempo para a implementação de um aparato de censura e repressão de níveis totalitários.
Sua nova vítima é a associação Egalité et Réconciliation (Igualdade e Reconciliação), criada pelo sociólogo e escritor Alain Soral. A associação se identifica como “nacionalista de esquerda” e tem como principal slogan “esquerda do trabalho, direita dos valores”, apelando a uma superação da falsa dicotomia entre esquerda e direita e, ainda mais importantemente, por uma reconciliação nacional entre todos os setores sociais; em anos recentes, ela esteve envolvida nas manifestações dos Coletes Amarelos, em algumas atividades ligadas ao partido Reagrupamento Nacional (apesar de, simultaneamente, manter uma postura de “crítica construtiva” contra certas tendências sionistas e liberais presentes no partido) e à militância pró-Palestina.
Ocorre que, no dia 9 de outubro, o Ministro do Interior do governo de Macron, Laurent Nuñez, anunciou a abertura de um procedimento de dissolução contra a associação Egalité et Réconciliation, sob a acusação de “extremismo político”. A sua equipe jurídica recebeu um prazo de 1 semana para se defender, e a decisão a respeito deve ocorrer, ainda, em outubro.
O próprio Alain Soral é uma figura de elevado espírito inconformista, razão pela qual já foi vítima de incontáveis perseguições judiciais – dezenas de fato – majoritariamente por “delitos de opinião”, ou seja, por comentários críticos contra pessoas específicas ou “minorias protegidas”. Em condenações, Soral já acumulou milhões de euros a serem pagos em indenização para ONGs globalistas diversas, soma obviamente impagável, bem como já foi encarcerado algumas vezes, também pelos mesmos motivos. A perseguição judicial foi tão intensa que Soral teve que se exilar de sua pátria, primeiro na Suíça e depois na Rússia.
Agora, para além das justificativas oficiais, por qual motivo o Estado francês baniria uma organização relativamente pequena e de poucos recursos financeiros?
É possível analisar o “ângulo” da presença de Alain Soral na Rússia, em mais de um sentido. Primeiro, porque ao estar na Rússia Soral finalmente tornou-se imune à constante perseguição judicial e às ameaças de prisão que ele sofria na França, ao mesmo tempo em que seguia tomando parte ativa no debate político e cultural francês, mesmo à distância. Nisso, ele era capaz de exercer e expandir a sua influência, “sob a proteção dos russos”, o que certamente alimenta as típicas paranoias atuais da elite francesa sobre uma “guerra informacional” russa.
Existe, porém, também um aspecto interno. Recentemente, Alain Soral voltou a ser bastante comentado pela mídia francesa por dois motivos. Um é o “caso Bardella”, o qual diz respeito à descoberta de supostos escritos “politicamente incorretos” de Jordan Bardella, presidente do partido Reagrupamento Nacional, e à informação de que em sua juventude a principal influência intelectual de Bardella era Alain Soral. O segundo é uma pesquisa de opinião indicando que 15% dos homens franceses com menos de 35 anos de idade se identificam com as ideias de Soral.
Isso às vésperas das eleições presidenciais representa um risco significativo para Macron e para o establishment francês. Ainda que, aparentemente, não haja chance de vitória para qualquer candidato contra Le Pen, não podemos duvidar da possibilidade de manipulação do processo eleitoral, tal como aconteceu na Romênia.
Esse silenciamento é ainda mais preocupante pelo fato de que Soral e o E&R serem praticamente os únicos personagens socialmente e culturalmente relevantes na França hoje que defendem a reconciliação nacional e que evitam a incitação do tensionamento interno, promovido pelos elementos mais islamofóbicos do RN e pela própria liderança do LFI de Mélenchon com seu “exército” de antifas e imigrantes.
Ninguna forma de gobernanza inclusiva puede sostenerse sin el respeto por las identidades culturales de los pueblos: ahí es donde se puede reconstruir la confianza, el bien que más le falta al mundo hoy en día.
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¿Dónde persiste el crecimiento y a qué costo?
Quienes estudian las crisis económicas suelen imaginarlas como choques repentinos: un colapso que desata el pánico, un mercado bursátil que se desploma en una sola sesión, una frontera que se cierra.
Estos son los sucesos de 2008 y 2020, las tormentas que marcan un antes y un después.
Pero existe una segunda forma de sufrimiento, menos fotogénica y más insidiosa, que no llega a los titulares: la parálisis lenta, la ausencia de crecimiento, una economía que da vueltas en vacío sin hundirse ni recuperar impulso.
Esta situación les resultaba familiar a los marineros. Los veleros que cruzaban el Atlántico temían a los huracanes, pero también temían al Mar de los Sargazos, esa extensión sin corrientes donde el viento se calmaba y el casco quedaba atrapado entre las algas durante semanas. En 2026, la economía mundial se enfrenta sobre todo a esta segunda amenaza, y es como el Titanic, tal como Leonid Grigoryev escribió brillantemente.
El transatlántico, para seguir con la metáfora, no se ha hundido: sigue a flote y aún crece, pero avanza lentamente y su casco tiene varios agujeros. Los vigías escudriñan una niebla que no da señales de disiparse, y los capitanes confían en que el iceberg se mantenga a distancia.
En sus proyecciones de julio, el Fondo Monetario Internacional ha revisado a la baja su pronóstico de crecimiento mundial para 2026, situándolo en un 3 por ciento, en comparación con el 3,5 por ciento del año anterior. Traducido a términos absolutos, frente a un PIB mundial que supera los cien billones de dólares en paridad de poder adquisitivo, esa pérdida de medio punto equivale a cientos de mil millones que no se convertirán en salarios, ingresos fiscales ni inversión.
La guerra arancelaria entre Washington y Bruselas está siendo absorbida por los principales actores, pero deja a su paso reajustes y fricciones colaterales, desde Irlanda hasta Canadá; y, por razones puramente contables más que políticas, resurge la perspectiva de la fragmentación económica del Reino Unido.
La fase expansionista pospandémica nunca ha seguido un rumbo claro y sigue topándose con los obstáculos de la geopolítica. Un factor en particular ha impulsado el crecimiento del PIB en los últimos trimestres: la carrera por construir centros de datos.
Esto representa una demanda de inversión masiva y geográficamente concentrada, que ha impulsado las exportaciones de los proveedores asiáticos de semiconductores y equipos —Corea del Sur, Taiwán, Malasia y Tailandia—, pero que depende de unas pocas empresas y de rendimientos esperados que aún no se han materializado.
Este ciclo impulsa el PIB mientras las obras de construcción están en marcha; el quid de la cuestión surge más adelante, cuando la capacidad instalada debe generar ingresos proporcionales al capital invertido.
Fuera de este marco, las economías que crecen lo hacen por razones internas: China gracias a su propia demanda y sector manufacturero, la India gracias a su mercado interno y Estados Unidos gracias a una combinación de inmigración, entradas de capital y gasto público.
El caso estadounidense, en particular, merece una aclaración que desmienta un error común. Cada año, Estados Unidos importa bienes por un valor de alrededor de un billón de dólares más de lo que exporta y, al mismo tiempo, sus líderes lamentan la pérdida de su base industrial.
Ambas circunstancias no son contradictorias: son la misma ecuación vista desde dos ángulos. Un déficit en cuenta corriente de tales proporciones no es, por definición contable, más que la contrapartida del ahorro extranjero que fluye hacia Estados Unidos: el mundo suministra bienes y, a cambio, acumula activos en dólares, bonos del Tesoro y acciones.
Mientras el dólar siga siendo la moneda de reserva y el mercado de valores estadounidense el mercado más líquido disponible, este privilegio financia el déficit en condiciones inalcanzables para cualquier otro país.
Sin embargo, ese mismo flujo sostiene el tipo de cambio real, penaliza a la industria orientada a la exportación y es precisamente lo que provoca la desindustrialización que tan a menudo se lamenta. Los aranceles atacan el aspecto comercial, pero dejan intacta la raíz financiera: reajustan el equilibrio, no lo eliminan.
El yugo de los rendimientos y el peso de la deuda
Hacia mediados de año, la inflación mundial volvió a repuntar, impulsada en gran medida por el aumento de los precios de la energía. Un aumento de los precios derivado de los costos, más que de un exceso de demanda, plantea a los bancos centrales su decisión más difícil: frenar una economía ya debilitada por la crisis, para no permitir que las expectativas se desanclen.
Los altos precios de la energía actúan como un impuesto regresivo, erosionando el ingreso disponible y repercutiendo en los niveles de precios al ritmo lento que dictan los contratos indexados y los precios regulados.
En el frente de la deuda, la tensión es aún más evidente. Los rendimientos de los bonos del Estado a largo plazo están aumentando a un ritmo alarmante: en Estados Unidos, el rendimiento a 10 años ha alcanzado el 5 por ciento, y otras economías avanzadas siguen el mismo camino.
No solo importa el nivel, sino también su estructura. El extremo largo de la curva refleja una prima de plazo al alza —es decir, la compensación que exigen los inversionistas por inmovilizar su dinero a largo plazo cuando la inflación y el volumen de dinero nuevo que ingresa al sistema siguen siendo inciertos.
El stock de deuda ya es colosal, y los bonos baratos emitidos durante la era de las tasas de interés cero están siendo reemplazados, a medida que vencen, por emisiones mucho más caras: el costo promedio aumenta con un retraso, pero sí aumenta.
Aquí prevalece una aritmética elemental e inflexible: la comparación entre la tasa de interés real y la tasa de crecimiento real. Cuando la economía crece más rápido que el costo de su deuda, la carga se aligera por sí sola; cuando la relación se invierte —y esto es lo que está sucediendo hoy en varios países ricos—, mantener estable la relación deuda-PIB requiere superávits presupuestarios que el electorado rara vez permite.
Una maniobra técnica con implicaciones políticas está contribuyendo a apretar el lazo. Los ministerios de Hacienda de las principales economías buscan devolver al mercado abierto una parte de los bonos a largo plazo que hasta ahora figuraban en los balances de los bancos centrales, justo cuando estos últimos están dejando que venzan los bonos acumulados durante la flexibilización cuantitativa y reduciendo sus activos.
El resultado es que la oferta neta de bonos a largo plazo disponibles para los inversionistas privados aumenta en el momento en que el prestamista de última instancia se retira; para absorber esta oferta, el mercado exige rendimientos más altos.
Al mismo tiempo, los bancos centrales están elevando gradualmente las tasas de interés para combatir la inflación, y la combinación de estos factores está empujando al sistema hacia el estancamiento. Es la calma del Mar de los Sargazos, no la tormenta.
En este contexto, cada unidad adicional de gasto militar, en presupuestos ya al límite, se convierte en una unidad menos para la salud, la educación y las obras públicas: la vieja disyuntiva entre «armas y mantequilla», que se repite a escala continental.
Las rentas energéticas están cambiando de manos
Toda una región, el Medio Oriente, ha caído en territorio negativo debido a la caída en la producción y las exportaciones de hidrocarburos. El aumento de los precios y los márgenes —y, en consecuencia, de los dividendos y los precios de las acciones— ha beneficiado a las empresas energéticas estadounidenses, que controlan la capacidad de producción marginal y pueden abrir el grifo cuando los precios suben.
Se trata de una redistribución de la renta: del proveedor tradicional al productor que ha ganado flexibilidad en los últimos años. Oriente Medio paga por partida doble —por sus ingresos actuales de exportación y por su infraestructura física desgastada o dañada—, mientras que las ganancias emigran al extranjero.
Los precios más altos del petróleo crudo y la escasez de diésel no solo afectan a las fábricas, al transporte y al sector de la construcción.
El diésel impulsa la logística y la agricultura mecanizada, y un aumento en su precio se propaga por toda la cadena de suministro con una omnipresencia de la que carece la gasolina. Las repercusiones más graves, sin embargo, van más allá de las estadísticas: la incertidumbre sobre los precios de la energía aumenta la tasa a la que las empresas descuentan los proyectos a largo plazo y desalienta la acumulación de capital de la que depende el crecimiento del futuro. Ninguna prosperidad puede sostenerse solo con centros de datos.
Europa en un letargo
En este contexto, el segundo bloque económico más grande del mundo —la Unión Europea, incluido el Reino Unido, con más de 500 millones de consumidores— no ofrece ningún contrapeso.
Su PIB, en la práctica, crece al mismo ritmo que su población: medido per cápita —la única forma que refleja verdaderamente los niveles de vida—, el estancamiento es casi total. Se ve lastrada por la deuda pública y los déficits, por estructuras industriales e infraestructura obsoletas, y por una demografía que ni siquiera los flujos migratorios han logrado rejuvenecer con la rapidez suficiente.
El problema subyacente tiene un nombre específico: una brecha de productividad que se ha venido ampliando desde hace más de una década. Europa gasta menos en investigación y capital digital, fragmenta el mercado de capitales en veintisiete sistemas jurídicos y no ha logrado producir líderes tecnológicos comparables a los de Estados Unidos o China.
El capital se está yendo a Estados Unidos, atraído por rendimientos más altos y mercados más profundos; la industria manufacturera está perdiendo terreno frente a la producción china, que ahora es competitiva no solo en costos sino también en tecnología; y la política, casi en todas partes, está fragmentada en mayorías frágiles que hacen que cualquier reforma de gran alcance sea una lucha.
Los costos de la energía son estructuralmente mucho más altos que en Estados Unidos —un legado de la dependencia del gas importado y de una transición iniciada sin un puente de suministro estable— y esta brecha está erosionando a las industrias que consumen mucha energía.
La productividad sigue estando muy por debajo de la de China en sectores competitivos, y el estado de ánimo del electorado, como muestran las encuestas, es más sombrío de lo que cabría esperar en un rincón tan afortunado del mundo.
Mientras tanto, el clima también se ha calentado demasiado, sin esperar a que se materialicen los beneficios de los programas ecológicos.
Las sanciones y el cambio de rumbo
Casi todos son conscientes de los peligros asociados con la espiral creciente de sanciones, pero los descartan como una molestia en la gestión cotidiana.
El punto es que no hay una salida ordenada de la maraña de restricciones legales, intereses comerciales y cálculos políticos —determinados por órganos legislativos y administrativos que no logran coordinarse entre sí—.
Queda la medida extrema que la historia asocia con Solón: hacer tabla rasa de un solo golpe, como lo hizo Atenas a principios del siglo VI a. C. con la seisachtheia, el alivio de la deuda que borró las deudas y restableció el pacto cívico.
Mientras tanto, las sanciones, la destrucción de la capacidad de extracción y transporte, y la pérdida de mercados de exportación —factores que se acumulan— se comportan como olas gigantes: surcan los océanos y regresan, a menudo con mayor fuerza, hacia quienes las generaron, en forma de inflación importada, interrupciones en el suministro y reajustes del tipo de cambio.
Hay una máxima de Clausewitz que aquí conviene invertir: si, para él, la guerra era la continuación de la política por otros medios, las sanciones son la continuación de la guerra por medios distintos a las armas.
Y los golpes más duros —así como los más injustos— recaen sobre países y clases sociales que no están involucrados en esos conflictos y preferirían seguir sin estarlo.
Tras tales experiencias, es difícil no anhelar menos globalización y menos interdependencia: la teoría de sistemas nos enseña que, cuando los elementos de una gran red se vuelven inestables, el retorno al equilibrio es más lento, porque las perturbaciones se propagan a lo largo de las conexiones en lugar de extinguirse.
Es la amarga otra cara de una economía global que había hecho de la integración su fortaleza y ahora descubre su vulnerabilidad.
Un inventario de desequilibrios
La probabilidad de una recesión depende, como siempre, de dos factores: la acumulación de desequilibrios y un detonante que, por definición, no se puede predecir.
Los desequilibrios son la pólvora —apalancamiento excesivo, valoraciones bursátiles infladas, riesgo concentrado en unos pocos actores, vencimientos de deuda agrupados en los mismos meses—; el detonante es el evento que enciende la mecha: una nueva pandemia, una caída de la bolsa, un colapso mayor similar al de 2008.
Si la pólvora se está acumulando es ahora objeto de debate entre los especialistas. A esto se suma un número creciente de entidades que ya han sido sacrificadas por los conflictos geopolíticos, por la desaceleración y por el desvío de recursos, que se han desviado del desarrollo para contener las pérdidas.
En la cima de la lista de costos olvidados se encuentran los problemas globales: la pobreza, las brechas de desarrollo y el cambio climático. Es probable que los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible establecidos por la ONU para 2030 se alcancen en torno al 17 por ciento, con secciones enteras apenas esbozadas.
Se necesita un proyecto global de nueva generación, pero esto presupone paz, compromiso, coordinación, estabilidad y confianza: todos recursos escasos, y la confianza más que ningún otro.
Las clases dirigentes parecen haber desplazado su enfoque de los horizontes a largo plazo hacia los enfrentamientos a corto plazo. Las organizaciones internacionales tienen poco impacto; las principales naciones desarrolladas están ocupadas con sus propios problemas y sanciones; y nadie responde a la pregunta de quién asumirá las tareas compartidas: el desarrollo para acortar brechas, la reducción de la pobreza y la gestión de los bienes públicos globales.
En casi todos los países, amplios sectores de la población se enfrentan a algún tipo de dificultad, ya sea en materia de salud, educación o desigualdad en los niveles de vida.
¿Quién pagará la cuenta?
Esa carga recaerá, por defecto, sobre los hombros de las principales economías emergentes, cuyos intereses coinciden en gran medida con los objetivos globales y ciertamente no van en contra de ellos: el grupo BRICS y varios países con ideas afines.
Cuentan con menos recursos que Occidente, pero la necesidad los obliga a coordinar sus esfuerzos. La Declaración de la última cumbre, que marca el vigésimo aniversario del grupo, resuena como una voz de la razón en una época que evoca con inquietud la llamada «trampa de Tucídides»: ese mecanismo por el cual el miedo mutuo entre una potencia dominante y una emergente las empuja hacia el conflicto, incluso cuando ninguna de las dos lo busca realmente.
No faltan las fricciones entre los miembros, con sistemas políticos divergentes y niveles desiguales de prosperidad; sin embargo, el documento señala el camino hacia el compromiso —concretamente, el fortalecimiento de la ONU y la reforma del FMI—, reconociendo que no existen atajos radicales.
En el párrafo 49, se reconoce que los desafíos globales están entrelazados y son complejos, lo que obstaculiza el crecimiento y exacerba las disparidades persistentes entre países y regiones.
A nivel operativo, la Declaración esboza una política industrial y energética adaptada a la tarea de ir más allá de la Cuarta Revolución Industrial: completar la infraestructura, impulsar la manufactura, los ferrocarriles y la innovación, garantizar el acceso a la tecnología y realizar la transición hacia tecnologías de desarrollo propio, al tiempo que se invierte en capital humano y en cuestiones sociales.
También defiende el libre comercio, los mercados abiertos, la libertad de circulación y la seguridad del ahorro y las finanzas globales, y presenta una postura independiente sobre la gobernanza de la inteligencia artificial —mirando ya más allá del presente—.
La exigencia fundamental es institucional: estos países han operado durante décadas dentro de marcos diseñados por Occidente y ahora reclaman organismos que trabajen en pro de su propio desarrollo. Una revisión de las cuotas del FMI para reflejar el peso económico real, un papel más amplio para instituciones como el Nuevo Banco de Desarrollo y canales de pago menos expuestos al uso geopolítico de las monedas de reserva.
En qué medida todo esto se traducirá en capacidad real sigue siendo la verdadera incógnita, que debe medirse en términos de probabilidad más que de certeza.
Es plausible, con un grado moderado de confianza, que en los próximos años el grupo consolide los sistemas de liquidación en monedas nacionales y el financiamiento para el desarrollo; por el momento, es poco probable que suplanten a las instituciones existentes o socaven la moneda de reserva —un objetivo que requeriría mercados de bonos profundos y líquidos fuera de la zona del dólar, los cuales no se observan actualmente—.
Los indicadores a seguir son tangibles: el resultado de la revisión de las cuotas del FMI, los montos desembolsados por el Nuevo Banco de Desarrollo y la proporción del comercio intrarregional liquidado fuera del dólar.
Sin embargo, quienes reclaman instituciones que sirvan a su propio desarrollo y al bien común tienen un argumento sólido, ya que la reforma de la arquitectura global es el único ámbito en el que los compromisos parciales aún pueden generar confianza.
Las declaraciones de principios, repetidas durante años, solo pasan a formar parte de la agenda cuando alguien las financia.
Y ninguna gobernanza inclusiva puede sostenerse sin respeto por las identidades culturales de los pueblos: ahí es donde se puede reconstruir la confianza, el bien que más le falta al mundo hoy en día.
Traducción: Observatorio de trabajador@s en lucha
By K. J. NOH, POPULAR RESISTANCE
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Over seventy years ago, the US took control of South Korea’s military. To this day, it still controls it.
Why?
This confounds every notion of state sovereignty: a supposedly sovereign country — South Korea — has its own military subjugated under US control.
Opcon (operational control) of one nation’s army by another country is usually temporary, usually during wartime among allies.
In Korea, it has lasted over 76 years.
South Korea has asked for opcon back, repeatedly. It has been three decades since South Korea first made the demand.
The US has always delayed, filibustered, waffled, and moved goal posts.
More recently, the US has signaled more delay on the return of opcon, despite current president Lee Jae Myung’s demand that it be transferred back before the end of his term in 2030.
The allies are currently assessing the “full operational capability” (FOC) after validating the “initial operational capability” (IOC).
Seoul aims to wrap up the FOC certification and announce a target year for the Opcon transition at the upcoming SCM, before moving on to the remaining assessment of the “full mission capability,” which it expects to take about a year or so….[However] Washington remains firm in its position that Seoul is not ready for FOC certification, weighing on Seoul’s push to accelerate the Opcon transition.
This follows on US Forces Korea Commander Xavier Brunson’s repeated declarations of his opposition to Opcon transfer: only conditions matter, not timelines. According to Brunson, there can be no timeline to return control of South Korea’s troops to South Korea. Seventy six years is not enough.
South Korea had originally insisted on deadlines for the return of opcon. The US delayed, and delayed, and denied. It finally agreed–but only if certain conditions were met. These were agreed to in 2014, and reaffirmed them in 2017. Yet another decade has passed since those agreements.
Conditions for the return of opcon:
Cutting through the fog, there are essentially three conditions that the US has predicated as preconditions for South Korea to regain control over its own troops:
1. Can South Korea defend itself? (Can it operate its own military effectively? Does it have capacity, materiel, systems, and institutions?)
2. Are US and South Korea forces interoperable? (Can they coordinate in war?)
3. Are the conditions stable enough for opcon transfer?
The answer to the first is, of course. South Korea has one of the most powerful and well-equipped militaries in the world.
The second is, of course, the US and South Korea have been rehearsing interoperability for over seventy years.
The third is key: it is a catch-22 designed to undermine the entire process.
Conditions-based Opcon Transfer (COPT) sets specific benchmarks and tests for opcon transfer. These are the goalposts that are being constantly shifted.
However, the third condition is critical. It requires the de-escalation of tensions between North and South:
“Conducive Security Environment: The security environment on the Korean Peninsula and in the broader region must be stable and conducive to a safe, uninterrupted transfer.”
This is the catch-22:
If there is de-escalation of tensions, the required “tests” are not conducted and the benchmarks and certifications are not achieved — they are tied to field-condition wargames. Doing these wargames and tests escalates tensions with North Korea.
If there are tensions, then condition 3 is not met, and Opcon cannot be transferred.
It’s a formula for ensuring opcon is never transferred.
The simple fact is, it does not take 20+years to transfer opcon. “Wartime” opcon is transferred very rapidly. Armies coalesce, and opcon is transferred. Syngman Rhee turned over opcon in July of 1950 and the US was immediately in charge. It doesn’t take years and decades to transfer opcon. It takes hours or days. Returning it should be even faster. But that would require political will.
Here are some other important things to understand about opcon:
Opcon transfer conditions are actually classified:
The US keeps these conditions under wraps, and therefore the South Korean public or its representatives cannot challenge them publicly because they are not known. We only know the general outlines. The South Korean side can only hope the US will agree they have been met. This is yet another abrogation of sovereignty and democracy in addition to the original breach: “We will keep your military, unless you meet our secret conditions, which you cannot discuss, debate or challenge, because they are secret”.
Condition 3, “Conducive security environment” has always been a kill switch:
We know that security conditions have always been a tacit condition because, in the past, whenever opcon transfer looked justified and imminent, the security environment would suddenly degrade, scuttling the whole project. For example, just as the deadline for Roh Moo Hyun-negotiated Opcon transfer was approaching in 2012, the sudden sinking of the ROKS military ship Cheonan-Ho derailed wartime opcon transfer to 2015. That deadline has also passed and gone. Recent North-Korea attributed mine explosions near the DMZ fit this pattern, as have other numerous, suspicious incidents.
The concoction of “peacetime opcon” is nonsense:
The US claims it only has “wartime” opcon because it transferred “peacetime” opcon to South Korea in 1994. However, this very concept is nonsense:
1) Opcon means control of operations. Operations mean warfighting. “Wartime opcon”, ie. “wartime warfighting control” is a pleonasm. The only time operational control of a military is important is during fighting, just as the only time steering a car matters is when it’s moving.
The invention and transfer of “peacetime” opcon to Korea was a booby prize created to give the appearance that something had changed. Think of those Fisher-Price toy steering wheels you stick on the dashboard while someone else steers the car–it’s a political toy. It gives the illusion of control but it means nothing. The fact is, the US would never allow its military to be subjugated to a foreign command, even a shared command. The simple fact is, the US never shares control.
2) Immediately after “peacetime” opcon transfer in 1994, the US instituted CODA (Combined Delegated Authority), which continues US control of planning and execution of war. As Clint Work observes correctly, “The ROK JCS was granted the term OPCON for political purposes, and the US CFC was given the term CODA for accomplishing missions”. So much for peacetime “control”.
3) Last but not least, the US gets to unilaterally decide what constitutes peacetime and what constitutes wartime. When the US declares Defcon III, it’s wartime. Korean troops must fall in line under US opcon. If you get to slice the cake and then decide which portion you take, it’s your bloody cake. If you share a car, but only one party decides when it gets to be driven, and they drive, they own the car, you are maintenance. If one party unilaterally decides when it gets control, it has control, regardless of any protestations to the contrary.
But why does the US need to keep Opcon?
The US needs control over ROK troops because it is planning for war with China in the Pacific. It has been doing so since it drew up formal plans, AirSea Battle in 2009. For war, it needs SK as a military proxy: it needs the cannon fodder. South Korea has 3.6 million combat-ready troops: 500,000 regular and 3.1 million reserve. It has one of the most powerful and advanced militaries in the world, as well as the defense industrial base to sustain it. Furthermore, SK troops have always fought in US wars as proxies: more military-aged men in South Korea saw combat in Vietnam than Americans did as a proportion of population — 325,000 were deployed–the largest foreign deployment after the US. It was also the third largest deployment to Iraq. The US can avoid a draft because SK has one.
USFK Commander Xavier Brunson has made this US agenda of weaponizing South Korea for war against China explicit, comparing South Korea to “fixed aircraft carrier”, a dagger pointed at China, and a critical part of US war strategy because it is already inside China’s defense perimeter.
As the Hankyoreh Newspaper points out:
When his “dagger” comment is tied to his previous remarks, it’s evident that Brunson expects Korea to play an offensive role capable of striking the Chinese heartland, and Japan to play a defensive role supporting Korea…Brunson commented last August that he would like F-35 fighters with stealth capabilities and a multi-domain task force (MDTF) capable of wrecking China’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) network to be assigned to USFK. These comments suggest that Brunson means to treat Korea as a forward base equipped with military options for launching direct strikes against China.
Brunson recently announced that the multi-domain task force will be deployed to Korea. These build on his previous statements on preparing the peninsula for war with China:
…[this] orientation clarifies how forces on the peninsula can impose costs, not only on the CCP’s Northern Theater Army, but also on the [Russian] Northern Fleet, thus demonstrating the significant strategic potential that exists on the peninsula to influence adversary operations in both adjacent seas… existing force positioning, particularly on the Korean Peninsula, may offer greater strategic advantages… advantageously positioned assets already inside the [Chinese] defensive perimeter, capable of immediate cost-imposition [ie. attack] against multiple adversaries.
This simultaneous fiction of pretending it doesn’t control South Korea’s troops became necessary when US-opconned SK troops massacred civilians in Gwangju. The need to avoid accountability created the legal fiction of “peacetime opcon”, but that doesn’t obviate the US need for control as it prepares for and escalates to war.
The real reason why opcon transfer is taking so long is the US is trying to create a structure that maintains control of the SK army while pretending that it doesn’t. This involves a crazy-quilt of parallel & unified command structures, multiplying command authorities, phased operating assessments, Frankenstein-cobbled-
With war with China on the horizon, South Korea needs to reclaim opcon rapidly. It remains to be seen if president Lee Jae Myung can pull off this hat trick. However, the consequences of not doing so could be catastrophic.
Original article: popularresistance.org
Abya Yala isn’t nostalgia – it’s counter-toponymy, sovereignty through naming. Empires die; names endure.
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A name imposed from outside
Every October 12, history once again becomes a battlefield. This year, the two events took place just a few days apart and a few thousand kilometers from one another. On one side, the White House, where on October 9, Donald Trump honored Christopher Columbus in front of a marble statue reassembled from fragments of the Baltimore monument that had fallen into the harbor in 2020, and signed a proclamation linking the 1492 voyage to the 1776 Declaration of Independence and promising that the explorer’s legacy will not be erased by “radical extremists.” On the other side were Indigenous organizations that for more than thirty years have rejected even the name of the continent, calling it Abya Yala.
The dispute over the continent’s name is a dispute over sovereignty, and the fact that it is resurfacing with such intensity in 2026 – while Washington is rewriting its relations with the Western Hemisphere in an openly hegemonic manner – is no mere coincidence of the calendar.
The name “America” originated in a cartographic workshop in the Vosges Mountains. In 1507, in Saint-Dié, Martin Waldseemüller printed a large wall map of the world and a brief accompanying treatise, proposing to name the new fourth part of the world after Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine navigator who had argued that those lands were not Asia. On the map, the name appears in the southern part of the continent. Within a few decades, it came to apply to the entire continental landmass. None of the people who lived there were consulted.
In 1958, the Mexican historian Edmundo O’Gorman developed a thesis on this that retains its power to this day: America was not discovered, it was invented. Not in the trivial sense that it did not exist before, but in the sense that Europe constructed a new geographical and conceptual entity, placing it within its own image of the world and assigning it a role in its own universal history. The name was the first act of this construction. Before being conquered by force of arms, the continent was conquered on paper.
There is also a second appropriation, less discussed in Europe and deeply felt south of the Rio Grande. In common usage, “America” means the United States. The shift is not merely lexical. On December 2, 1823, James Monroe declared to Congress that the American continent was no longer to be considered open to European colonization: the phrase “America for Americans” already contained, in embryo, the idea that the Americans par excellence were those of Washington. Two centuries later, the same logic has led to pressure regarding the Panama Canal in 2025 and the military operation in Venezuela in January 2026. When an indigenous movement utters “Abya Yala,” it thus challenges two names at once: the one imposed by Europe and the one annexed by the United States.
The nomos of discovery
To understand why the word “discovery” is not neutral, we must turn to the law. Carl Schmitt, in a 1950 book that remains one of the foundational texts of legal geopolitics, argues that 1492 ushered in the first global nomos of the earth: an ordering of space based on the seizure of land. The European powers recognized one another as legal subjects and treated the New World as a free space, available for occupation. The papal bull Inter caetera of 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494 drew a line from pole to pole that divided the planet between Castile and Portugal. Those who lived on those lands did not participate in the division: they were its objects.
Schmitt describes this order with a jurist’s admiration for an effective legal construct, and his analysis must be read with that in mind. But the mechanism he identifies is real and has had a long institutional life. In 1823, the same year as the Monroe Doctrine, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case Johnson v. M’Intosh: Justice Marshall ruled that “discovery” conferred sovereign title to the land upon the European power – and later upon the United States as its successor – leaving the indigenous peoples with a mere right of occupation. The Doctrine of Discovery has remained part of American jurisprudence to this day. It was not until March 2023 that two Vatican departments issued a joint statement formally distancing themselves from it, acknowledging that 15th-century papal bulls were used to justify the expropriation of indigenous peoples.
The human cost of this system is measured in figures that remain uncertain, though their order of magnitude is not. A study published in 2019 in *Quaternary Science Reviews* estimated that between 1492 and 1600, the population of the Americas plummeted by about 90 percent, due to the combined effects of epidemics, war, forced labor, and social disintegration; the reforestation of abandoned lands was so extensive that it left a trace in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Tzvetan Todorov, in his book The Conquest of America, had already spoken of the greatest genocide in human history, questioning how knowledge of the other could coexist with its destruction. The “discovery,” in other words, was also the disappearance of most of those who were there.
What Abya Yala means
Abya Yala comes from the language of the Guna, the people who inhabit the Caribbean coast of Panama and certain areas of Colombia. In its form “Abiayala,” it is usually translated as “land in full maturity”; other renderings such as “living land” or “land of vital blood” are also in circulation. The transition from a local place name to a continental name is recent. According to the most widely cited accounts, it was the Bolivian Aymara leader Takir Mamani who proposed that indigenous peoples adopt this name in their documents, in place of that of the colonizers. The proposal took shape during the wave of protests that accompanied the 500th anniversary in 1992, when counter-celebrations marking “500 years of resistance” stood in opposition to the official commemorations. In the 2000s, the summit meetings of indigenous peoples across the continent permanently adopted it as part of their name.
The Guna’s choice is no accident. This is a people who, in 1925, rose up against the Panamanian state and eventually secured an autonomous comarca – now known as Guna Yala – with its own institutions and effective control over the territory: one of the most successful examples of indigenous self-governance on the continent. Borrowing their word means choosing as an emblem a concrete experience of territorial sovereignty, not mere nostalgia.
It should be noted that Abya Yala does not erase the plurality of local names: Anáhuac for the Nahua world of central Mexico, Tawantinsuyu for the political and territorial organization of the Incas, and Pindorama for the Tupi lands of present-day Brazil. Each of these names expresses a different cosmology of space. Abya Yala functions as common ground, a sort of federal name that does not replace the specific ones. This is an important detail, because it signals that the project is not the invention of a single, symmetrical indigenous identity mirroring the “American” one, but rather a coordination among diverse actors.
Cartography as an act of sovereignty
From a geopolitical perspective, naming is the first form of possession. This is well understood by states that rename gulfs and seas, contest place names on official maps, and impose transliterations in international institutions. The year 2025 provided a textbook example with the U.S. renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. In this context, Abya Yala is a counter-toponym: a name that does not seek to occupy school atlases, but rather to wrest from hegemonic power the monopoly on the description of space.
The Latin American decolonial school has given this insight a precise theoretical form. Aníbal Quijano has termed the structure that survives the end of formal colonialism “the coloniality of power”: a hierarchy of peoples, knowledge, and territories that continues to organize the international division of labor and the production of knowledge. Walter Mignolo has shown how “Latin America” itself is a designation that originated in the nineteenth century in French and Creole circles, with specific political functions. The year 1492 marks not only the beginning of the conquest of the Americas but also the birth of the world-system centered first on Europe and later on the Atlantic. Challenging the continent’s name therefore means challenging the founding date of the unipolar order, tracing it back to its very roots.
Here, the issue intersects with the debate on multipolarism. A multipolar order is not merely a different distribution of power among great states. It implies the recognition that there are multiple civilizations, each with its own concepts of space, law, and relationship to the land. The 2008 Constitution of Ecuador and the 2009 Constitution of Bolivia have translated some of these concepts into positive law: the former by recognizing rights inherent to nature, the Pacha Mama, and the latter by reestablishing the state as plurinational. These are imperfect experiments, but they represent the most serious attempt in the hemisphere to build a form of statehood that does not derive entirely from the European model.
Columbus, Italy, and two identity politics
For the Italian reader, the story takes an additional turn. Columbus Day did not originate as a celebration of conquest. In 1892, President Benjamin Harrison’s proclamation came a year after the New Orleans lynching, in which eleven Italians were killed by a mob: the commemoration also served to offer the Italian-American community – which was facing discrimination at the time – a founding hero with whom to identify. Columbus thus became a tool for the integration of a minority that Anglo-Saxons considered little more than white.
Today, that history is being enlisted in a different battle. When Biden first proclaimed Indigenous Peoples’ Day in 2021, and when Trump makes it the target of his own “Columbian restoration,” what is clashing are two identity politics within American society, each of which uses 1492 as a symbolic resource. Italian Americans find themselves serving as a shield for an operation that primarily concerns the definition of the U.S. nation and its relationship with the rest of the hemisphere.
Italy and Europe can avoid this dilemma. Remembering Columbus as a navigator, as a figure of Mediterranean and Genoese culture, and as a man of his time does not oblige one to subscribe to the “nomos” of discovery or the legal doctrine that derived from it. One can honor the sailor while rejecting the claim of ownership. Indeed, it is precisely from Europe that a gesture of historical maturity might emerge, similar to the one made by the Holy See in 2023: distinguishing the memory of the person from the legitimization of a spatial order that has produced expropriation and death on a continental scale.
October 12, 2026, revealed two opposing ways of approaching the same date. Washington used Columbus to reaffirm a narrative of national founding that, in foreign policy, translates into a renewed claim to guardianship over the hemisphere. Indigenous movements used Abya Yala to remind us that that hemisphere had names, political systems, and sovereignty before 1492 – and that it still retains some of them today.
There is no symmetry between the two positions. One has aircraft carriers, sanctions, and courts; the other has a word and territories to defend one by one, but the history of maps teaches us that names have a long life – longer than the empires that imposed them. “America” appeared on a map printed in a small town in the Vosges and ended up designating half the planet.
No one can say today what fate awaits Abya Yala, but the mere fact that millions of people refuse to call their land by another’s name already speaks volumes about the crisis of the order that name had ushered in.
Ask a chatbot why something happened in the war, and the answer may be written by Russia. Russia is poisoning AI chatbots with millions of fake articles so they repeat Kremlin narratives as fact, a cognitive weapon with strategic impact, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert “Madiar” Brovdi warns on Telegram.
Russia has waged a cognitive war against Ukraine for years, and it intensified sharply with the full-scale invasion. This war goes beyond fake news and disinformation: it aims to shape the deeply ingrained beliefs that drive people’s attitudes, decisions and behavior, and its newest weapon is artificial intelligence.
Brovdi calls it a cognitive operation with strategic impact, one his forces studied among the technological risks of 2027. People increasingly ask a chatbot “why did X happen?” and take the instant answer, he explains, without asking where it comes from.
“Artificial intelligence does not know the truth. It retells the internet, literally,” Brovdi claims.
Brovdi lays out a chain that turns a single lie into something a machine will repeat as fact:
The attack runs on volume. Russia floods the web through the “Pravda” network, close to 200 sites in dozens of languages posting 4 to 6 million near-identical articles a year, Brovdi claims, written for machines, not people.
It works, by his account. Of the ten most popular chatbots studied, about a third of the time they reproduce Russian fakes, he noted, and four of ten in a 2024 test affirmed that Azov fighters had burned an effigy of Trump, a fabrication, and cited sources for it.
Brovdi is blunt about the balance. Ukraine is losing this fight to Russia’s troll farms, he concedes, even as a layer of homegrown trolls has sprung up too.
His closing advice was aimed at readers.
“Critical thinking should not be delegated. Not even to the smartest machine. Switch on your own judgment and always check the source and the information,” Brovdi states.
La tecnologia può stabilire come un’arma raggiunge il bersaglio, mentre spetta all’umanità decidere se quel bersaglio debba essere colpito. La domanda che si cela dietro a tutto ciò è chi, concretamente, eserciti quell’umanità, con quali strumenti di conoscenza e dentro quali istituzioni.
Dalla persona al bersaglio
Che cosa ne è dell’umanità quando la tecnologia diventa capace di riconoscere, classificare, seguire e infine uccidere esseri umani senza che chi colpisce li abbia mai visti? Se lo è chiesto l’amico Mohammad Reza Dehshiri e la sua risposta ha una formula efficace. Il pericolo, scrive, non è l’intelligenza artificiale ma l’inumanità artificiale, cioè la possibilità che le macchine diventino più accurate proprio mentre gli uomini smettono di sentirsi responsabili di ciò che quelle macchine fanno in loro nome.
Con questo articolo apro una serie che parte dalla diagnosi di Dehshiri e prova a spingersi oltre. Se il problema è l’inumanità artificiale, la risposta non può consistere in un’IA «più etica», come se l’etica fosse un modulo da installare a valle di un sistema già progettato. Bisogna recuperare una categoria che il lessico tecnologico ha reso quasi impronunciabile: l’intelligenza umana, intesa non come un residuo da proteggere nelle pieghe dell’automazione, ma come una forma di conoscenza con prerogative proprie, che nessun aumento della potenza di calcolo può surrogare.
La chiamerò Human Intelligence, e l’ambiguità è voluta. Nel gergo dei servizi di informazione, HUMINT designa la più antica delle discipline informative: quella che passa per le persone, le fonti, le lingue, la frequentazione paziente dei luoghi. Nel lessico filosofico l’espressione indica la facoltà di comprendere. La tesi di questo primo contributo è che i due significati oggi convergono, e che la loro convergenza ha una portata geopolitica che va ben oltre il dibattito sull’etica delle armi.
Possiamo descrivere la catena operativa della guerra contemporanea in sette passaggi: rilevare, identificare, classificare, predire, ordinare per priorità, designare, colpire. Ogni anello può essere tecnicamente raffinato senza che la sequenza, presa nel suo insieme, lo sia sul piano morale. Il fenomeno che ne risulta viene chiamato «datificazione della vita umana»: l’individuo ridotto a un’identità, a una posizione, a uno schema di comportamento, a un punteggio di minaccia.
Non si tratta di un’astrazione. Nell’aprile 2024 un’inchiesta di Yuval Abraham per +972 Magazine e Local Call ha descritto Lavender, un sistema impiegato dalle forze armate israeliane a Gaza per attribuire a decine di migliaia di persone una probabilità di affiliazione ai gruppi armati. Secondo le fonti interne citate dall’inchiesta, la verifica umana di ciascun nominativo si riduceva spesso a una ventina di secondi, il tempo necessario per accertare che il bersaglio fosse di sesso maschile. Le forze armate israeliane hanno contestato questa ricostruzione e hanno descritto Lavender come una banca dati di supporto agli analisti. Anche accettando la versione ufficiale, però, il nodo resta intatto: un operatore umano era presente, e la sua presenza non bastava a trasformare la raccomandazione del sistema in un giudizio.
La psicologia cognitiva ha un nome per questo fenomeno, automation bias: la tendenza di chi lavora con un sistema automatizzato a trattarne le indicazioni come sostituto della propria verifica, e a non cercare le informazioni che potrebbero smentirle. Nel 1976 Joseph Weizenbaum, che aveva costruito uno dei primi programmi conversazionali della storia, distingueva già tra la capacità di calcolare e quella di giudicare, e sosteneva che vi sono compiti che non andrebbero affidati a un calcolatore anche se il calcolatore fosse in grado di svolgerli. Mezzo secolo dopo la distinzione è diventata più urgente. Il calcolo lavora su ciò che è già stato tradotto in dato. Il giudizio deve decidere se quella traduzione è stata fedele.
Dehshiri fissa il punto con quattro distinzioni: la precisione tecnica non è precisione etica, l’accuratezza non è giustizia, l’automazione non è responsabilità, la superiorità tecnologica non è superiorità morale. Ne aggiungerei una quinta, di ordine epistemico, da cui dipendono le altre: la correlazione non è comprensione. Un sistema di apprendimento automatico riconosce regolarità statistiche in un insieme di dati. Non sa che cosa sia una scuola, perché non sa che cosa sia un bambino, e non sa nemmeno di non saperlo.
L’iraniano prende un caso studio interessante: Il 28 febbraio 2026, nelle prime ore della guerra, la scuola elementare Shajareh Tayyebeh di Minab, nella provincia di Hormozgan, fu colpita più volte durante l’orario di lezione. Le cifre fornite dalle autorità iraniane oscillano tra 150 e 175 morti, in grande maggioranza bambine, con decine di insegnanti e alcuni genitori; il procuratore della contea ha indicato un bilancio definitivo di 156 vittime. Washington non ha mai riconosciuto direttamente la propria responsabilità né pubblicato le conclusioni dell’indagine del Pentagono. Amnesty International ha parlato, nella migliore delle ipotesi, di un grave fallimento dell’intelligence.
C’è un dettaglio, emerso dalle immagini satellitari, che sposta l’analisi dal piano morale a quello conoscitivo. Secondo i media occidentali, la scuola sorgeva accanto a una base navale dei Guardiani della Rivoluzione e in passato ne aveva fatto parte; tra le spiegazioni circolate negli ambienti statunitensi c’è quella di dati di puntamento non aggiornati. Se l’ipotesi venisse confermata, Minab non sarebbe il caso di una macchina che sbaglia, ma di un archivio che ha smesso di corrispondere alla realtà. L’edificio era cambiato. Il dato no.
Nessun algoritmo di classificazione, per quanto sofisticato, può accorgersi che un vecchio fabbricato militare è diventato una scuola se nessuno ha registrato il cambiamento. Lo sapeva chiunque vivesse a Minab: i genitori che ogni mattina accompagnavano le figlie, il conducente dello scuolabus, gli insegnanti. È esattamente il tipo di sapere che la HUMINT raccoglie e che la guerra a distanza tende a considerare superfluo, perché lento, costoso, difficile da scalare. Allo stato delle fonti pubbliche, la responsabilità statunitense appare altamente probabile, mentre la dinamica resta indeterminata e la confidenza su questo punto è bassa: errore della banca dati, errore di classificazione, oppure accettazione consapevole del rischio. Le tre ipotesi, però, convergono sulla stessa domanda. Chi, prima del lancio, ha verificato se in quell’edificio ci fossero persone?
Oltre il “human-in-the-loop”
Il dibattito internazionale si è a lungo accontentato del principio del human-in-the-loop, l’essere umano inserito nel circuito decisionale.
La formula è insufficiente: un uomo può essere presente nel circuito e limitarsi a ratificare la raccomandazione dell’algoritmo. Propone di sostituirla con un principio più esigente, che chiama humanity-in-command: la capacità effettiva di mettere in discussione, respingere, scavalcare e arrestare il processo automatizzato.
La storia della Guerra fredda offre due esempi che chiariscono che cosa significhi in concreto. Il 26 settembre 1983 il sistema sovietico di allerta precoce Oko segnalò il lancio di cinque missili balistici dagli Stati Uniti. L’ufficiale di turno, Stanislav Petrov, classificò l’allarme come un errore e non lo trasmise come attacco in corso, ragionando che un primo colpo americano non sarebbe mai consistito in cinque missili soltanto. Aveva ragione: il satellite aveva scambiato per lanci i riflessi del sole sulle nubi. Ventuno anni prima, il 27 ottobre 1962, nelle acque dei Caraibi, il sottomarino sovietico B-59, isolato e bersagliato da cariche di profondità di segnalazione, fu sul punto di impiegare un siluro a testata nucleare. Il lancio richiedeva il consenso dei tre ufficiali superiori a bordo, e Vasilij Archipov lo negò.
In nessuno dei due casi l’uomo approvò una raccomandazione del sistema. La contraddisse. E non lo fece perché disponeva di più dati: i dati, anzi, erano il problema. Lo fece perché seppe porsi una domanda che nessuna procedura gli imponeva, cioè se ciò che vedeva avesse senso rispetto a tutto il resto che sapeva del mondo. Petrov conosceva la dottrina nucleare americana; Archipov conosceva la differenza tra un attacco e un’intimidazione. È questa capacità di confrontare il segnale con l’insieme, il particolare con il plausibile, che chiamo Human Intelligence. Vale la pena notare che il Dena è stato affondato da un sottomarino. Non sappiamo che cosa sia stato chiesto ai suoi ufficiali, né quali margini di valutazione avessero.
La proposta va precisata, perché il rischio è di ridurla a un appello umanistico generico. La Human Intelligence, così come la intendo, si articola su tre piani distinti, ciascuno dei quali segna un limite strutturale, e non contingente, dell’intelligenza artificiale.
Il primo piano è epistemico. La tradizione scolastica distingueva tra intellectus, l’atto con cui la mente coglie in modo immediato una verità, e ratio, il procedere discorsivo da un elemento all’altro: per Tommaso d’Aquino (Summa Theologiae, I, q. 79, a. 8) le due non sono facoltà diverse ma momenti di un unico intelletto, in cui il ragionamento parte da una comprensione e a una comprensione ritorna. I sistemi attuali di apprendimento automatico realizzano una ratio di potenza inaudita, capace di inferire, combinare, predire su scale inaccessibili alla mente umana. Manca loro il momento dell’intellectus, cioè la presa sul senso di ciò che elaborano. È una tesi filosofica e va presentata come tale, ma ha conseguenze operative precise: un sistema privo di comprensione non può sapere quando il proprio modello del mondo è diventato falso.
Il secondo piano è pratico. La prudentia, nella definizione tomista, è la retta ragione applicata all’agire, e il suo compito specifico consiste nel portare il principio universale fino al caso singolare. La macchina generalizza: il suo valore sta nel ricondurre il singolo caso a una classe. La prudenza fa l’opposto, perché deve riconoscere ciò che, in questo caso, sfugge alla classe. La guerra, che è il regno del singolare e dell’imprevisto, è il terreno in cui la differenza pesa di più. La nota vaticana Antiqua et nova del gennaio 2025 ha ripreso questa linea, insistendo sul carattere incarnato e relazionale dell’intelligenza umana e sulla sua irriducibilità a una funzione di elaborazione.
Il terzo piano è relazionale, ed è qui che il significato filosofico incontra quello dei servizi. Sherman Kent, che negli Stati Uniti del dopoguerra fondò di fatto gli studi sull’intelligence, la definiva prima di tutto come conoscenza, prima ancora che come organizzazione o attività. La HUMINT è la forma di questa conoscenza che passa attraverso l’altro come persona: chi parla la sua lingua, conosce le sue abitudini, sa leggere un quartiere, distingue una festa da un raduno. Negli ultimi tre decenni le grandi potenze hanno progressivamente spostato risorse verso le discipline tecniche, dalla raccolta di segnali all’osservazione satellitare, fino alle piattaforme di fusione dei dati. Minab mostra il prezzo di questo squilibrio.
Nulla di tutto questo implica un rifiuto della tecnologia. La Human Intelligence non si oppone all’IA come il manuale si oppone al meccanico. Ne stabilisce la gerarchia: l’algoritmo come strumento ordinato a un giudizio che non può produrre da sé. E ne ricava un principio, che Dehshiri formula e che merita di diventare criterio operativo: quanto più la tecnica allontana chi agisce dalle conseguenze del proprio atto, tanto più deve crescere la responsabilità cosciente di chi decide, non diminuire.
Geopoliticamente parlando
Fin qui la questione potrebbe sembrare di filosofia morale. Non lo è soltanto. La distribuzione della capacità di guerra algoritmica è una distribuzione di potere, e le regole che la governeranno saranno scritte, se mai lo saranno, da chi ha interesse a limitarle il meno possibile.
Lo stato del diritto internazionale lo conferma. Il gruppo di esperti governativi istituito nell’ambito della Convenzione su certe armi convenzionali discute dei sistemi d’arma autonomi letali dal 2017 senza essere approdato a uno strumento vincolante. Gli Stati Uniti hanno promosso nel novembre 2023 una dichiarazione politica sull’uso militare responsabile dell’IA, per definizione non vincolante; nel dicembre dello stesso anno l’Assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite ha adottato la prima risoluzione dedicata a questi sistemi, mentre il Comitato internazionale della Croce Rossa chiede dal 2021 il divieto dei sistemi autonomi imprevedibili e di quelli progettati per colpire esseri umani. Nel giugno 2024, intervenendo al G7 di Borgo Egnazia, Papa Francesco aveva chiesto che nessuna macchina sia mai messa nelle condizioni di decidere della vita di una persona. Il divario tra queste posizioni e la pratica dei teatri di guerra del 2026 si misura in vittime.
C’è poi un’asimmetria più profonda. Chi controlla i dati decide chi è un bersaglio, e le vittime della guerra algoritmica si trovano in larga parte fuori dall’Occidente: a Gaza, in Iran, nel Sahel, nello Yemen. Per gli Stati che non producono le piattaforme e non ne controllano gli archivi, la Human Intelligence diventa allora una questione di sovranità. Un Paese che mantiene competenze linguistiche, conoscenza regionale, reti umane di informazione conserva un’autonomia di giudizio; un Paese che affida la propria visione del mondo a sistemi progettati altrove, spesso da imprese private, la cede insieme ai dati. In un ordine che tende al multipolarismo, questa differenza separerà gli attori che giudicano da quelli che vengono giudicati.
Ne discende una proposta concreta, che svilupperò nei prossimi contributi. Accanto al principio generale del controllo umano significativo, il diritto internazionale umanitario potrebbe codificare un obbligo specifico di verifica umana dello status civile per ogni infrastruttura fissa inserita in una lista di obiettivi, con una data di validità oltre la quale l’informazione decade e va rinnovata con fonti dirette. È una norma minima. Applicata a Minab, avrebbe imposto a qualcuno di chiedersi se quell’edificio fosse ancora ciò che l’archivio diceva.
La tecnologia può stabilire come un’arma raggiunge il bersaglio, mentre spetta all’umanità decidere se quel bersaglio debba essere colpito. La domanda che si cela dietro a tutto ciò è chi, concretamente, eserciti quell’umanità, con quali strumenti di conoscenza e dentro quali istituzioni. A Minab qualcuno avrebbe dovuto sapere che c’era una scuola. Il fatto che nessuno lo sapesse, o che nessuno lo abbia chiesto, è il punto da cui ricominciare.
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