Si la porte que Moscou dit ouverte est en réalité fermée, elle est fermée de ce côté-ci – et ce n’est pas Rome qui l’a fermée de son propre chef.

Un sommet de Valdaï hors site

Ce que je vais partager dans cet article est moins technique et plus personnel que d’habitude. Il s’agit des informations recueillies au cours de plusieurs jours de dialogue, de discussion et, apparemment, d’une question « scandaleuse » qui est devenue un phénomène médiatique en Europe – parce que j’ai demandé au président de la Fédération de Russie, Vladimir Vladimirovitch Poutine, ce qu’il adviendra de l’Europe.

Vous pouvez trouver la vidéo complète du discours de Vladimir Poutine au Forum de Valdaï ici.

Vous pouvez trouver mes remarques et les réponses de Poutine ici.

Cette année, le Forum de Valdaï ne s’est pas réuni à Sotchi. Les invitations envoyées au cours de l’été mentionnaient encore la ville de la mer Noire comme lieu de rendez-vous, mais ensuite, fin août, les organisateurs ont annoncé le déménagement vers la région de Moscou. Selon le FT, le Service fédéral de protection a exigé ce déménagement, inquiet de la menace de drones ukrainiens après un été d’attaques contre des raffineries côtières. Ce détail logistique a son propre poids. La guerre – dont on parle toujours à Valdaï dans le langage du système international – influence désormais aussi l’organisation pratique du forum.

La 23e réunion annuelle s’est tenue du 28 septembre au 1er octobre sous un titre qui, pour un Européen, ressemble presque à une question personnelle : « La responsabilité pour l’avenir : les limites du possible ou des possibilités illimitées ? » L’ouverture a été marquée par le rapport annuel du Club, Keep Calm. The State and Responsibility for the Future, que les auteurs présentent – avec un clin d’œil à Kubrick – comme un manuel pour cesser de s’inquiéter et apprendre à aimer le chaos. Ont suivi neuf sessions thématiques, une session spéciale et, le dernier jour, la session plénière avec le président.

Je suis arrivé en tant qu’Italien et Européen, sachant que dans ces salles, les deux identités n’ont pas le même poids. Tout au long de la semaine, j’ai parlé, en particulier, à quatre interlocuteurs de haut niveau : Sergueï Karaganov, Maksim Orechkine, Sergueï Lavrov et, lors de la session plénière, Vladimir Poutine. Les trois premières conversations ont eu lieu en marge des sessions, et je les rapporte à partir de mes notes – en substance, pas mot pour mot. Le quatrième échange est public et documenté par une transcription, que je cite directement.

Pris un par un, les quatre dialogues transmettent des choses que quiconque suit le débat russe connaît déjà. Mais lorsqu’on les considère dans l’ordre, ils dressent un tableau plus clair : une évaluation commune de l’Europe et quatre manières différentes d’en tirer des conclusions. Et, surtout, un avenir qui n’a rien de brillant.

Karaganov : l’Europe comme source du mal

Sergueï Karaganov est l’un des fondateurs du Club de Valdaï, président honoraire du Conseil pour la politique étrangère et de défense, et, depuis des années, la voix la plus radicale du réalisme russe. Avec lui, la conversation a commencé immédiatement par le point le plus controversé. L’Europe, a-t-il dit, est la racine de tout mal. Si elle était détruite, personne ne la pleurerait. Un conflit nucléaire tactique sur son territoire n’impliquerait pas d’autres acteurs. Les Européens ont eu amplement le temps de trouver une solution à leurs propres problèmes ; maintenant qu’ils ont choisi de se préparer à la guerre contre la Russie, il est trop tard pour leur offrir une autre chance.

Je dois être honnête : je n’ai jamais été un admirateur de Karaganov ; j’ai souvent trouvé ses vues trop radicales et dépassées. Mais à partir d’un café pris ensemble après le déjeuner – et tout au long d’une semaine de discussions – j’ai découvert que nous pensons de manière très similaire et que ses vues ne sont en rien triviales. Quiconque a lu ses déclarations récentes reconnaîtra cette ligne de pensée. En juin 2023, Karaganov avait publiquement soutenu que la Russie devait abaisser le seuil d’utilisation des armes nucléaires afin de restaurer la crédibilité de sa dissuasion et d’inciter l’Occident à se retirer du conflit en Ukraine. Une partie de cette approche a ensuite été intégrée dans des documents officiels : les Principes fondamentaux de la politique d’État de la Fédération de Russie dans le domaine de la dissuasion nucléaire, mis à jour en novembre 2024, traitent une attaque d’un État non nucléaire menée avec la participation ou le soutien d’une puissance nucléaire comme une attaque conjointe.

Ses paroles, cependant, contiennent trois affirmations distinctes, et il vaut la peine de les garder séparées. La première est un jugement historique et civilisationnel : l’Europe comme source des grandes catastrophes de la modernité, des guerres mondiales au colonialisme. C’est une thèse que Karaganov défend depuis longtemps et qui peut être contestée, mais elle relève de l’interprétation. La deuxième – que personne ne pleurerait l’Europe – est une prédiction sur les réactions des autres ; d’après ce que j’ai observé durant ces journées, elle résonne auprès d’une partie significative des participants asiatiques, africains et latino-américains. La troisième est une hypothèse stratégique qui sous-tend tout le reste : une escalade nucléaire en Europe resterait confinée à l’Europe.

Sur ce point, la littérature sur la dissuasion débat depuis soixante-dix ans et – heureusement – les preuves empiriques manquent. Le facteur qui complique cette hypothèse se trouve au sein même de l’Europe. La France et le Royaume-Uni possèdent des arsenaux nationaux et, en mars 2025, Paris a formellement ouvert le débat sur la dimension européenne de sa propre dissuasion. Un conflit nucléaire « purement européen » suppose que deux puissances nucléaires européennes resteraient les bras croisés. C’est l’hypothèse la plus faible de tout l’argument, quelle que soit l’évaluation que l’on fasse des deux autres.

Il faut aussi noter que Karaganov ne parle pas au nom du gouvernement. Au Forum de Valdaï, il représente l’aile du débat russe qui pousse le Kremlin vers des positions plus définitives, et l’un de ses rôles est précisément de repousser les limites de ce qui peut être dit. Vu sous cet angle, son « trop tard » est l’indication d’une tendance plutôt qu’une doctrine.

Orechkine : le marché qui n’existe plus

Avec Maksim Orechkine, le ton a complètement changé. Chef adjoint de l’Administration présidentielle, ancien ministre du Développement économique, puis conseiller économique du président, Orechkine raisonne en termes de flux de trésorerie et de bilans. Son évaluation a été sans détour : l’Europe est finie. Il n’y a plus de concurrence viable sur le marché de l’énergie, car la Chine et l’Inde occupent désormais les premières places parmi les clients de la Russie. Et il n’y a aucune raison d’investir dans un sauvetage européen, puisque les Européens, à ce jour, n’ont montré aucun intérêt à trouver une solution pacifique et raisonnable. La question que je lui avais posée lors de la réunion avec les participants de Valdaï était : « Étant donné que le pipeline Nord Stream 2 n’est plus disponible – parce qu’il a été saboté – avez-vous l’intention de trouver un nouveau système de transport d’énergie, en supposant que l’Europe se réconcilie et que la situation diplomatique s’améliore ? » Sa réponse franche – et peut-être brutale – est comme une dague de vérité plongée dans la conscience de chaque Européen.

« Fini » doit être compris au sens technique. Orechkine ne parlait pas directement de la civilisation européenne, mais de l’Europe comme partenaire commercial : un marché qui a cessé d’être central pour la Russie et qui ne justifie donc pas des concessions politiques pour le reconquérir. Après 2022, le brut russe a trouvé ses principaux acheteurs en Chine et en Inde, tandis que Bruxelles, par l’accord entre le Conseil et le Parlement européen en décembre 2025, s’est engagée à éliminer progressivement les importations de gaz russe – y compris le gaz de pipeline et le GNL – d’ici 2027. L’interdépendance énergétique qui avait maintenu l’Europe et la Russie connectées pendant un demi-siècle – même durant les pires moments de la guerre froide – a été démantelée par les deux parties. Le raisonnement d’Orechkine en saisit la conséquence la plus simple : celui qui n’est plus le principal client n’a plus de levier. Ce sont les lois du marché, et ni à Londres, ni à Berlin, ni à Bruxelles il ne reste de politiciens ou de groupes de pouvoir capables de dire à la Russie « quoi faire ».

Le revers de la médaille est bien connu à Moscou aussi. Un marché dominé par deux grands acheteurs permet à ceux-ci d’exiger des réductions, et remplacer l’Europe par l’Asie a un coût en termes de prix et d’accès à la technologie. Mais selon la logique qui m’a été présentée, la question n’est plus de savoir si l’Europe est dans l’intérêt de la Russie. C’est de savoir combien il coûterait de la rendre à nouveau bénéfique, et la réponse implicite est que les Européens doivent en assumer le coût.

Lavrov : la porte fermée sur « cet » ordre

Avec Sergueï Lavrov, la discussion est passée de l’économie à la diplomatie, sans changer la conclusion. L’Europe, a-t-il dit, a eu de nombreuses occasions de rétablir un dialogue avec la Russie et a choisi au contraire d’alimenter une confrontation directe. Maintenant, il est trop tard pour revenir en arrière : toutes les limites ont été franchies, et avec l’ordre européen actuel, il n’y a aucun moyen de revenir aux relations précédentes.

J’aimerais que nous nous arrêtions un moment pour considérer le poids de ces mots. Ceux qui connaissent Lavrov savent qu’il est un politicien capable de peser chaque mot avec une grande intelligence, même dans des contextes plus détendus comme le sommet de Valdaï. « Les limites ont été franchies. » Il serait inutile d’énumérer ces limites, car elles sont si évidentes pour le monde entier que ce serait simplement une perte de temps. Mais le regard de Lavrov lorsqu’il parlait de l’Europe – je ne l’oublierai jamais. Je l’ai rencontré bien d’autres fois, mais à cette occasion, il y avait quelque chose de différent.

Le ministre a un historique d’événements que la diplomatie russe cite régulièrement : les accords de Minsk, les projets de traités sur les garanties de sécurité soumis aux États-Unis et à l’OTAN le 17 décembre 2021, et les négociations d’Istanbul au printemps 2022. L’interprétation russe de chacun de ces développements est controversée, et elle est contestée en Europe. Ce qui m’intéresse ici est un autre élément – une nuance qui, à la relecture après la session plénière, s’est révélée être la clé de toute la semaine. Un retour est impossible dans ce cadre européen. Pas avec l’Europe, dans sa forme actuelle – c’est-à-dire l’UE et l’OTAN. Le rejet concerne une classe dirigeante et une architecture institutionnelle, pas les pays qui en font partie.

Je me demande jusqu’à quel point la patience russe a été abusée pour en arriver à dire de telles choses. La littérature russe classique nous offre des exemples admirables de la manière dont les politiciens russes sont capables de temporiser, d’ignorer et d’être patients. Et il est indéniable que cela a constamment été l’attitude de la classe dirigeante russe durant les récentes années de conflit. Aller jusqu’à dire que la limite a été franchie – ce que Poutine reprendrait plus tard lors de la session plénière du sommet – signifie qu’il n’y a plus de ressources à gaspiller en attente patiente ; cela signifie que l’Ours a été réveillé de son hibernation au mauvais moment ; cela signifie que les conséquences de ces actions auront une signification d’époque.

Lavrov a ajouté une chose de plus : « Nous sommes prêts à frapper l’Europe de manière exemplaire, pas comme nous l’avons fait en Ukraine. » Prenez note de ces mots, chers amis européens. Relisez-les et réfléchissez à leur poids. Il n’y a rien de plus à dire.

Un professeur italien pose une question à Poutine

Nous arrivons maintenant à l’un des moments les plus dangereux de ma carrière. La session plénière a eu lieu, comme le veut la tradition, en présence du président russe et avec Fiodor Loukianov comme modérateur. J’ai pris la parole et posé une question en deux parties :

« Je viens d’Italie, un pays qui n’entretient actuellement pas de bonnes relations avec la Russie. En tant qu’Européen, j’aimerais vous demander : quelles conditions la Russie fixera-t-elle pour développer un nouveau système de sécurité pour les pays européens ? Et, si nous imaginons une Europe post-Union européenne, la considérerez-vous comme faisant partie d’un grand partenariat eurasien ou, selon vous, les États-Unis et la Russie seront-ils toujours en concurrence pour ces territoires ? »

Poutine a commencé par la seconde partie, et l’ordre n’est pas un hasard :

« L’Italie est, en fait, située en Europe, et je parle d’un partenariat eurasien : il va donc de soi que nous considérerons – et considérons déjà – l’Italie comme un partenaire eurasien également. »

Immédiatement après, il a précisé que le sort de l’Union européenne, et l’appartenance continue de l’Italie à celle-ci, « ne nous regarde pas ». Moscou n’a même pas l’intention d’en discuter, car tout commentaire à ce sujet serait interprété comme une tentative de diviser l’UE, « alors que nous ne voulons rien diviser du tout. Nous voulons seulement construire et coopérer ».

Sur les conditions d’un nouveau système de sécurité, la réponse a été claire : « Nous n’avons aucune condition préalable. » L’obstacle, selon lui, se trouve de l’autre côté. Certains politiciens européens considèrent comme inacceptable qu’un seul pays ouvre un dialogue avec la Russie, et Poutine a qualifié cette exigence d’un diktat encore plus dur que celui de l’ère soviétique. La comparaison était soigneusement construite : l’URSS était un État unitaire et hautement centralisé, dont les républiques faisaient partie d’une structure étatique unique ; l’Union européenne, en théorie, ne l’est pas, mais en pratique se comporte comme si elle l’était. « Personne ne nous l’interdit ; nous sommes prêts. »

À ce moment-là, Loukianov est intervenu avec une remarque provocatrice typique d’un modérateur expérimenté : puisque Bruxelles l’interdit, ne vaudrait-il pas mieux contribuer un peu à la désintégration de l’UE, afin de faciliter les relations avec les pays individuels ? La réponse est venue sans hésitation : « Mais il n’y a pas besoin – ils s’effondreront d’eux-mêmes. »

Puis Poutine s’est adressé directement à moi. « Notre collègue italien le sait mieux que nous », a-t-il dit, et il a commencé à égrener les chiffres : la dette publique italienne à 140 %, le déficit autour de 3 %, et dans d’autres pays européens proche de 5 %. Les chiffres étaient arrondis mais pas loin de la vérité. Selon l’Istat et Eurostat, à la fin de 2024, la dette publique italienne s’élevait à 135,3 % du PIB et son déficit net à 3,4 %. Le point de ce passage, cependant, ne portait pas sur les décimales. Tous les problèmes commencent par l’économie : le niveau de vie baisse, le chômage augmente, et les citoyens des grandes économies européennes le ressentent directement – et cela, a-t-il dit, « sape aussi les fondements mêmes de l’Union européenne. Mais ce n’est pas notre affaire ; nous n’intervenons pas ».

Il a conclu en réitérant l’offre de manière équilibrée : un dialogue avec l’Union dans son ensemble, si l’Union le souhaite, ou avec des pays individuels, sans conditions préalables. « Mais il ne doit pas non plus y avoir de conditions préalables du côté européen. »

Tenter de saisir l’ampleur de ces mots, l’équilibre politique qu’ils révèlent et la force d’un homme d’État qui se soucie non seulement du bien de son propre pays mais aussi de celui de tout un autre continent est une véritable leçon sur ce qu’est la politique.

Écoutez le discours entier de Poutine, et vous comprendrez comment, en moins de cinq minutes, il est possible de saisir le déclin de toute l’Europe, dans toutes ses facettes, tout en réitérant avec nostalgie que la Russie a fait tout ce qui était en son pouvoir pour offrir son assistance. Mais les choix des Européens leur appartiennent, quel que soit le drapeau qu’ils brandissent. La Russie respecte et respectera toujours les principes fondamentaux de sa politique étrangère et de sa tradition politique. Pas de messianisme miraculeux, pas de sauveur improvisé.

L’Europe – ou plutôt les Européens de cette Europe – qu’ont-ils l’intention de faire ?

Relire mes notes de voyage

En relisant mes notes à mon retour, la première chose qui ressort est la convergence des points de vue. Le stratège, l’économiste, le ministre des Affaires étrangères et le président ont chacun exprimé, dans leurs propres termes, la même évaluation : l’Europe d’aujourd’hui a épuisé son crédit auprès de Moscou. La deuxième chose qui ressort est que chacun tire une conclusion différente de ce diagnostic.

Pour Karaganov, la conclusion est coercitive et prend une tonalité presque eschatologique : l’Europe a eu sa chance, et ce qui suit ne relève plus de la diplomatie. Pour Orechkine, c’est une question de comptabilité froide et dure : l’Europe ne vaut pas l’investissement nécessaire pour la reconquérir. Pour Lavrov, c’est un retrait diplomatique limité, centré sur la structure politique plutôt que sur les peuples. Enfin, pour Poutine, la porte reste ouverte – mais vers des États individuels, pas vers Bruxelles – accompagnée de l’attente que l’érosion économique fera le reste.

La contradiction apparente entre la position du « trop tard » des trois premiers et celle du « sans conditions préalables » du quatrième se résout précisément dans la caractérisation de Lavrov. Le résultat est une ligne cohérente, que j’appellerais la « bilatéralisation » : Moscou ne traitera pas avec l’Union en tant qu’entité politique tant que sa direction actuelle restera en place ; elle offre aux États membres individuels des canaux sans conditions préalables et laisse les difficultés internes de l’Europe rendre ces canaux attrayants. La référence à l’Italie comme partenaire eurasien « déjà aujourd’hui » doit être comprise dans ce cadre : ce n’est pas une courtoisie ; c’est l’indication de l’interlocuteur que Moscou préfère.

Je ne peux certainement pas affirmer que les quatre interlocuteurs exceptionnels sont parvenus à un accord – cela va sans dire – mais j’ai trouvé cette convergence véritablement « prophétique ». Valdaï a toujours été le lieu où l’ampleur du débat russe est présentée à un public étranger. Je peux dire que ces perspectives sont compatibles et se renforcent mutuellement : la position dure de Karaganov fait paraître l’offre de Poutine modérée ; les chiffres d’Orechkine donnent de la crédibilité à l’idée que Moscou n’a pas besoin de faire de concessions ; et la formule de Lavrov équilibre fermeté et ouverture.

La crise de la dette souveraine de 2010-2012 a donné naissance au Mécanisme européen de stabilité et à l’union bancaire ; la pandémie a conduit à Next Generation EU et à la première dette commune à grande échelle. Au sein de l’Union, les crises ont généré au moins autant de centralisation que de fragmentation. « Ils s’effondreront d’eux-mêmes » est donc un pari, pas une observation – même si le pari coûte peu à ceux qui le font : si l’UE tient bon, Moscou a au moins offert le dialogue ; si elle s’effondre, il a déjà des canaux bilatéraux en place.

Les indicateurs à surveiller au cours des douze à dix-huit prochains mois sont assez clairs. Le premier concerne les visites bilatérales à Moscou de chefs de gouvernement de l’UE, en plus des visites précédentes de Viktor Orbán en juillet 2024 et de Robert Fico en mai 2025. Le deuxième est de savoir si l’unanimité tient lors des renouvellements semestriels des sanctions, où un seul veto suffit à ouvrir une brèche. Le troisième concerne les exemptions nationales du calendrier d’élimination progressive du gaz russe. Le quatrième – et le plus significatif pour nous – est l’ouverture possible d’un canal structuré par une grande capitale, y compris Rome.

Qu’est-ce que j’en retiens ? En tant qu’Italien, la phrase que j’emporte avec moi n’est pas celle sur la désintégration ; c’est l’autre : « Nous considérons déjà l’Italie comme un partenaire eurasien également. » Elle contient à la fois une offre et une observation qui nous est adressée. Si la porte que Moscou dit ouverte est en réalité fermée, elle est fermée de ce côté-ci – et ce n’est pas Rome qui l’a fermée de son propre chef.

Combien de temps un pays dont la dette dépasse 135 % du PIB peut-il se permettre de laisser aux autres le soin de décider qui peut parler à qui ? Personne à Moscou ne me l’a demandé. C’est une question que j’ai ramenée chez moi de moi-même. Et chaque Italien de bonne conscience, chaque Européen qui a encore un cœur, connaît la réponse.

30 de setembro – o prazo final para uma possível ação militar iraniana contra o bloqueio naval de Trump – chegou e passou. O Irã manteve sua posição – sem, na essência, disparar contra a Marinha dos EUA que impunha o “bloqueio” (tãooooo distante). Mas o espetáculo precisa continuar. Como plano B, tivemos um espetáculo no horário nobre – na verdade, uma dupla farsa: a versão remixada do 11 de setembro na FlyDubai.

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Essa manobra patética nunca foi um “ataque terrorista”; foi uma operação psicológica do Mossad mal elaborada, com muitos detalhes improváveis, incluindo um encanador que assumiu o controle do avião porque viu isso na TV.

Os manipuladores foram o culto da morte na Ásia Ocidental, os próprios Emirados Árabes Unidos e Washington. A narrativa oficial é para pessoas com QI abaixo de 50: um copiloto “jihadista” – convenientemente de Omã, pois a demonização exige isso – tenta fazer um avião cheio de sionistas se chocar contra o solo. Os proverbiais passageiros heroicos – incluindo o encanador – o dominam com as próprias mãos.

O culto da morte está fazendo de tudo para isentar os emiradenses de qualquer responsabilidade. O foco está no “terrorista” omanense.

Isso é o que se chama de tríade perfeita: os muçulmanos são e sempre serão terroristas; o culto da morte é sempre uma vítima; e a Arábia Saudita precisa entregar o “terrorista” ao culto da morte.

Fácil, então, para um copiloto contrabandear uma faca no aeroporto de Dubai, que é extremamente vigiado, a bordo de uma das rotas mais vigiadas do planeta. E quanto à Força Aérea do culto da morte, incapaz de impedir o pouso do avião em Tabuk?

Porque o plano sempre foi pousar em Tabuk. Essa é a maior base aérea saudita no noroeste e a mais próxima de Israel; o culto da morte vem tentando há anos obter acesso a ela. Agora eles podem acabar conseguindo o pacote completo: acesso ao espaço aéreo saudita; informações privilegiadas; e muito mais, cortesia da pressão conjunta de Abu Dhabi e Washington.

No Transition Protocol, constatamos que, quando o líder do culto da morte voou “secretamente” para Abu Dhabi para se encontrar com o chefe dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, MbZ, em uma reunião bilateral, ele também pode ter se encontrado com pessoas de vários países árabes, incluindo Catar, Omã, Líbia e Marrocos.

Os sauditas negaram veementemente que fizessem parte do pacote. O mesmo fez a Jordânia. Omã aparece apenas por meio de uma fonte israelense. Não há confirmação oficial por parte do Catar, Omã, Marrocos ou Líbia.

Teerã, de qualquer forma, reagiu com extrema irritação, alertando para “consequências muito perigosas”. A determinação iraniana é clara – não deixar que esses chihuahuas atrapalhem o processo fundamental de reduzir ao máximo a influência dos EUA e de Israel na Ásia Ocidental.

Islamabad, por sua vez, continua a perseguir a tarefa sisífica de avançar aos poucos em direção a um progresso mínimo, mediando tanto entre a Arábia Saudita e o Ansarallah quanto entre os EUA e o Irã.

O Catar entregou ao ministro das Relações Exteriores do Irã, Abbas Araghchi, a resposta dos EUA em Doha na última terça-feira. O desentendimento parece girar em torno da sequência dos passos, e não dos componentes. O texto, da forma como está, é uma espécie de versão aprimorada do notório Memorando de Entendimento “gato morto” – também conhecido como o quadro de Islamabad. Ninguém está apostando que a carroça morta ressuscitará – de novo.

Rússia, Irã, Iêmen: vamos dar uma surra nesses desgraçados sem piedade

Agora vamos ao que realmente importa: o Iêmen. E até que ponto os durões de Sana’a estão dispostos a infligir aniquilação a Riade. A destruição das instalações petrolíferas é fácil demais – é apenas o começo. O Iêmen está em fúria. E eles não vão parar por nada.

Já podemos ver uma confluência surpreendente entre a Casa de Saud, a Marinha dos EUA fora da Pérsia e a OTAN no país 404: todos estão sendo massacrados sem piedade. A Rússia e o Irã nem sequer começaram ainda. E falando do Iêmen.

Sergey Karaganov, no início desta semana, mais uma vez anunciou publicamente: a Stavka russa tomou finalmente a decisão fatídica de acabar com o sofrimento dos neonazistas de Kiev. E, em uma sessão extraoficial de duas horas no Valdai, nos arredores de Moscou, o Grande Mestre Sergey Lavrov, totalmente relaxado, reafirmou mais uma vez que a Rússia está pronta para a guerra na Europa. E sim, será rápida. Sem limites.

O Ansarallah e as Forças Armadas do Iêmen aguardam que três vetores se concretizem: uma inevitável “Hora Zero” soando por toda a Ásia Ocidental; o potente fervilhar e a ebulição de confrontos intra-reais e intertribais dentro da Arábia Saudita; e todas as peças do quebra-cabeça se encaixando para que a “Tempestade Iemenita” que se aproxima seja desencadeada sobre a Arábia Saudita.

Atualmente, Riade não reconhece nenhum ataque vindo do Iêmen, enquanto Sana’a anuncia todos os dias, com a precisão de um relógio, o número de ataques aéreos sauditas contra o Iêmen – visando mercados, fazendas, residências, pontes, instalações hídricas e redes de telecomunicações: o proverbial manual do Sindicato de Epstein.

O Irã, por sua vez, já aumentou a aposta, atacando Bu Hasa, da ADNOC, a sudoeste de Abu Dhabi: trata-se de um dos maiores campos terrestres de petróleo e gás dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, que abastece o estratégico oleoduto Habshan-Fujairah, a única rota de exportação dos Emirados que contorna o Estreito de Ormuz.

O próprio desvio da Arábia Saudita, o oleoduto Leste-Oeste, foi atingido há três semanas e bombardeado novamente pelo Iêmen no início desta semana, em Abqaiq.

Atacar a ADNOC e Abqaiq quase simultaneamente pode significar a retirada de até 13 milhões de barris de petróleo por dia do mercado. Nunca é demais lembrar a todos que o Irã e o Iêmen vêm como um pacote. É esse pacote que importa – e nenhum falso ataque de bandeira falsa, tipo um 11 de setembro em miniatura, vai mudar isso.

Tradução:  Comunidad Saker Latinoamericana

Merz caminó por Kiev. Hay una foto de él andando por ahí en una calle. Pero no es sólo él. En sus zapatos resopla toda la frustración de toda la Alemania neonazi.

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No hay mejor tranquilizante que un Martini seco. Lo leí en una revista femenina. […] Desafortunadamente estos vasos no son los correctos, los estilos cambian.

Para un Martini seco, lo ideal es una copa en forma de cono.

Obispo: He oído que es un país magnífico: la Gran Cordillera, las pampas…
Embajador: La pampa está en Argentina, monseñor.
Obispo: La pampa. Por supuesto. […] Había fotos de tus antiguas pirámides.
Embajador: No tenemos pirámides en Miranda.

Luis Buñuel 1972 “El discreto encanto de la burguesía” Fragmentos.

Friedrich Merz, actual canciller alemán, con lazos y devociones por el nazismo, -como su abuelo paterno Josef Paul Sauvigny, quien fuera afiliado al Partido Nacionalsocialista Alemán (National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei NSDAP) del partido Nazi y que también estuvo en las S.A. (Sturmabteilung – sección de asalto) así como su padre, Joachim; soldado de la Wehrmacht- caminó por Kiev este pasado domingo cuatro de octubre, mismo día en que su país celebra ‘la unidad alemana’.

En un arrebato desesperado entre su propia realidad de fracaso en las urnas y el delirio de la revancha nazi que se le escapa de las manos en el frente ucraniano contra la Federación Rusa, heredera del triunfo soviético de 1945, Merz, uno de los peores políticos que riñe en mediocridad con otros como Macron, Meloni, Sánchez y los incontables primeros ministros ingleses, arribó a decirle a Zelensky que contara con Alemania, o sea, con el dinero de los alemanes en quiebra energética y que deben cumplir con el sagrado mandamiento dejado por Angela Merkel de pagar cuotas mensuales a migrantes africanos para que vivan mejor que los ciudadanos alemanes.

Pero, ¿contar con cuál Alemania? – se podría preguntar el propio Neonazi Zelensky. De hecho, de paso le dijo que solo podría entrar Ucrania a la Unión Europea en calidad de observador. Zelensky respondió que, o entran como socios con plenos derechos o no entran.

Merz viajó al menos dos veces como líder de la oposición a Kiev y tan pronto fue nombrado primer ministro -como lo hizo su par inglés, Andy Burnham- fue a Kiev en visita oficial a ofrecer más armas, dinero, cooperación industrial para desarrollo de drones y apoyo. Todo ello bajo el mantra de: ‘Rusia quiere invadir Europa’, o, ‘si no ayudamos a Ucrania, seremos los próximos’.

En otras ocasiones cuando iban de visita altos funcionarios europeos, Rusia mermaba las hostilidades y la capital ucraniana descansaba de los bombardeos; tal como señaló Zelensky durante la visita de Steve Witkoff y Jared Kushner en el mes de septiembre. Tales bombardeos intensificados como retaliación rusa a los ataques a civiles y centros energéticos en la Rusia profunda.

Es claro que los viajes a Ucrania de Merz, así como de otros europeos con herencias nazis, implica una peregrinación santa a esa punta de lanza que logrará, con la ayuda de las almas de todos los nazis bien muertos, sepultos e insepultos entre 1939 y 45, derrotar a los eslavos herederos soviéticos, a esos ‘orcos’ como suelen llamarles a los rusos.

Esta peregrinación es mística. Además, es el reto a ser un mártir por aniquilación de algún drone Geran, un misil Kinzhal, tal vez por un Skander M y por qué no, ser atomizado por un Oréshnik. Esto es una posibilidad latente. Los altos mandos rusos instaron a no viajar a Ucrania. Ya hay bombardeos a los puentes de Kiev. Quedará cerrada como una isla al otro lado del Dniéper. Es posible que esta sea la última vez que un europeo vaya a Kiev y salga vivo.

Así, Merz, un derrotado pronazi de hueso colorado se paseó una vez más por la capital ucraniana. La escena es tan absurda y cosmética como las escenas de la película de Buñuel, El discreto encanto de la burguesía, con las que inicio este escrito.

Aquella comedia hecha por un renombrado surrealista, utiliza la sátira y el refinamiento sobreactuado de burgueses que cada vez que intentan cenar juntos son interrumpidos por situaciones absurdas. Como señalan en el análisis crítico de la película:

Cada vez que están a punto de sentarse a la mesa, algo absurdo o inquietante interrumpe el acto: confusiones de horario, la muerte del dueño de un restaurante, un pelotón militar, un obispo que aparece de repente, sueños que se confunden con la realidad, etc.

La película no tiene una trama lineal clásica. Es una sucesión de intentos fallidos de cenar, intercalados con sueños de los personajes y situaciones cada vez más surrealistas. El acto de comer (símbolo de civilización, placer y status) se convierte en algo imposible. […]

Pero es precisamente esto lo que la obra señala en última instancia: la vida que llevan los individuos que forman parte de la alta burguesía es irreal, un espejismo, un islote en medio del océano de la verdadera realidad. A pesar de que su aislamiento propicia el empobrecimiento del resto del mundo, ni siquiera de este modo logran ser felices y esta frustración se ve reflejada en especial en la imposibilidad de conseguir lo que con más ímpetu desean, simbolizado aquí por la comida que no consiguen disfrutar nunca y por la inconveniencia de practicar sexo cuando y con quien desean.

Merz vive el discreto ‘desencanto’ de encarnar a un nazi de tercera generación sin chance de ganar lo que tampoco ganaron abuelo y padre. Merz es como una película que además de hablar de la mediocridad y la derrota, es de bajo presupuesto, reforzando por inercia la idea de derrota y mediocridad.

Se pasea por Kiev, una vez más, con el anhelo y el espejismo febril, nada discreto de triunfar sobre Rusia.

Lo que en la película es para los burgueses el deseo frustrado de ser felices en una cena, como hecho imposible lo es para Merz el no ser un nazi triunfando sobre un heredero de los padres y abuelos soviéticos. Además, Merz en realidad ha encarnado ya la personificación del desfase, de la ubicuidad errática: ¿Por qué sale de Alemania el día que allí celebran el día de la unidad alemana?

Merz sale de allí porque esa Alemania, esa que lo derrotó en las urnas hace unas semanas, no sustenta a la nación germana de su imaginación. Aquel campo onírico de Buñuel toma sentido en este ‘loco’ transeúnte por Kiev. Lo que danza en la amplia frente de Merz está hecho de esvásticas, columnas enormes, águilas imperiales, runas, antorchas, cuerpos esculpidos a imagen del ario que soñó su ídolo, Adolfo.

El día de la unidad alemana, habrá negros y musulmanes, quizá latinos, fornicando con las mujeres alemanas. Eso sí, a la luz de ‘antorchas’, debido a la crisis energética que asumieron Olaf Schulz y su gobierno de abyectos, al avalar el ‘Ka boom’ del Nord Stream.

Cada vez que quiere sentarse a la mesa con Zelensky, éste le recuerda que es el monstruo que creó la Unión Europea y EE.UU. y que le han subestimado como un simple histrión. Entonces, la cena fracasa. El ‘duende verde’ acosado por los neonazis de Azov sólo repite los mantras de ‘más dinero’, ‘pago a funcionarios’’, dinero para la guerra’, ‘escudo antimisiles’, ‘ingreso a la OTAN y a U.E.’ etc. La cena se frustra, pero es necesaria la esperanza para continuar con la trama, el anhelo por lograr la gran cena final: derrotar a Rusia.

Como en la descripción de la película, la vida de estos capitalistas, tecnócratas, burgueses neonazis empobrece a sus sociedades. Mientras, la cena anhelada que costará mucho dinero, se escapa entre el realismo de la incapacidad alemana por un rearme eficiente y donde sus jóvenes no desean prestar servicio militar, no hay dinero y su base industrial está rezagada al menos quince años detrás de la rusa.

Siempre que Merz se quiere sentar a cenar sabe que algo pasará y está pasando: Rusia sigue avanzando hacia occidente, para ubicarse allí, en esas calles donde aún él y el neonazi Volodómir caminan. Sólo queda un 9% del Donbás en manos de los ucronazis respaldados por la OTAN. El sueño húmedo de este nazi está por finalizar.

Al igual que la forma en que Buñuel dispuso ese ‘encanto’ burgués, la trama hecha por Merz, y toda su camarilla europea sufre de confusiones de horario, no linealidad y coherencia en el discurso, lo que deviene en la eterna frustración de no lograr lo que con tanto ímpetu desean.

Por ejemplo, el señor Friedrich ha señalado varias veces que Rusia es débil y va perdiendo la guerra y que por eso es clave apoyar a Ucrania. Por otro, dice que de ganar Rusia avanzará hacia Europa. Entonces, o es débil y puede ser derrotada o es fuerte y puede avanzar hacia Europa. No puede ser las dos cosas.

En cuestión de tiempos, tampoco le da o les da a los nazis y europeos colaboradores de éstos. No hace falta sino ver las más de treinta mil sanciones impuestas a Rusia para comprender cómo sus cálculos de tiempo sobre una Rusia que caerá, cada vez de manera definitiva, han fracasado. Más de veinte veces la cena surrealista, la cena antropofágica devoradora de rusos y Rusia se ha frustrado.

También han apostado a que, con el tiempo, el presidente Putin perdería apoyo de la sociedad y, por el contrario, su partido Rusia Unida, lideró y aumentó posiciones en la pasada jornada electoral, que fue acechada por drones y ataques ucronazis. De nuevo, el burgués nazi no comió.

Las declaraciones de Merz acerca de Rusia nunca han sido amables. El gobierno alemán se encuentra en pie de guerra con los puños apretados, impotente y alucinando. En la asamblea anual de Naciones Unidas, la parte alemana solicitó a los rusos una reunión. La misma duró veinte minutos, tiempo suficiente para insultar al canciller Lavrov y fijar ultimátum a Rusia:

El contenido de la conversación se centró en la guerra en Ucrania y las relaciones bilaterales. Wadephul exhortó al Kremlin a “abandonar la peligrosa senda de escalada frente a Alemania, Europa y la OTAN (Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte)”, citó una fuente alemana recogida por Reuters y AP. El ministro germano también insistió en que Rusia debe facilitar un acuerdo para reactivar las exportaciones de cereales por el mar Negro, afectadas por ataques a infraestructuras y barcos de ambos países.

No obstante, Lavrov aseguró que “no surgió nada nuevo” tras el diálogo, y posteriormente aprovechó su discurso ante la Asamblea General para reforzar la postura rusa sobre la guerra e intensificar las críticas contra Occidente, incluida Alemania. El ambiente previo al encuentro estuvo marcado por señalamientos bilaterales: Wadephul denunció crímenes de guerra rusos en Ucrania y abogó por incrementar la presión internacional sobre Moscú, al tiempo que expresó desconfianza sobre la voluntad real del Kremlin de negociar la paz.

Es una clara ofensa al canciller y el pueblo rusos, citar a éste a una reunión en donde le exige lo que se vio en los párrafos anteriores. Los alemanes neonazis quieren cenar y no pueden. Se frustran y explotan a su pueblo.

En contra eso sí de cualquier libreto surrealista de Luis Buñuel, quien no tuvo tanta creatividad o no conocía ni imaginaba este tipo de burgués, los alemanes mientras izan su brazo derecho con los dedos puestos como una saeta para saludar el alma de Hitler, de una esvástica o a la raza blanca superior, entregan los vientres de sus mujeres y los impuestos de sus ciudadanos a comensales no arios. Otra escena absurda de esta película de bajo presupuesto.

Merz caminó por Kiev. Hay una foto de él andando por ahí en una calle. Pero no es sólo él. En sus zapatos resopla toda la frustración de toda la Alemania neonazi; el discreto y terrible desencanto de ser perdedores, para fortuna del mundo una vez más en menos de cien años y nuevamente gracias a Rusia. Ojalá ahora desaparezcan para siempre. ‘Good Bye Merz’.

By John W. And Nisha WHITEHEAD

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

America, you got fooled. Again.

For starters, the war on illegal immigration was never just about illegal immigration.

If you fell for that, chances are you’re still falling for the government’s oldest trick: manufacture a crisis, identify an enemy, frighten the public, declare an emergency, and then use the resulting fear to justify another expansion of government power.

Terrorism. Crime. Drugs. National security. Illegal immigration.

Different threats. Same playbook.

Take a legitimate problem—or inflate it into an existential menace—and suddenly constitutional safeguards become inconveniences, extraordinary powers become necessities, and anyone who questions the government’s methods can be accused of siding with the enemy.

Immigration is a perfect example.

A highly charged issue that pushes all of the knee-jerk, polarizing buttons when it comes to deep-seated fears and prejudices, immigration has been the perfect vehicle for the Trump administration’s political fearmongering and authoritarian power grabs.

Trump has repeatedly described illegal immigration in the language of invasion, criminality and national-security emergency.

Yet a closer look suggests a far more complicated reality.

A 2026 Cato Institute analysis of Census data found that both legal and undocumented immigrants are less crime-prone than native-born Americans.

So, what is the government’s end game?

We’ve been so fixated on the overt cruelty, unapologetic authoritarianism, thuggish brutality, and blatantly unconstitutional abuses of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that we missed the larger menace taking shape behind it.

While the country fights over who should be allowed in, who should be kicked out, and who can participate in a pay-to-play scheme that benefits the oligarchy, the government continues building the infrastructure of a prison state.

This is the real power grab.

Immigration is the testing ground.

The precedent being established and the tactics being trotted out and normalized are the real danger. Because once the government establishes that it can suspend the Constitution’s safeguards for one disfavored group, there is nothing magical that keeps those powers confined to that group.

We are all at risk.

Be warned: the machinery being built to find, track, identify, seize, detain and disappear immigrants can just as easily be redirected toward the population at large.

That is how a police state becomes a prison state.

Immigration enforcement is the dress rehearsal in anticipation of the government’s ultimate muscle flex.

We are watching the infrastructure of a prison state being assembled in plain sight.

Surveillance, however, is only the beginning. The real power comes when the government takes everything it knows about you and acts on it.

Find you. Seize you. Detain you. Move you. Cut you off from the people who might intervene on your behalf. Eventually, make it difficult for anyone outside the system to determine where you are at all.

This is where ICE becomes particularly instructive.

As historian Timothy Snyder warns, “If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.”

Once due process ceases to be a non-negotiable right for one disfavored group, it becomes an optional privilege for everyone.

This is the slippery slope that eventually allows the government to make everyone disappear—citizen and immigrant alike—whenever they become inconvenient, or disfavored, or no longer useful to the powers-that-be.

This is precisely why due process matters.

Due process is not a privilege. It is not a legal loophole. And it is not a technicality reserved for people the government considers deserving of special treatment.

Due process is what stands between accusation and punishment, between suspicion and imprisonment, and between government power and individual liberty.

At the heart of that protection is habeas corpus, which translates to “you should have the body.”

Dating back to the Magna Carta of 1215, habeas corpus allows someone imprisoned by the government to challenge that detention in court and demand that the government make the case for why they should be held.

The Founders considered habeas such a fundamental and necessary ingredient in guarding against government tyranny that they included it in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution. As the Brennan Center explains, habeas “was conceived to guarantee protection from the king arbitrarily disappearing subjects to secret dungeons without just cause or due process.”

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published It Can’t Happen Here, imagining authoritarian government taking root not in some distant dictatorship but in America.

Those four words capture one of the most dangerous assumptions a free people can make.

It can’t happen here. Not in America. Not to citizens. Not to innocent people.

Not to me.

Perhaps not. Perhaps the government will never put you on a rendition flight to a country you’ve never visited. Perhaps you will never disappear into a detention center. Perhaps masked agents will never come to your door.

But there are other ways for a free people to disappear.

Privacy disappears. Anonymity disappears. The freedom to move about without being tracked disappears. The freedom to associate without creating a digital trail disappears. The freedom to protest without being identified, catalogued and entered into a database disappears. The presumption that government should leave you alone unless it has legitimate cause to investigate you disappears.

Bit by bit, the boundaries separating a free citizen from a prisoner begin to disappear, too.

You are watched. Tracked. Catalogued. Scanned. Recorded. Flagged. Followed.

Your movements become data. Your associations become data. Your face becomes data. Your life becomes searchable.

All that remains is for someone in government to decide what the data means.

This is how “We the People” disappear.

We disappear when we cease to live as a people presumed free and begin living instead as inhabitants of a country-sized surveillance state—watched constantly, tracked everywhere, our movements and associations increasingly subject to monitoring, cataloguing and government scrutiny.

That is the larger danger concealed by the immigration debate.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, eventually the prison built for someone else can become the prison imprisoning all of us.

Original article:  ronpaulinstitute.org

By John J. MEARSHEIMER

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The Trump administration and its supporters – including the Wall Street Journal editorial page – are working overtime these days to spin the news around the Iran war to make it appear that the US is winning and Tehran had better submit to Washington’s demands before it is wrecked, maybe even “annihilated.” Indeed, Trump is preparing the option of bringing the military hammer down on Iran after the midterm elections if Tehran has not surrendered by then.

In effect, Trump and his supporters are waging a “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran in the mainstream media.

This campaign is sure to fail. If anything, it reflects the Trump administration’s desperation. The president started a war the United States was bound to lose, and there is little he can do now to change that basic fact.

Trump’s propaganda campaign has two dimensions – one economic and the other military.

First, the administration argues that Iran is being economically strangled by the US naval blockade coupled with Operation Economic Outcast, the strategy announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on 24 August 2026. At the same time, it maintains that oil is once again flowing out of the Gulf at rates not far below those that prevailed on 27 February 2026. The implications are obvious: the economic punishment being inflicted on Iran will force it to capitulate soon, while the US economy – and the international community more generally – is well on its way to recovery.

Second, the US is now building up its military forces for a massive military strike after the mid-term elections, when Trump will be free of electoral constraints. This growing threat of a devastating US attack, coupled with the economic pain being inflicted on Iran, is designed to get Tehran to quit now, before its situation becomes even worse.

There are huge problems with this strategy. It sounds persuasive when the mainstream media dutifully purveys it, but it falls apart when one looks closely at what is actually happening.

Consider the military dimension. The headlines say the US is sending 10,000 additional troops and a third aircraft carrier – the USS Theodore Roosevelt – to the Persian Gulf region, creating the impression that Iran will soon be confronting three American carriers. Moreover, the additional troops – on top of the roughly 50,000 US troops already in the region – are portrayed as evidence that Trump is seriously considering putting boots on the ground.

The aircraft carrier story, however, is quite different from what the headlines suggest. The Roosevelt is reportedly being sent to replace the USS George Washington, while the supposed third carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush, has already left the Middle East and is now in Thailand. Thus, there is presently only one carrier in the region. Indeed, this is the first time during the war that the US has only one carrier in the Middle East, and it is difficult to imagine that there will be more than two – if even that many – after the midterm elections.

The larger problem is that the Iran war is severely straining the US Navy. Its senior leaders warn that the current operational tempo is not sustainable indefinitely. Carriers and other warships are being rotated through extremely long deployments, which cause significant maintenance and readiness problems that will have to be addressed at some point. This problem is compounded by the fact that US ships have lost access to nearby logistics facilities and increasingly depend on a supply chain that reaches back to Diego Garcia, which is about 2,500 miles from the Persian Gulf.

But even if three carriers are available to strike Iran, what could they accomplish in a renewed air campaign that the US and Israel could not accomplish together during the failed 40-day bombing campaign between 28 February and 8 April 2026? Some might argue that the US could finally destroy Iran’s oil infrastructure. The problem, however, is that Iran retains a second-strike capability and could retaliate by wreaking havoc on the oil infrastructure of the GCC states. One shudders to think what the consequences would be for the international economy.

On top of all this, the US faces a serious shortage of high-end weaponry, which is one of the main reasons it ended the 40-day bombing campaign and has shied away in recent weeks from engaging in tit-for-tat bombing exchanges with Iran. One would think that the shortage of critical munitions – both for striking Iran and defending against Iranian retaliation – would limit the scope and intensity of any renewed strategic bombing campaign, thereby reducing its chances of success.

Regarding ground forces, simply counting the number of U.S. military personnel in the Middle East is misleading when assessing the possibility of putting boots on the ground. What matters most in a ground war is the number of troops in actual ground-combat formations. I estimate that, of the roughly 50,000 U.S. military personnel already stationed in the region, about 5,000 belong to such formations: roughly 2,200 Marines and sailors in the 11th MEU, 2,000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne, and possibly another 800 Army personnel in Kuwait associated with Task Force Spartan. Of the roughly 10,000 additional personnel now being sent to the region, another 2,200 belong to the 13th MEU. Most of the remainder are sailors assigned to the Theodore Roosevelt carrier and its supporting warships. Thus, given present deployment plans, I estimate that by late November the United States will have just under 7,500 personnel in ground-combat formations in the Gulf region—roughly 4,400 in the two MEUs and 2,800 Army personnel.

There is no way a ground force that small provides a promising option against a country with Iran’s population and geography. Even tripling that number to roughly 23,000—which is highly unlikely—would not fundamentally alter the problem. Retired Army General Barry McCaffrey estimates that securing the Strait of Hormuz would require roughly 150,000 troops and three to six months of fighting. For comparison, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 with roughly 190,000 military personnel, and that force proved insufficient to hold much of the territory Russia initially captured. Iran has more than twice the population Ukraine had at the beginning of the Russian invasion, and its geography is considerably more forbidding for an invading army.

Simply put, the United States has not assembled anything remotely resembling the ground force required for a large-scale invasion of Iran. Indeed, from Tehran’s perspective, an American decision to launch such an offensive with anything resembling the forces presently available would present Iran with an opportunity to fight the United States under exceptionally favorable circumstances.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, two further points are in order. First, given how unpopular the Iran war is with the American public, there would almost certainly be a huge uproar if large numbers of US soldiers began coming home in body bags. Second, how are the Marines, who are aboard amphibious assault ships, supposed to land on Iranian territory if the missile and drone threat from Iran is forcing the US Navy to keep those large and vulnerable ships far from the Iranian coast?

Let’s turn to the economic dimension. There is no question that the US is doing great damage to Iran’s economy and inflicting enormous hardship on the Iranian people. But that has been true for a long time. The key question is whether that punishment can coerce Iran into surrendering to American demands.

There is no evidence that Iran is caving in to American pressure, and there are three reasons to doubt that it will. First, it is exceedingly difficult to find a case in the historical record in which an economic blockade by itself caused the target state to surrender. Second, Iran sees the US and Israel as existential threats to Iran – hardly surprising given the genocidal language Trump has used when talking about Iran – and states that believe their survival is at stake are exceptionally difficult to coerce. Third, Iran has a formidable escalation option if the economic pain becomes too great: it can attack the oil and gas infrastructure of the Gulf states and Israel, as well as their highly vulnerable desalination plants.

In short, it is difficult to see economic pressure alone forcing Iran to accept Trump’s terms. That is probably one reason the United States is once again talking about using military force. But, as I argued above, that option holds little promise of producing a favorable outcome.

Finally, there is no question that more oil is flowing out of the Gulf today than was the case in early September. But both Iran and the Houthis are working hard to reverse that trend. Iran is attacking US-escorted tankers on a daily basis, while the Houthis are targeting vital oil infrastructure inside Saudi Arabia. Moreover, despite the increased flow of oil out of the Gulf, gasoline prices remain very high, and a host of other economic problems show no signs of easing anytime soon, including high diesel prices, persistent inflation, elevated mortgage rates, and dangerously high bond yields across much of the West.

All of this is to say that the Trump administration has powerful economic incentives to shut this war down as soon as possible. Indeed, it would hardly be surprising if there were a growing sense of desperation behind closed doors among Trump and his advisers.

This, of course, helps explain why the Trump administration and its allies are waging a media campaign designed to persuade Iran that its days are numbered and that it had better concede to American demands before it is too late. The facts, however, tell a different story. The success of this strategy therefore depends on Trump being able to bamboozle the Iranians into believing that Godzilla is closing in on them. There is little reason to think Tehran will be hoodwinked.

Original article:  mearsheimer.substack.com

NATO Edge 26 in Izmir merges civilian tech with war-fighting. AI, cloud, cybersecurity now serve the military-industrial complex.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

The summit NATO held in Ankara in July continues to make its impact felt in our country — a summit marked by the lockdown of the city, red carpets rolled out for imperialist leaders, Janissary marches, the narrative of a “great Turkey” constructed around hosting the event, and arrests that continue to keep people behind bars.

As has often been pointed out, the July summit marked the beginning of a “new era” both internationally and for our country.

It looks like we will be discussing this important turning point for a long time to come. Meanwhile, NATO’s “work” in our country is not yet finished. Another critical NATO event is approaching, one that has received little attention in the mainstream media — and when it does, it will once again be framed through the narrative of “Turkey’s importance”: NATO Edge 26…

NATO Edge 26, which will be held in Izmir in November 2026, is being promoted using concepts such as “innovation,” “readiness,” and “the security of the future.” Or, to put it in plain language: the marketing and integration of military technologies, the defense industry, and war-fighting capacity…

The official promotional text of the event, organized by the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCIA), lays out its purpose quite clearly:

“NATO Edge 26 will focus on strengthening NATO’s readiness and war-fighting capacity through faster, smarter, and more scalable collaboration with industry.

…NCIA is excited to carry this legacy forward in Türkiye in 2026 and take the event a step further with a renewed format focused on delivering effective solutions and prioritizing industry partnerships.

Industry participation will be at the heart of the 2026 edition, providing more opportunities for direct engagement, focused information sessions, a more comprehensive understanding of NATO’s upcoming procurement requirements and priorities, as well as greater opportunities to showcase industry solutions to NATO decision-makers, end users, and potential partners.”

A military ecosystem operating according to market logic, with partnerships and participation at its core. Defense companies, states and military commands are expanding their cooperation in order to strengthen “war readiness”…

What exactly is NATO Edge?

NATO Edge is the flagship technology event of NATO’s technology and cybersecurity center, the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI Agency).

“Edge” can be translated into Turkish as “edge,” “frontier,” “advantage,” “superiority,” or, depending on the context, “cutting-edge” or “advanced.”

It was first held in 2022 in Mons, Belgium. The event was created by merging two previously separate events: the NATO Information Assurance Symposium (NIAS) and an industry conference known as NITEC.

According to NATO’s official documents, NIAS focused on cybersecurity, while NITEC carried the technology-and-industry dimension. In other words, NATO Edge explicitly targets both the technology and industry/commercial spheres.

At the first event, held in Mons, Belgium, on October 25–27, 2022, more than 2,100 registered participants and over 100 companies took part in the exhibition area. The program included topics such as the use of artificial intelligence in military applications, cybersecurity, and digital transformation.

At the second event, held in Tampa, Florida, in the United States, on December 3–5, 2024, cloud technologies, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and the strategic use of resources were discussed. According to NCIA’s 2024 annual report, approximately 60 percent of participants came from industry, while 31 percent represented NATO, governments, and armed forces.

This picture is a clear indication that artificial intelligence technology — whose development in the United States has accelerated since the early 2000s and exploded in recent years — is being systematically taken up by the military-industrial complex.

Moreover, this system has been developed directly under NATO’s military leadership, in cooperation with civilian industry, using resources so vast that civilian initiatives seeking to use technology — particularly artificial intelligence — “for the benefit of humanity” cannot compete with them.

In the United States, for example, many companies unable to find investment have begun receiving funding from military institutions such as the CIA and NATO and developing technologies under their direction. The fact that the CIA has been the “first investor” in numerous technology startups is a striking example of this system.

In short, the path of technological development has largely been left at the mercy of military leadership and the American technology giants.

A similar picture will emerge at NATO Edge 26. Many small startups participating in the event will seek agreements with major players and attempt to secure financing from them. Naturally, this will come at the price of working for NATO’s military interests.

For the “domestic, national, and highly nationalist” technology companies whose numbers have grown tremendously in our country in recent years, the “justification” is equally clear: Turkey is now a country on the verge of a major breakthrough, hosting major international events, supposedly becoming not their subordinate but their master, and possessing qualities that make it indispensable to everyone… So why not devote all our strength and labor to the strategy drawn up by NATO? We will make money, and we will take yet another step forward in a world order in which we are already supposedly such an important player…

This is more or less the logic behind the seemingly contradictory and irrational rhetoric of the Turkish defense industry about “challenging the world” and its actions that ultimately amount to working for imperialist powers.

Put simply, NATO Edge is precisely the embodiment of this logic through events, sessions, and corporate exhibition stands.

Why is it being held in Izmir?

NCIA has not given a specific reason for choosing Izmir as the venue for NATO Edge 26. However, it is possible to understand why Izmir was chosen by looking at the institution’s own documents.

First, a NATO Industry Forum was held during the Ankara Summit on July 7–8, where new procurement decisions worth tens of billions of dollars were announced. The decisions taken by NATO in July are intended to translate the political and financial commitments made in Ankara into operational capacity, while in Izmir, NATO and industry are to work together to accelerate that capacity.

Second, the Ankara Summit adopted a new Strategy for Industry-NATO Cooperation (SYNC). This document moves the NATO-industry relationship to an earlier stage. Through this mechanism, companies will not merely submit bids for tenders that have already been announced; they will be brought into the process from the point at which future capacity requirements are identified.

Third, the Turkish Ministry of National Defense presented NATO Edge 26 as an event aimed at “the international promotion and increased visibility of the Turkish defense industry’s ‘high-tech’ capabilities.” NCIA also signed, during the Turkish Industry Day it organized in Türkiye, one of the first contracts of its history concerning the modernization of very-low-frequency air-surveillance equipment for Allied Maritime Command with ASELSAN.

In other words, Izmir should be viewed not merely as an “event venue,” but as a point of contact for tying Turkey more tightly into imperialism’s defense-technology supply chain.

This is also where NATO Edge 26 differs most significantly from previous meetings. NCIA is openly telling companies: “You can learn about NATO’s requirements before they become official tender specifications,” while offering more than €1 billion in upcoming “NATO procurement opportunities.”

NATO Edge 26 is creating an early-stage matching mechanism between NATO’s military requirements and the private sector’s product-development and investment decisions.

Who is taking part?

The official NATO Edge participant list is still being updated, and in its publicly visible format, not all of the more than 270 companies known to be participating appear simultaneously. Nevertheless, a number of notable companies can be confirmed either through the official list or through the companies’ own NATO Edge announcements. Names appearing on the official list include Airbus, AWS, Anduril, ASELSAN, ASFAT, BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, BlackBerry, Booz Allen Hamilton, Cisco, Cloudflare, Broadcom, Armis Federal/ServiceNow, Atos, and Barikat Cyber Security.

Among the industry speakers on the program are Helsing co-founder and CEO Gundbert Scherf, Planet Labs CEO Will Marshall, UiPath founder Daniel Dines, AWS Global Defense executive Christian Hoff, Leonardo technology executive Alessandro Massa, Thales cortAIx Factory executive Mickael Brossard, and BlackBerry Chief Security Advisor Christine Gadsby.

The danger of ‘dual-use’

One of the concepts that stands out particularly in NATO’s 2026 event materials is “dual-use” technology.

NATO Deputy Secretary General Jean-Charles Ellermann-Kingombe said that NATO Edge 26 would be particularly attractive to “companies that have a credible military application alongside their primary commercial business.” In other words, NATO is no longer targeting only traditional defense companies; it is also targeting technologies that can be transferred from the commercial market into the military sphere.

What this means is that a technology company no longer needs to be a “weapons company” from the outset. A company can operate in data analytics, satellite imagery, cloud systems, communications, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, automation, or computing, while simultaneously entering the NATO system and working for NATO.

This significantly broadens the scope of what has long been described as the “militarization of technology.”

The NATO Edge 26 participant profile makes this clear. On one side are defense giants such as Airbus, Anduril, ASELSAN, Leonardo, and Thales; on the other are civilian technology companies such as AWS, Cisco, Cloudflare, Broadcom, BlackBerry, UiPath, and Planet Labs.

In other words, military technology no longer means merely “producing military products for armies”; it increasingly means placing the products you create at the service of military interests.

How are the market and militarization being merged?

In this new system, in which the private sector is also being drawn into the defense industry, the formula is clear:

Public funding, NATO demand, corporate investment, technology development, military integration, public procurement, larger-scale production, new investment…

At this point, we need to make a brief detour. Combining private enterprise with military requirements, when military needs are given priority, means the emergence of new economic crises in capitalist societies. Because this entire chain of needs will ultimately be paid for at the expense of workers and their social needs, which are placed at the bottom of the priority list.

The competitive strength of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has made its own breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, technology, and military technology, stems not only from those advances but also from the leadership of the Communist Party, which directs the public and private sectors from a single center. What provides China’s “speed,” as well as the threat it represents to the Atlantic alliance, is the Party’s control over and direction of the private sector.

This “threat” posed by China is pushing capitalism to take faster and harsher steps in new areas of civilian-military cooperation similar to Edge.

The ‘domestic and national industry’ is being tied to the NATO market

The enthusiasm of the “domestic and national industry” mentioned above is also being directly tied, under this new system, to the NATO market and its military requirements.

It is repeatedly argued that Turkey is expanding its own defense industry. But what kind of expansion is this?

The defense industry is being internationalized through NATO standards, NATO procurement mechanisms, NATO operational requirements, and access to the NATO market.

For this reason, “domestic production” and “NATO integration” do not necessarily have to be opposites. On the contrary, under today’s model, the two can take place simultaneously. The “domestic” character being referred to is, for a country whose entire military strategy has already been built for years in accordance with NATO interests, a very particular kind of domesticity.

Interestingly, a June 2026 announcement by the Aegean Region Chamber of Industry reveals that the quota initially allocated for 100 booths for Turkish defense-industry organizations at the event was reduced to 40 after fewer applications than expected were received from domestic companies.

This data is important in two respects.

First, the assumption that the Turkish defense industry is automatically and intensively turning toward the NATO market does not apply equally to every company. It is possible to guess which types of companies can afford to apply.

Second, it shows that presenting NATO Edge 26 simply as a “giant exhibition opening all of Turkey’s defense companies to the world” does not reflect reality.

What does the Ukraine connection show?

NATO Edge 26 also contains important signals regarding the war in Ukraine. Although our country has repeatedly sought to position itself as a mediator at every major turning point in the Russia-Ukraine war, it is quite clear that no one — NATO above all — has taken this intention seriously.

Among the Edge participants are Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense Innovation and Defense Technology Development Center and Brave1. Established in 2023, Brave1 is an official platform through which the Ukrainian government brings together defense-technology developers, the military, investors, and technology companies. Their participation also means that NATO will directly transfer the technological experience of the war in Ukraine into its own innovation ecosystem.

This, too, is no coincidence. Under the UNITE–Brave NATO program, NATO and Ukraine have already established a joint contract pool worth a total of €10 million, with plans to expand the program to as much as €50 million in subsequent stages.

Whose interests is technology serving?

Treating NATO Edge 26 in Izmir simply as an event where next-generation weapons, artificial intelligence applications, or digital defense systems are put on display would be a serious oversimplification. The “bigger picture” shows civilian and military capacities being merged into the same pool, with companies, states, military institutions, and technology developers jointly participating in the construction of a new war-fighting capacity under the name of “partnership.”

Thus, the scope of war ceases to be limited to weapons systems used on the battlefield; data, artificial intelligence, cloud systems, communications, satellite technologies, software, and logistics are all becoming components of war preparation and military planning.

From the perspective of our country, it is possible to say that Ankara’s “domestic and national” rhetoric points toward NATO’s requirements, standards, procurement mechanisms, and international defense-industry networks. The limits of the narrative that Turkey is an independent power capable of challenging the world through its own defense industry are ultimately being determined by the decisions taken at NATO events.

At the same time, events of this kind once again expose another reality that Marxists have repeatedly pointed out — and repeatedly demonstrated in practice: how conditional capitalism’s rhetoric of the “free market” really is.

When the issue is war and military requirements, the traditional claim that the market should be left to its own devices can suddenly be pushed into the background. Production capacity can be directed according to strategic priorities, and private capital can be encouraged to work for “security” needs.

In short, the “real question” posed by NATO Edge 26 is not which new technology is being developed, but according to whose needs, according to which political and economic priorities, and ultimately in whose service this technological capacity is being developed.

People involved in organized struggle used to be told: “Forget all this, get yourself a job first.” Now the phrase has changed: “Forget politics, we are living in the age of artificial intelligence — learn technology.”

And yet, although technological development and changing times transform the tools and needs at our disposal, they do not change the fact that the ruling classes use every instrument of “progress” to preserve their power.

From this perspective, the political purpose underlying the monopolization of artificial intelligence by military and economic giants is the same as the purpose underlying the control of machinery by the owners of capital in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.

In our country, where changing times, tools, and needs are pregnant with major crises, these “devilish deals” to be made in Izmir will open the door to yet another new era.

Ultimately, NATO Edge 26 is a contemporary example not only of technological development itself, but of the organization of technology for “pre-war” purposes and the socialization of its costs — that is, the shifting of those costs onto the backs of working people.

Our political predecessors, who once observed what the giant machines in factories were actually being used for alongside production, also passed down to us what needed to be done in response.

What needs to be built today is the stick that will be thrust into the digital gears of our age.

The failure of international diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ethiopian war is storing up an even bigger disaster for the Horn of Africa.

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War has flared up again in Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country, in a region near the strategically important Red Sea, which is already boiling with tension.

Hundreds of casualties have been reported in recent days from fighting centered mainly in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray province, but which is also spreading to other parts of the East African country bordering Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, and Kenya.

Ethiopia’s central government in the capital, Addis Ababa, accuses regional neighbors Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea of supporting rebel factions based in Tigray.

The Horn of Africa is already beset with wars in Yemen and Sudan and historic disputes between neighbouring countries over borders and natural resources. The region is an ongoing humanitarian disaster, with millions of people without food and facing displacement. The renewed conflict in Ethiopia could draw in several countries and turn the whole region into a catastrophic war zone.

Ethiopian journalist Mickael Minassie explains the background to the current upsurge in conflict and the danger of a wider international war embroiling several nations.

Minassie says that the Ethiopian civil war that blew up in 2020 between the federal government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front did not really come to an end with the signing of the Pretoria Peace Accord in 2022.

He says the Abiy government continued to wage a low-intensity war against the Tigray region, imposing an economic and food aid blockade on the war-torn territory, thereby intensifying severe humanitarian conditions.

This is why the conflict has resumed, he says. Peace was never implemented. And the “Abiy Ahmed regime” used the peace deal as a cover for continuing to wage war by other means. The recent response of the Tigray region, allied with other Ethiopian rebel groups, is an act of desperation to break from the oppressive conditions imposed by the central government.

He criticises the international community for not upholding the 2022 peace accord and ensuring compliance.

Minassie points to ominous international dimensions of the conflict.  The Ethiopian central government has served as a proxy for the United Arab Emirates by supporting the RSF insurgents in Sudan. The UAE is believed to be financing the Abiy government with military aid and weapons, including drones.

The United States has also recently signed a new regional security deal with the Abiy government. No doubt, to gain greater access to the Red Sea region for strategic advantage against Yemen’s Ansar Allah government, which has imposed a blockade on Israeli and Saudi shipping.

Minassie says that the international community has been silent about the violations committed by the Abiy government, which has emboldened it to continue aggression against the Tigray people.

Russia and China have also given diplomatic support to the Ethiopian central government, according to Minassie. Notably, Ethiopia has gained membership of the BRICS forum, with virtually no criticism from Brasília, Moscow, New Delhi, Beijing, or Pretoria over its lack of implementing the 2022 peace accord.

He says that the international community has turned a blind eye to the conflict in Ethiopia. The death toll among the Tigray population during the 2020-22 phase of the war is estimated by the United Nations at 600,000, which is about 10 per cent of the total. This death toll compares with some 20,000 civilian deaths in the Ukraine war – about 300 times greater. Western media has been saturated with reports on the Ukraine war, especially to portray Russia as the villain. Yet Western media reporting on Ethiopia has been negligible by comparison.

The failure of international diplomatic efforts to resolve the Ethiopian war – a war of genocidal dimension – is storing up an even bigger disaster for the Horn of Africa. The impact on global trade and mass migration portends that Europe, in particular, will suffer immense repercussions.

If the door that Moscow says is open is actually closed, it’s closed on this side – and it wasn’t Rome that closed it of its own accord.

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A Valdai summit off-site

What I’m going to share in this article is less technical and more personal than usual. It concerns the information gathered over several days of dialogue, discussion, and, apparently, a “scandalous” question that became a media sensation in Europe – because I asked the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, what will become of Europe.

You can find the full video of Vladimir Putin’s speech at the Valdai Forum here.

You can find my remarks and Putin’s responses here.

This year, the Valdai Forum did not meet in Sochi. Invitations sent out in the summer still listed the Black Sea city as the venue, but then, in late August, the organizers announced the move to the Moscow region. According to FT, the Federal Protective Service demanded the relocation, concerned about the threat of Ukrainian drones following a summer of attacks on coastal refineries. This logistical detail carries its own weight. The war – which at Valdai is always discussed in the language of the international system – is now also influencing the practical organization of the forum.

The 23rd Annual Meeting took place from September 28 to October 1 under a title that to a European sounds almost like a personal question: “Responsibility for the Future: The Limits of the Possible or Limitless Possibilities?” The opening featured the Club’s annual report, Keep Calm. The State and Responsibility for the Future, which the authors present – with a nod to Kubrick – as a manual for stopping worrying and learning to love chaos. This was followed by nine thematic sessions, a special session, and, on the final day, the plenary session with the President.

I arrived as an Italian and a European, knowing that in those halls, the two identities carry different weight. Over the course of the week, I spoke, in particular, with four high-level interlocutors: Sergey Karaganov, Maksim Oreshkin, Sergey Lavrov, and, during the plenary session, Vladimir Putin. The first three conversations took place on the sidelines of the sessions, and I’m recounting them from my notes – in essence, not word for word. The fourth exchange is public and documented by a transcript, from which I’m quoting directly.

Taken one by one, the four dialogues convey things that anyone following the Russian debate is already familiar with. When viewed in sequence, however, they paint a clearer picture: a shared assessment of Europe and four different ways of drawing conclusions from it. And, above all, a future that is by no means bright.

Karaganov: Europe as the source of evil

Sergei Karaganov is one of the founders of the Valdai Club, honorary chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and for years has been the most radical voice of Russian realism. With him, the conversation began immediately with the most contentious point. Europe, he said, is the root of all evil. If it were destroyed, no one would mourn it. A tactical nuclear conflict on its territory would not involve other actors. Europeans have had plenty of time to find a solution to their own problems; now that they have chosen to prepare for war against Russia, it is too late to offer them another chance.

I must be honest: I’ve never been a fan of Karaganov; I’ve often found his views too radical and old-fashioned. But starting with an after-lunch coffee together – and continuing over the course of a week of discussions – I discovered that we think very similarly and that his views are by no means trivial. Anyone who has read his recent statements will recognize this line of thinking. In June 2023, Karaganov had publicly argued that Russia should lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons to restore credibility to its deterrence and induce the West to withdraw from the conflict in Ukraine. Part of that approach was subsequently incorporated into official documents: the Fundamentals of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence, updated in November 2024, treat an attack by a non-nuclear state carried out with the participation or support of a nuclear power as a joint attack.

His words, however, contain three distinct assertions, and it is worth keeping them separate. The first is a historical and civilizational judgment: Europe as the source of modernity’s great catastrophes, from the world wars to colonialism. This is a thesis that Karaganov has long argued and which can be contested, but it belongs to the realm of interpretation. The second – that no one would mourn Europe – is a prediction about others’ reactions; from what I observed during those days, it resonates with a significant portion of the Asian, African, and Latin American participants. The third is a strategic hypothesis that underpins everything else: a nuclear escalation in Europe would remain confined to Europe.

On this point, the literature on deterrence has been debating for seventy years, and – fortunately – empirical evidence is lacking. The factor that complicates this hypothesis lies within Europe itself. France and the United Kingdom possess national arsenals, and in March 2025, Paris formally opened the debate on the European dimension of its own deterrence. A “solely European” nuclear conflict presupposes that two European nuclear powers would stand idly by. This is the weakest assumption in the entire argument, regardless of how one assesses the other two.

It should also be noted that Karaganov does not speak on behalf of the government. At the Valdai Forum, he represents the wing of the Russian debate that pushes the Kremlin toward more definitive positions, and one of his roles is precisely to push the boundaries of what can be said. Viewed in this light, his “too late” is an indication of a trend rather than a doctrine.

Oreshkin: The market that no longer exists

With Maksim Oreshkin, the tone has shifted entirely. Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, former Minister of Economic Development, and later the President’s economic advisor, Oreshkin reasons in terms of cash flows and balance sheets. His assessment was blunt: Europe is finished. There is no longer any viable competition in the energy market, because China and India now occupy the top spots among Russia’s customers. And there is no reason to invest in a European bailout, since the Europeans, to date, have shown no interest in finding a peaceful and reasonable solution. The question I had posed to him during the meeting with the Valdai participants was: “Given that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is no longer available – because it was sabotaged – do you intend to find a new energy transportation system, assuming Europe reconciles and the diplomatic situation improves?” His blunt – and perhaps brutal – response is like a dagger of truth plunged into the conscience of every European.

“Over” should be understood in a technical sense. Oreshkin was not speaking directly about European civilization but about Europe as a trading partner: a market that has ceased to be central to Russia and therefore does not warrant political concessions to win it back. After 2022, Russian crude oil found its main buyers in China and India, while Brussels, through the agreement between the Council and the European Parliament in December 2025, committed to phasing out imports of Russian gas – including pipeline gas and LNG – by 2027. The energy interdependence that had kept Europe and Russia connected for half a century – even during the worst moments of the Cold War – has been dismantled by both sides. Oreshkin’s reasoning captures the simplest consequence of this: whoever is no longer the main customer no longer has leverage. These are the laws of the market, and neither in London, nor in Berlin, nor in Brussels are there any politicians or power groups left who can tell Russia “what to do”.

The flip side is well known in Moscow, too. A market dominated by two major buyers allows them to demand discounts, and replacing Europe with Asia comes at a cost in terms of price and access to technology. But according to the logic presented to me, the question is no longer whether Europe is in Russia’s interest. It is how much it would cost to make it beneficial again, and the implicit answer is that Europeans must bear that cost.

Lavrov: the door closed on “this” order

With Sergey Lavrov, the discussion shifted from the economy to diplomacy, without changing the conclusion. Europe, he said, had many opportunities to reestablish a dialogue with Russia and chose instead to fuel direct confrontation. Now it is too late to turn back: all limits have been crossed, and with the current European order, there is no way to return to previous relations.

I’d like us to pause for a moment to consider the weight of these words. Those who know Lavrov know that he is a politician capable of weighing every word with great intelligence, even in more relaxed settings such as the Valdai Summit. “The limits have been crossed.” It would be pointless to list these limits, because they are so obvious to the whole world that it would simply be a waste of time. But the look in Lavrov’s eyes as he spoke about Europe – I will never forget that. I have met him many other times, but on this occasion, there was something different.

The minister has a track record of events that Russian diplomacy regularly references: the Minsk agreements, the draft treaties on security guarantees submitted to the United States and NATO on December 17, 2021, and the Istanbul negotiations in the spring of 2022. The Russian interpretation of each of these developments is controversial, and it is contested in Europe. What interests me here is another element – a qualification that, upon re-reading after the plenary session, proved to be the key to the entire week. A return is impossible under this European framework. Not with Europe, in its current form – that is, the EU and NATO. The rejection concerns a ruling class and an institutional architecture, not the countries that are part of it.

I wonder just how much Russian patience has been abused to reach the point of saying such things? Classic Russian literature offers us admirable examples of how Russian politicians are capable of stalling, ignoring, and being patient. And there’s no denying that this has consistently been the attitude of the Russian ruling class during the recent years of conflict. To go so far as to say that the limit has been crossed – something Putin would later echo in the summit’s plenary session – means there are no more resources to waste on patient waiting; it means the Bear has been awakened from its hibernation at the wrong moment; it means the consequences of these actions will be of epochal significance.

Lavrov added one more thing: “We are ready to strike Europe in an exemplary manner, not as we did in Ukraine.” Take note of these words, dear European friends. Reread them and reflect on their weight. Nothing more needs to be said.

An Italian professor asks Putin a question

We come now to one of the most dangerous moments of my career. The plenary session took place, as is traditional, with the Russian president in attendance and Fyodor Lukyanov moderating. I took the floor and asked a two-part question:

“I come from Italy, a country that currently does not have good relations with Russia. As a European, I would like to ask you: What conditions will Russia set for developing a new security system for European countries? And, if we imagine a post-European Union Europe, will you consider it part of a great Eurasian partnership, or, in your view, will the United States and Russia always be competing for these territories?”

Putin began with the second part, and the order is no coincidence:

“Italy is, in fact, located in Europe, and I am speaking of a Eurasian partnership: it goes without saying, therefore, that we will consider – and already do consider – Italy a Eurasian partner as well.”

Immediately afterward, he clarified that the fate of the European Union, and Italy’s continued membership in it, “is none of our business.” Moscow does not even intend to discuss it, because any comment on the matter would be interpreted as an attempt to break up the EU, “while we do not want to break up anything at all. We only want to build and cooperate.”

On the conditions for a new security system, the response was clear: “We have no preconditions.” The obstacle, in his view, lies on the other side. Some European politicians consider it unacceptable for a single country to open a dialogue with Russia, and Putin has called this demand a diktat even harsher than that of the Soviet era. The comparison was carefully crafted: the USSR was a unitary and highly centralized state, whose republics were part of a single state structure; the European Union, in theory, is not, but in practice behaves as if it were. “No one is forbidding us; we’re ready.”

At that point, Lukyanov interjected with a provocative remark typical of an experienced moderator: since Brussels forbids it, wouldn’t it be better to contribute a little to the disintegration of the EU, so as to make it easier to deal with individual countries? The answer came without hesitation: “But there’s no need – they’ll fall apart on their own.”

Then Putin addressed me directly. “Our Italian colleague knows this better than we do,” he said, and began running the numbers: Italian public debt at 140%, the deficit around 3%, and in other European countries close to 5%. The figures were rounded but not far from the truth. According to Istat and Eurostat, at the end of 2024, Italy’s public debt stood at 135.3% of GDP and its net borrowing at 3.4%. The point of the passage, however, wasn’t about the decimal points. All problems start with the economy: living standards fall, unemployment rises, and citizens of the major European economies feel it firsthand – and this, he said, “also undermines the very foundations of the European Union. But that’s not our business; we don’t interfere.”

He concluded by reiterating the offer in a balanced manner: dialogue with the Union as a whole, if the Union so desires, or with individual countries, without preconditions. “But there must be no preconditions on the European side either.”

Trying to grasp the magnitude of these words, the political balance they reveal, and the strength of a statesman who cares not only about the good of his own country but also that of an entire other continent is a true lesson in what politics is all about.

Listen to Putin’s entire speech, and you will understand how, in less than five minutes, it is possible to capture the decline of all of Europe, in all its facets, while at the same time wistfully reiterating that Russia has done everything in its power to offer its assistance. But the choices of Europeans are their own, whatever flag they may fly. Russia respects and will always respect the fundamental principles of its foreign policy and its political tradition. No miraculous messianism, no improvised savior.

Europe – or rather, the Europeans of this Europe – what do they intend to do?

Rereading my travel notes

Rereading my notes upon my return, the first thing that stands out is the convergence of views. The strategist, the economist, the foreign minister, and the President have each expressed, in their own words, the same assessment: today’s Europe has exhausted its credit with Moscow. The second thing that stands out is that each draws a different conclusion from that diagnosis.

For Karaganov, the conclusion is coercive and takes on an almost eschatological tone: Europe has had its chance, and what follows is no longer a matter for diplomacy. For Oreshkin, it is a matter of cold, hard accounting: Europe is not worth the investment needed to win it back. For Lavrov, it is a limited diplomatic withdrawal, focused on the political structure rather than the people. Finally, for Putin, the door remains open – but toward individual states, not toward Brussels – accompanied by the expectation that economic erosion will do the rest.

The apparent contradiction between the “too late” stance of the first three and the “no preconditions” stance of the fourth is resolved precisely in Lavrov’s characterization. The result is a coherent line, which I would call “bilateralization”: Moscow will not deal with the Union as a political entity as long as its current leadership remains in place; it offers individual member states channels without preconditions and lets Europe’s internal difficulties make those channels attractive. The reference to Italy as a Eurasian partner “already today” must be understood within this framework: it is not a courtesy; it is an indication of which interlocutor Moscow prefers.

I certainly cannot claim that the four exceptional interlocutors had reached an agreement – that goes without saying – but I found this convergence truly “prophetic.” Valdai has always been the venue where the breadth of Russian debate is showcased to a foreign audience. I can say that these perspectives are compatible and mutually reinforcing: Karaganov’s tough stance makes Putin’s offer appear moderate; Oreshkin’s figures lend credibility to the idea that Moscow does not need to make concessions; and Lavrov’s formula balances firmness with openness.

The 2010–2012 sovereign debt crisis gave rise to the European Stability Mechanism and the banking union; the pandemic led to Next Generation EU and the first large-scale common debt. Within the Union, crises have generated at least as much centralization as fragmentation. “They will fall apart on their own” is therefore a gamble, not an observation – even if the gamble costs little to those making it: if the EU holds together, Moscow has at least offered dialogue; if it collapses, it already has bilateral channels in place.

The indicators to watch over the next twelve to eighteen months are fairly clear. The first concerns bilateral visits to Moscow by EU heads of government, in addition to the previous visits by Viktor Orbán in July 2024 and Robert Fico in May 2025. The second is whether unanimity holds during the semi-annual renewals of sanctions, where a single veto is enough to open a crack. The third concerns national exemptions from the timeline for phasing out Russian gas. The fourth – and most significant for us – is the possible opening of a structured channel by a major capital, including Rome.

What do I take away from this? As an Italian, the phrase I’m taking with me isn’t the one about disintegration; it’s the other one: “We already consider Italy a Eurasian partner as well.” It contains both an offer and an observation directed at us. If the door that Moscow says is open is actually closed, it’s closed on this side – and it wasn’t Rome that closed it of its own accord.

How long can a country with a debt exceeding 135% of GDP afford to leave it up to others to decide who can speak with whom? No one in Moscow asked me that. It’s a question I brought home with me on my own. And every Italian of good conscience, every European who still has a heart, knows the answer.

Merz è un uomo già condannato. La paura e il bellicismo non fanno guadagnare voti.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Dopo aver imparato a proprie spese cosa significa ricevere uno schiaffo in faccia alle elezioni in Sassonia-Anhalt, la CDU ha subito una vera e propria disfatta il 20 settembre nel Meclemburgo-Pomerania Anteriore (Meck/Pomm) e a Berlino.

Analizzando innanzitutto i dati del Mecklenburg/Pomerania Anteriore, l’affluenza alle urne è stata del 78,1%, circa la stessa registrata in Sassonia-Anhalt con il 77,8%.

Il risultato finale ufficiale, seppur ancora provvisorio, può essere considerato una piccola sorpresa rispetto a quello della Sassonia-Anhalt, ma comunque illuminante. Quattro partiti occuperanno dei seggi nel parlamento regionale.

AfD 38,2% = 32 seggi

SPD 35,5%, con il ministro-presidente uscente che punta a rimanere in carica = 29 seggi

Die Linke (Sinistra) 6,5% = 5 seggi

Die Grüne (Verdi) 5,7% = 5 seggi

Il parlamento statale è composto da un totale di 71 seggi.

Ora la parte interessante: CDU 4,9%, zero seggi grazie alla soglia del 5%; così come FDP 1,0%, anche in questo caso zero seggi.

Ora cerchiamo di inquadrare la situazione in una prospettiva più ampia.

L’AfD ha vinto le prossime elezioni, anche se non con un margine così ampio come in Sassonia-Anhalt, ma si tratta comunque di una vittoria.

Manuela Schwesig, attuale presidente del partito dal 2017, appartiene all’élite dell’SPD. In precedenza, dal 2013 al 2017, ha ricoperto la carica di Ministro dell’Istruzione, della Famiglia, degli Anziani, delle Donne e dei Giovani a livello federale, e un incarico analogo nel parlamento regionale del Mecklenburg dal 2008 al 2013. Ha attraversato un periodo difficile quando l’SPD si è allontanato dall’essere un partito dei lavoratori per intraprendere le cosiddette riforme sociali che hanno drasticamente ridotto il sistema di sicurezza sociale, cercando di attenuare il più possibile gli effetti negativi dei tagli. Il suo ruolo in politica è sempre stato caratterizzato da sincerità e attenzione, dando l’impressione di essere una persona onesta.

Lei appartiene alla ristretta cerchia di politici dell’SPD da cui ci si aspetta un futuro più roseo per il partito, ma sembra intenzionata a rimanere al suo posto nel Mecklenburg/Pommarding, almeno per il momento.

I Verdi e la Sinistra hanno ottenuto ciò che ci si aspettava da loro: i Verdi in difficoltà, e la Sinistra ancora impegnata a risollevarsi dopo un periodo di turbolenze interne seguito all’abbandono del partito da parte di Sahra Wagenknecht, che ha fondato il suo movimento, BSW, portando con sé alcuni elettori di sinistra.

I Verdi, nati come partito pacifista, si opposero al riarmo militare e al degrado ambientale. Dal 2022, tuttavia, sono diventati uno dei principali sostenitori del regime ucraino e del riarmo tedesco ed europeo, talvolta superando persino i conservatori tradizionali. Questo ha comportato una perdita di consensi tra gli ambientalisti, soprattutto tra i giovani elettori. I sostenitori della pace si sono rivolti all’AfD e, in una certa misura, alla Sinistra, gli unici partiti che propongono una soluzione più pacifica e diplomatica.

La vera sorpresa di queste elezioni non è l’FDP. Al momento non ha un ruolo di rilievo, essendo stato in numerosi governi di coalizione dal 1949, aiutando sempre i due partiti principali a raggiungere le maggioranze necessarie. Sembra aver perso la propria identità, cercando di allearsi con gli avversari in campagna elettorale e finendo per smarrire la strada.

Il problema principale è che la CDU, il partito di governo a livello nazionale, ha ottenuto un misero 4,9% ed è stata quindi estromessa dal parlamento statale. È una sconfitta enorme. Il signor Merz è praticamente un uomo morto che cammina, e il suo destino è segnato per tutti.

Gli ex stati della Germania dell’Est si sentono ancora abbandonati e traditi dopo la riunificazione. I programmi istituiti per modernizzare e risanare la vecchia DDR hanno beneficiato soprattutto aziende e istituzioni della Germania occidentale. Gli appalti furono truccati e centinaia di imprese finirono in amministrazione controllata, per poi essere vendute a prezzi stracciati a investitori occidentali.

Questo è uno dei problemi di fondo ancora presenti nella mente degli ex cittadini della DDR e viene spesso addotto come spiegazione di tali risultati elettorali. Tuttavia, questa giustificazione è valida solo come pretesto per nascondere le carenze dei partiti tradizionali, ignorando i veri problemi come lo spopolamento dei villaggi, la mancanza di infrastrutture adeguate per assistere una popolazione che invecchia, le scarse opportunità di lavoro, le problematiche legate ai migranti e la sfiducia nei confronti dei partiti al potere. La forza trainante al momento della riunificazione era la CDU, le cui promesse non si sono avverate. Pertanto, le opzioni disponibili all’epoca erano un programma socialista o, in alternativa, un programma conservatore.

A prima vista, le elezioni a Berlino non hanno colpito la CDU con la stessa intensità degli altri due Länder tedeschi. Tuttavia, essendo Berlino la capitale, i risultati assumono un’importanza particolare. Anche qui, i partiti di governo hanno subito perdite significative a favore dei partiti di sinistra, AfD e Linke. I risultati sono i seguenti, con l’aggiunta di guadagni e perdite a scopo di chiarezza:

Die Linke 25,7% 47 seggi +13,5%

CDU 18,8% 34 seggi −9,4%

AfD 16,3% 29 seggi +0,1%

Grüne 14,3% 26 seggi −4,1%

SPD 12,1% 22 seggi −10,1%

BSW 4,7% sotto la soglia del 5%, nessun seggio

FDP 2,5% sotto la soglia del 5%, nessun seggio

La partecipazione è stata del 74,2%.

Il parlamento statale ha 158 seggi e la maggioranza si ottiene con 80 seggi. Ciò significa che ci sarà sicuramente un governo di coalizione. Al momento, tutti gli indizi puntano a una coalizione tra Linke (Sinistra), SPD e Verdi.

L’AfD non è riuscita a ottenere gli stessi risultati delle precedenti elezioni. Ciò è dovuto principalmente a due fattori.

Berlino ha un ambiente urbano e, come tale, un elettorato più concentrato, con una popolazione più giovane e composta da molti nuovi residenti provenienti da altri stati tedeschi.

Il secondo problema riguarda le enormi difficoltà specifiche di tali contesti. La disponibilità di alloggi a prezzi accessibili è una delle questioni centrali. L’AfD non ha esperienza nella gestione urbana e non propone concetti innovativi sufficientemente diversi da convincere gli elettori a votare per l’AfD.

È sorprendente che partiti con perdite così ingenti come l’SPD riescano comunque ad arrivare al potere. A parte la CDU, i partiti che hanno subito le maggiori sconfitte in queste elezioni finiscono comunque al governo. Questa è la bellezza di una coalizione.

Il partito di sinistra Linke non gode di grande fiducia da parte dei partiti tradizionali e degli elettori conservatori, poiché aleggia ancora intorno ad esso un’aura di comunismo. Ciononostante, i risultati elettorali sono chiari e sarà interessante vedere come Linke riuscirà a tradurre in realtà i temi della sua campagna elettorale, incentrata principalmente sul problema abitativo. Gli altri partner della coalizione faranno del loro meglio, quindi non sono previsti cambiamenti troppo radicali.

Anche in questo caso si può constatare che i partiti al governo a livello federale hanno ricevuto un messaggio chiaro, e le sconfitte dipingono un quadro desolante. Sarà un’impresa ardua cambiare l’opinione pubblica in tempo per le prossime elezioni di aprile. Ascoltando le dichiarazioni di questi partiti, sembra più che probabile che questi risultati si ripeteranno nella primavera del 2027, e a quel punto governare la Germania diventerà un’impresa pressoché impossibile.

Qualunque cosa accada, una cosa è ormai chiara. Una politica di paura e guerrafondaia, di fronte a un futuro con tagli drastici ai sistemi sociali, alla sanità e alle pensioni, e a una situazione economica che sembra peggiorare costantemente, non porterà il consenso degli elettori. Soprattutto quando non c’è una nuova visione da affrontare e risolvere, ma solo tagli e riduzioni, spacciati per riforme.

Il cancelliere tedesco, subito dopo la chiusura dei seggi, si è presentato davanti alla stampa e ha dichiarato: la stagione elettorale del 2026 è finita. Sembrava sollevato.

In fin dei conti, la CDU ha poche alternative. Se Merz fa marcia indietro sulle sue “riforme”, sembrerà debole e si arrenderà all’SPD, rafforzandola ulteriormente.

Se si avvicinasse maggiormente all’AfD, cercando di sottrarre voti, non gli sarebbe d’aiuto, dato che l’AfD è nata inizialmente da membri scontenti della CDU.

Se continua così, è assolutamente chiaro che Merz e la CDU non vinceranno le prossime elezioni federali, e Merz avrà un compito arduo per far sì che il governo segua la linea della CDU. Se l’SPD non riuscirà a dimostrare quanto sia realmente diverso dalla CDU, anche loro andranno incontro al disastro. I pericoli di essere un partner minore nelle coalizioni. Una lezione che l’FDP ha imparato a sue spese.

Nascondere la mancanza di una visione o persino di un piano chiaro per il futuro non ha mai giovato a nessun partito al governo, soprattutto nel momento in cui idee alternative, proposte da un forte partito di opposizione, guadagnano terreno a ogni elezione.

Se le prossime elezioni dell’aprile 2027 dovessero avere lo stesso esito delle ultime due, all’interno della CDU la paura si trasformerebbe in panico, e si potrebbero persino tenere elezioni federali alla fine della primavera. L’esito è imprevedibile. Tuttavia, tentare di mettere al bando l’AfD significherebbe la fine di un partito politico un tempo glorioso e la fine della democrazia come la conosciamo in Germania.

Rekord-Spritpreise, Geheimdienst-Zugriff auf Krankenakten, Millionen für die NGO eines CDU-Abgeordneten – und immer derselbe Reflex: Verantwortung liegt stets woanders.

Es gibt Regierungspressekonferenzen, die sich um ein Thema drehen, und solche, die sich um ein Prinzip drehen. Die Sitzung vom Montag gehörte in die zweite Kategorie. Das Prinzip lautete: Verantwortung liegt stets anderswo – bei globalen Märkten, bei Moskau, beim Bundeskartellamt, bei der Europäischen Kommission, bei der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Lage.

Das Auswärtige Amt eröffnete mit der Reise des Außenministers nach München und Genf und nutzte die Gelegenheit für ein Bekenntnis zur Arbeit der Goethe-Institute in fast hundert Ländern. Die Schließung der Institute in Russland stellte die Sprecherin dabei als Bruch einer kulturellen Brücke dar, der in einem „sehr repressiven Raum“ geschlagen worden sei.

Nicht nur hier öffnete sich unmittelbar ein Raum für Nachfragen.

Schließung der Goethe-Institute: Reaktion ohne Ursache

Denn was in dieser Darstellung fehlte, war der Anlass. Diese Zeitung fragte nach, weshalb das Ministerium den Vorgang so präsentiere, als sei er einseitig von russischer Seite ausgegangen – obwohl ihm die Schließung des Russischen Hauses in Berlin vorausgegangen war. Die Antwort blieb bei der Formel, die Darstellung entspreche den Tatsachen; die russische Reaktion sei „ungerechtfertigt“, die deutschen Schritte hingegen „notwendig und maßvoll“ gewesen.

Damit bestätigte die Sprecherin implizit genau das, was sie zuvor nicht erwähnt hatte: dass es sich um eine Reaktion handelte. Auf die Nachfrage, ob das Amt von der Reziprozität überrascht worden sei, folgte keine Antwort, sondern eine Zurückweisung der Schlussfolgerung. Ob die Konsequenz antizipiert wurde, blieb offen – eine für die Bewertung der eigenen Entscheidung nicht unerhebliche Frage.

Explodierende Spritpreise: Ursachen ohne Urheber

Der zweite Schwerpunkt war der Rekordanstieg bei Diesel und Benzin. Der Regierungssprecher führte ihn auf die „Zuspitzung der Situation im Nahen Osten“, Angriffe auf Ölpipelines und die Blockade von Seewegen zurück – ausdrücklich nicht auf Entscheidungen der Bundesregierung.

Auf die Frage dieser Zeitung, welche Länder und Akteure hinter dieser Zuspitzung stehen und wen die Bundesregierung als Hauptverantwortliche benennt, verweigerte der Sprecher die Auskunft: Es sei „nicht mein Job, irgendwelche Verantwortlichkeiten zu verteilen“. Bemerkenswert ist die Selektivität dieser Zurückhaltung. In derselben Pressekonferenz benannte derselbe Sprecher Russland ausdrücklich als Urheber gezielter Angriffe auf das ukrainische Eisenbahnnetz. Die Zuschreibung von Verantwortung ist offenbar keine Frage des Amtsverständnisses, sondern der geografischen Richtung.

Auch die zweite Frage dieser Zeitung blieb faktisch unbeantwortet: Warum fallen die Preissteigerungen in Deutschland deutlich stärker aus als in den Nachbarstaaten? Das Wirtschaftsministerium verwies auf unterschiedliche Steuersysteme und Maßnahmen – ohne zu erläutern, warum Deutschland jene Maßnahmen, die 23 von 27 EU-Staaten ergriffen haben, nicht ergreift. Ein Kollege hielt den Vergleich mit Polen entgegen: rund 50 Cent Differenz pro Liter.

Hier wurde der zentrale Widerspruch der Sitzung sichtbar. Wenn die Preise, wie der Regierungssprecher betont, ausschließlich globalen Marktkräften folgen, lässt sich die erhebliche Spreizung innerhalb des europäischen Binnenmarktes schwerlich erklären. Wenn sie hingegen maßgeblich von nationalen Steuer- und Abgabenstrukturen abhängt – wie das Wirtschaftsministerium einräumt –, ist die Preisbildung sehr wohl politisch gestaltbar.

Das Finanzministerium löste dieses Dilemma rhetorisch, indem es den Schwarzen Peter an die Mineralölkonzerne weiterreichte: Von „Abzocke“ und „Krisenprofiten“ war die Rede. Das Instrument der Wahl ist eine europäische Übergewinnsteuer, für die sich der Minister beim Ecofin einsetzen will. Auf die Frage, warum keine nationale Lösung erfolge, hieß es, man wolle „kein komplexes juristisches Neuland betreten“. Dass ein Instrument, das eine Einigung aller Mitgliedstaaten und einen Kommissionsvorschlag voraussetzt, schneller wirkt als eine nationale Maßnahme, erschließt sich nicht ohne Weiteres. Der Direktauszahlungsmechanismus, über den Entlastungen ausgezahlt werden könnten, erreicht derzeit ohnehin nur 19 Prozent der Steuerpflichtigen.

Geheimdienste und das Arztgeheimnis: Anwälte bleiben tabu, Therapiegespräche nicht

Ein von der übrigen Presse kaum beachteter Aspekt der geplanten Reform des Nachrichtendienstrechts betrifft das ärztliche und psychotherapeutische Berufsgeheimnis. Während das Mandantenverhältnis bei Anwälten absolut geschützt werden soll, gilt für Ärzte und Psychotherapeuten lediglich eine Abwägungslösung – Verfassungsschutz und BND könnten künftig legal auf Krankenakten und vertrauliche Therapiegespräche zugreifen.

Auf die Frage dieser Zeitung nach dem sachlichen und verfassungsrechtlichen Grund dieser Ungleichbehandlung antwortete das Innenministerium mit drei Argumenten, die in unterschiedliche Richtungen weisen. Erstens: Die Regelung entspreche bestehenden Vorschriften der Strafprozessordnung und sei „nichts Neues“. Zweitens: Psychotherapeuten seien ohnehin „kein primäres Aufklärungsziel“, die Regelung habe daher „höchstwahrscheinlich nicht besonders viel Relevanz“. Drittens: Im Einzelfall werde zwischen Aufklärungsinteresse und Berufsgeheimnis abgewogen.

Eine Begründung für die Ungleichbehandlung enthält keines dieser Argumente. Der Verweis auf die Strafprozessordnung erklärt nicht, warum der Gesetzgeber die dortige Systematik auf Nachrichtendienste überträgt, die ohne Tatverdacht und ohne richterliche Anordnung im Einzelfall operieren. Und das Argument der geringen praktischen Relevanz wirft die naheliegende Gegenfrage auf, warum eine Befugnis geschaffen wird, die man kaum zu nutzen gedenkt.

Die Nachfrage dieser Zeitung, ob der Entwurf den Zugriff auf Praxisverwaltungssysteme und die elektronische Patientenakte eindeutig ausschließt, blieb unbeantwortet. Solange diese Frage offen ist, steht die Empfehlung der ePA als geschützter Raum für hochsensible Gesundheitsdaten auf tönernen Füßen.

KI: Paradigmenwechsel mit Selbstbeschränkung

Vergleichsweise auskunftsfreudig zeigte sich das Digitalministerium beim Thema Künstliche Intelligenz. Man nehme die Warnungen von KI-Entwicklern ernst; wenn Modelle aus Testumgebungen ausbrächen und eigenständig in andere Systeme eindrängen, liege ein „völlig neues Bedrohungsszenario“ vor. Das nationale KI-Sicherheitsinstitut habe die Arbeit aufgenommen, der Nationale Sicherheitsrat habe sich bereits zweimal befasst.

Eine Drosselung der Entwicklung lehnt die Bundesregierung ab – mit Verweis auf digitale Souveränität. Damit folgt sie genau derselben Argumentation wie US-Präsident Donald Trump, der Forderungen nach einer Verlangsamung oder strengeren Regulierung der KI-Entwicklung (wie sie etwa von Anthropic oder OpenAI gefordert wurden) strikt zurückweist. Ganz seinem Motto folgend: „Wer bei KI gewinnt, gewinnt.“

Eine NGO, die niemand kennt

Zum Schluss die Frage dieser Zeitung nach der erneuten Bundesförderung des Abrahams Accords Institute für 2026, dessen Trägerverein vom CDU-Abgeordneten Armin Laschet geführt wird und bei dem personelle Überschneidungen mit dem Abgeordnetenbüro dokumentiert sind. Aus der ersten Förderperiode in Millionenhöhe liegen verspätete und nach Einschätzung des Bundesverwaltungsamts nicht nachvollziehbare Abrechnungen sowie nicht umgesetzte Projektbestandteile vor.

Die Antwort der Bundesregierung: Weder der Vorgang noch die Vorhaltungen seien bekannt. Bei einer Förderung, die der Beauftragten für Kultur und Medien im Bundeskanzleramt zuzuordnen ist, ist das eine Auskunft, die den Vorgang nicht aufklärt, sondern lediglich verschiebt.

Die andere Hälfte

Vier Themen, vier Ressorts, ein Muster. Die Schließung der Goethe-Institute erscheint als Akt ohne Vorgeschichte, die Spritpreise als Naturereignis ohne Urheber, der abgeschwächte Schutz ärztlicher Gespräche als Regelung ohne praktische Bedeutung – und eine Förderung aus dem Kanzleramt als Vorgang ohne Zuständige. Nichts davon ist falsch im engeren Sinne. Es ist nur jeweils die Hälfte. Die andere Hälfte zu liefern wäre Aufgabe einer Regierungspressekonferenz; sie einzufordern bleibt Aufgabe derer, die dort fragen.

Originalbeitrag Berliner Zeitung