In recent weeks, we have commented on the gradual evolution of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza pitting Russia and Israel against the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran respectively. The analysis must be carried out jointly not only because of the temporal coincidence of their development but also because they constitute two chapters (or “poles”) of a common “great war” whose objective on the part of the China and Russia is defining a new war. the world order which they describe as “multipolar”.
We already know that wars have shaped the corresponding geopolitical order throughout history and that in the last century, with the two already global conflicts, the one they established became global or global. The First World War (1914/1918), after the disappearance of the Spanish Catholic Empire in America in the 19th century, erased several surviving empires from the map. The empires that disappeared were the Tsarist Orthodox Christian empires; Austro-Hungarian Catholics and Ottoman Muslims – and the USA, USSR, German Third Reich and Japan became new great powers. The latter two would disappear in 1945, just as Western Europe began its political decline, limiting its real influence in the world and becoming a subordinate ally of the United States.
This process was forged with the Second World War (1939/1945), which established the dual geopolitical order, in force since its end in 1945, until 1991 with the disappearance of the communist superpower of the USSR. We have already mentioned these 46 years between these two events considered in the history of the 20th century as the years of the Cold War. Name which alludes to the existence of a balance based on the existence of the nuclear weapon which had a deterrent effect on a global (“hot”) confrontation between the two blocs.
Since the end of the Cold War, some thought that history was over, like the famous American political scientist Francis Fukuyama who, in 1992, with his work entitled The end of the story And the last man He asserted that the liberal order had definitively triumphed with the disappearance of the USSR and the total hegemony of the USA.
Thirty years later, China and Russia, through Xi Jinping and Alexander Putin, will take it upon themselves to show him his error, by signing in Beijing in February 2022, a “historic treaty” – as described by the two dignitaries –, by which they consider The world order is over established under American hegemony, described as “unipolar” and betting on a new and “multipolar”, unlike him.
THE immediate invasion of Ukraine He confirmed that a “pole” of this new order was a Russia resurrected from its ashes after the debacle that the disappearance of the USSR meant for its national and historical identity, and that it would fight to consolidate its “zone of influence” on its territory. border of Western Europe, limiting American influence there. This treaty was motivated by the conviction that the United States was not passively accepting the disappearance of this unipolar order, but was rather committed to its consolidation, by founding in 2021 a military Alliance similar to that of the Atlantic (NATO ), in India. Pacific region and with epicenter in Australia, called AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom and United States).
Likewise, we must analyze the opening of a new front (“pole”) a year ago (October 7, 2023) in the Middle East, where the contenders are Iran and Israel. The strategic objective is to eliminate Israel as main partner of the United States in the regionto consolidate a new socio-economic and political order based on the Islamist vision of the world, by eliminating the Western democrats that Israel represents.
This war has a very important ideological and religious charge for obvious reasons, which gives it exceptional importance which must be kept in mind in its evolution. We must also not forget that The State of Israel struggles for its survivalwhich is not the case of the republic of the ayatollahs nor of the Palestinians – whose State has never existed until now – and who are used by Islamic radicals as an alibi to bet on the disappearance of Israel. All-out war in the region would expose the world to the clear risk of a Third World War, not cold but nuclear. And we are already one step away.
