Antonio Navalón
While in Kenya, her father died. From that moment on, Elizabeth II became the Queen and, more importantly, the most iconic figure of the last fifty years within the British monarchy. Queen Elizabeth II was the heir to the throne. After the death of her father, George VI, no one knew what might happen or how the greatest empire of the last two centuries would develop under the rule of the new monarch. Today, her legacy already transcends the annals of history.
From the beginning, Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill knew that Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not believe the British Empire would survive. Indeed, they were convinced that – regardless of personal sympathies – the British Empire was destined to disappear or be replaced. After witnessing such a brilliant and hegemonic era as the British Crown Empire had experienced for so long, it was difficult for the new leader to maintain that level of world leadership. Starting with her and ending with Winston Churchill, no one knew how the new project that began to take shape for the British Empire in 1952 would end.
In the midst of a new crisis and, above all, of the incessant unevenness, Queen Elizabeth II, 96 years old and seventy years after her coronation, last Tuesday was at Balmoral Castle – not having been able to be at Buckingham Palace due to the delicacy of her health – to appoint Elizabeth Truss as Prime Minister, the fifteenth leader to be bestowed with that title by the now deceased Queen. Just a couple of months ago, Elizabeth II inaugurated the four days of celebrations in the United Kingdom on the occasion of the Platinum Jubilee of her term of office, becoming the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Today, as was the case seven decades earlier, the British Empire is again uncertain about the future. Although what is clear is that, at the age of seventy-three, the son of Elizabeth II, Charles III – and the longest-lived prince of the English monarchy – from here, a new path lies ahead and a course that has many new routes to follow. Routes permeated by uncertainty and without a clear outlook. No one can guess what the new Prime Minister will do or what will follow from here. Neither in England nor in the world is there a clear plan or strategy to mitigate the existing crises.
Nothing is what it was. Neither the Chinese nor the Russians nor the Americans are the same. For the Chinese, the road’s end is getting closer. Some claim that the Chinese economy no longer has the same momentum and growth it once had.
Today, after having tried for so many years to have creativity and the ability to improvise to establish, for example, efficient energy companies, we have reached a point where it is very important to have a situation like the current one. A situation where the Russians no longer needed to consolidate their energy industries. In this respect, Russia is a kind of global company that can subsist, grow, and develop based on its energy resources.
Looking at the current geostrategic landscape and chessboard, Americans now have to choose whether they want to continue to confront each other or whether they want to find a way to coexist that is not based only on the preferences or interests of their politicians or leaders. Today, the United States is facing a domestic crisis the likes of which it has rarely seen.
In contrast to other times, today, we could easily – through dialogue and negotiation, but above all, if there is the will – have a situation in which the disastrous consequences of the current energy, economic, and even social crises are no longer so clear. To achieve this, however, there is one keyword: will.
To avoid the destruction that is gradually occurring everywhere, it is necessary to reach common ground and establish a system of collaboration and coexistence between countries and societies. At present, the world is immersed in innumerable crises that show themselves as they are, without masks and with possible catastrophic effects.
It is very important to know that the Ukrainian experience can be a watershed to establish a new form of leadership and global coexistence. Today it can be deduced that the world is no longer in a crisis of institutional or political development but in a much more important crisis. A crisis based, above all, on a situation in which the first thing politicians seek to do is to overprotect themselves and develop under a scenario in which it is no longer possible to play on confusion.
In the midst of this uncertain context, it is also necessary to mention that Arab oil, Russian gas, and the fact that we are becoming absolutely dependent on fossil fuels and other energy resources will set the tone from this moment on. We are not facing a situation where we are refusing to implement policies of all kinds, but rather, above all, we are orchestrating the development of policies that may or may not make countries viable from now on.
Within this challenge, the formulation of laws and the situation we are currently facing presents a fundamental task, which is to work and produce a new order based on energy, technology, and – in a certain sense – financial companies. However, we are facing a scenario of complete uncertainty.
There is a possibility that the Ukrainian war will soon be over. I don’t think this conflict will last long as the limits and what a prolonged war would entail would cause a lot of wear and tear, and that is something I am not sure the countries involved will be able to afford either economically or politically. I do not believe that we can establish a new world order within the margins of International Law that give equality and, above all, the capacity to reinvent and reorder the future. I doubt that it is possible to have genuinely many minor conflicts in a situation where, little by little, the offensive capacity of countries will increase and multiply. But, above all, I do not believe that it is sustainable to live in a world that, with each crisis that develops, is disappearing more and more. Some powers and countries can influence the new course to be followed, but we are at a point where nothing is entirely certain, and anything can happen.
