Antonio Navalón
It is hard to admit it, but deep down, we must begin to recapitulate on what has happened, not about the falsehoods but about the conceptual mistakes we are making as a generation, as countries, and as thinkers. The world, the assumptions, the institutions, and the calculations on which we were educated, no longer exist. There is a war, which is very clear. A war that is – make no mistake and despite all the intervening elements – between Russia and the United States. Ukraine is just a meeting place, a place of fighting, and a place of purification, and at the same time, it is a sign of the transformation that the world is undergoing today. Four months and twenty days ago, we believed that our main problem was the erosion of climate change and overcoming our economic patterns but, above all, our energy schemes.
Today, one hundred and forty days after the start of the Ukrainian war, we can contemplate the following two points. First, fossil fuels, oil, coal, and natural gas, remain a decisive and definitive way – as they were also from the beginning of the 20th century – of effective control over societies, countries, economies, and armies. Second, our entire landscape and economic structure have fallen into a situation where logic is beginning to fail.
Let’s go step by step. The first assumption made at the beginning of this war that has been going on for over one hundred and forty days now was that economic sanctions against Russia would wipe out its economy. Wrong. The second step was to assume that we were strong enough to isolate the countries that play by its rules and that – according to the Western position – are contrary to and at odds with the way we act in our part of the hemisphere. We were also wrong. The sanctions and punitive stances taken against Russia and China have evidently not achieved the objectives they were initially intended.
When issuing sanctions against Russia and condemning it to be a global pariah, we forgot that a significant part of the world economy is outside the world economic order. Russia can be punished by taking away SWIFT and the ability to make international transfers, but we must not forget that there is a monster, a white elephant in the room called China. A country that lives with a currency that is, after the dollar, the most decisive. A nation that lives outside the arranged world of sanctions and economic structure.
Russia maintains its economic power based on its historical energy power and the already palpable and proven demonstration by the Chinese that it is possible to live outside the dollar, the large transfers of international banking, and the global monetary system as a whole. The third step concerned the military. Ukraine is like Sparta. Although Zelenski is not like Leonidas. However, in the end, just as it happened to Leonidas and his three hundred warriors at the pass of Thermopylae, for the Ukrainians and the Western parties involved, there is now no way but to hold on. Hold on until victory or death. Victory is possible, however – and as it happens in Mexico – triumph is subject to a high tribute in blood and human lives for the vices, defects, and wars of others.
The picture is simple to understand; the Ukrainians are the great test element of the second great transformation of the modern economy. A transformation that means returning to where we were warned we could fall as a civilization: to the hegemony of the military-industrial empire.
Today, the world economy is governed by oil, and the world’s economic activity and concentration are no longer about peace or freedom of trade, or the establishment of democratic societies that fight against climate erosion. Today everything revolves around the business of death and war. In the midst of all this, there are rulers to whom this situation resembles the appearance of God. For example, Mexico is not a country that has its solution in oil. But, undoubtedly, it has in oil its identification and its capacity to vindicate a nationalism that – under normal circumstances – would be outdated and meaningless. Nevertheless, at this moment, without knowing what the next day will be like, the juncture in which oil is once again the force, and weapons the business, it is evident that President López Obrador’s position and his energy proposals are much stronger.
So, what will the new world order consist of? Up to this point, it seems that Ukraine is a war of attrition in which the United States and Russia are playing. They are doing it with one clear difference in favor of Russia and another in favor of the Americans. In my opinion, the great advantage of the Russians is their enormous energy potential and the absolute lack of any principle to use it as a military or nuclear tool. Then there is the supremacy in terms of nuclear warheads since while the Russians have six thousand three hundred and seventy-five of them, the Americans have five thousand eight hundred. On the other hand – from my point of view – the United States has clear technological superiority. The Americans have managed to provide the Ukrainian army with a technical capability that, among other things, has enabled them to kill more Russian generals than in all other wars. And note that they have been able to kill them because the Russian army – unlike Russian spies – works with antiquated frameworks.
While Putin won the battle of hackers and attacks against the countries’ economies, the Russian leader lost the battle of the modernization of his army. One should not confuse having the most destructive supersonic missiles with the units and the technological structure that allow them not to be massacred simply because they are highly traceable due to the age of their technological system. These are lessons that the Chinese military and the future German military will undoubtedly be taking into account.
We are witnessing the redesign – as happened between World War I and World War II – of what future wars will be and will be like. On that occasion, while the world was still thinking about horses and ancient weaponry, tanks were the winners. There were a few military men, among them General Charles de Gaulle, who, as a Colonel, realized that the Second World War would be fought with tanks and iron horses.
In the midst of this dispute between powers, what do the rest of us do? First, we must know that we live in a world without blocs. Second, we have to be aware that there is what did not exist before the Ukrainian war: the possibility of having a life outside of multiple disciplines, both economically and technologically. Third, the economies are going to really kick off the winter of our discontent. There is too much to fix in too little time, too much cold, and too much hunger ahead. We find ourselves in a landscape with few plans, poor leadership, and inventiveness, at least so far.
Private companies have created modern communication juggernauts and leadership types; see Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Mark Zuckerberg. And if you add to that the fact that politics is currently going through its worst crisis of mediocrity – with few exceptions – in the last fifty years. Can the men of technology and those who dream not of this planet but the other planets come to control and help to get out of this crisis? Can they?. Will they? That is the big question. Although, the next day, the worst question and the one to which we have no answer is: what will we do with States and societies? The States we knew are gone, burned out, and useless. Their leaders are in the same situation and do not fulfill the obligations and responsibilities for which we pay them. And societies are increasingly divided and broken. In short, we are a world without control.
