As the world’s tenth-largest economy, Brazil is a land of stark contradictions, reflecting a global reality that Lula seeks to make more just, inclusive, and sustainable, both domestically and internationally. The country is richly endowed with natural resources—from oil and minerals to agricultural abundance—yet services for the majority of the population remain insufficient, deepening a flagrant inequality rooted in the education system and driving systemic exclusion.

Another contradiction lies in the painful marginalization of Afro-Brazilians and Indigenous peoples, despite the pride felt by the country’s 212 million citizens in belonging to one of the world’s most ethnically diverse nations. According to Julimar da Silva Bichara, a professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, the limited social mobility of these ethnic groups has nothing to do with racism, but is rather the result of “structural problems in the country’s economy, which the wealthy and ruling classes refuse to change”.

Amid an increasingly bellicose global geopolitical atmophere, Brazil positions itself as a bridge between the West and the Global South. Yet it insists that the era of colonialism is over and that international relations must now be based on respect for national sovereignty. Lula has strongly condemned the genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza and called Donald Trump’s remarks “irresponsible” after the U.S. president threatened to impose a 10% tariff on countries that support the “anti-American policies” of the BRICS bloc. Lula also stood firm in response to a letter from the White House occupant warning of a 50% tariff starting August 1 if Brazil did not “immediately” end the trial against former president Jair Bolsonaro over an alleged coup conspiracy.

“Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions and will not be intimidated by anyone. The trial of the coup plotters is the sole responsibility of the Brazilian judiciary and is not subject to any interference or threat that could undermine the independence of our institutions,” Lula wrote on social media.

What’s most surprising—given Trump’s obsession with trade deficits—is that Brazil is one of the few countries with which the United States maintains a significant trade surplus. Over the past 15 years, the U.S. has had a surplus of $410 billion in its trade with Brazil.

Lula’s active diplomacy, in which Brazil has deployed all its soft power as a great conciliator to elevate the geopolitical weight of the Global South, also clashed with a scathing article in The Economist. Published after Lula’s strong condemnation of the bombing of Iran (a BRICS member) by Israel and the U.S., the British magazine accused Lula of inconsistency and of dragging Brazil—becoming increasingly anti-Western—into irrelevance on the global stage.

In a letter to the editor, the Brazilian government defended the president’s consistency on “democracy, sustainability, peace, and multilateralism.”

One of the five founding members of the BRICS bloc—which now includes ten full members and ten partner countries—Brazil has always strived to maintain a balance between Western and Eastern interests. In contrast to Russia’s hardline stance, Brazil argues that the BRICS are not an anti-Western group, but rather “a non-Western group” that offers an alternative to the G7.

Many analysts believe that tariffs and external interference will push Brazil to strengthen ties with China—already its largest trading partner—and with other BRICS nations. However, for the Brazilian economy, switching partners will not be easy. China primarily buys raw materials such as oil, minerals, and soy, while the United States purchases aircraft, steel, and other processed goods—crucial to advancing the industrialization of the Latin American giant.

Since July, Brazil has held the rotating presidency of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) and has been one of the main driving forces behind the historic free trade agreement between MERCOSUR and the European Union, concluded in December 2024. Though it still faces the complex ratification process by the parliaments of the EU, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay, the agreement is a major boost to multilateralism and to political, economic, and strategic cooperation between the two blocs, with global repercussions.

Convinced that international recognition as a global power hinges on leadership and the construction of regional governance in Latin America—often overshadowed by its northern neighbor—Brazil has spent decades promoting initiatives aimed at Latin American, and particularly South American, integration. In addition to MERCOSUR, these include the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

Indeed, the 1988 Constitution states that “The Federative Republic of Brazil shall seek the economic, political, social, and cultural integration of the peoples of Latin America, aiming toward the formation of a Latin American community of nations.” Yet sharp differences between countries, the failure to manage crises such as Venezuela’s, and interference from Washington have all hindered the establishment of a regional governance structure that could elevate both Latin America’s and Brazil’s positions on the global stage.

At COP30—also dubbed the “Amazon COP” as it will take place in the planet’s largest rainforest—Brazil’s multilateral ambitions will be put to the test. The country will need to account for deforestation, which, though greatly reduced compared to the Bolsonaro era, still poses a serious threat to the planet’s health. More importantly, Brazil will need to demonstrate moral leadership, advocating for peace and uniting the fight against hunger and poverty with that against climate change.

Lula reaviva la ambición multilateral de Brasil

GEORGINA HIGUERAS

Brasil encara su año más global. Tras la exitosa cumbre de los BRICS, celebrada en julio en Río de Janeiro, el presidente Luis Inacio Lula da Silva apuesta por dar un nuevo impulso al multilateralismo durante la COP30, que se reunirá en noviembre en Belem, puerta de entrada a la Amazonía. Empeñado en reivindicarse como la potencia de América Latina, Brasil lucha por dejar su impronta en el escenario internacional y abandera la lucha contra el hambre, la pobreza y la crisis climática pese a las dificultades que acarrean los fuertes recortes de todo Occidente en la financiación pública al desarrollo.

Décima economía mundial, esta potencia de grandes contradicciones es el espejo de una realidad global que Lula quiere hacer más justa, inclusiva y sostenible tanto a nivel interno como externo. El país está dotado de una inmensa riqueza, con recursos naturales que van desde petróleo a minería y agricultura, pero los servicios dedicados a la mayoría de la población son escasos y profundizan una desigualdad flagrante que se ancla al sistema educativo y fomenta la exclusión.

Otra de sus contradicciones procede de la lacerante marginación de afroamericanos e indígenas, pese al orgullo que sienten sus 212 millones de habitantes por ser parte de una de las mayores diversidades étnicas del mundo. Según Julimar da Silva Bichar, profesor de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, el escaso avance de esas etnias en la escala social no tiene que ver con el racismo, sino que es consecuencia de los “problemas estructurales de la economía del país, que la clase acaudalada y dirigente se opone a cambiar”.

En medio de una geopolítica cada día más belicosa, Brasil se alza como puente entre Occidente y el Sur Global, pero defiende que los tiempos coloniales han pasado y que ahora las relaciones internacionales deben abordarse desde el respeto a la soberanía de los países. Lula criticó con firmeza el genocidio que Israel está cometiendo en Gaza y calificó de “irresponsables” las palabras de Trump al anunciar aranceles del 10% a los países que apoyan las “políticas antiamericanas” de los BRICS. No cedió ante la carta del inquilino de la Casa Blanca que le anunciaba aranceles del 50% a partir del 1 de agosto si no ponía fin “Inmediatamente” al juicio contra el expresidente Jair Bolsonaro por presunta conspiración golpista.

“Brasil es un país soberano con instituciones independientes y no se dejará intimidar por nadie. El juicio de los golpistas es responsabilidad exclusiva del poder judicial brasileño y no está sujeto a ninguna injerencia ni amenaza que pueda socavar la independencia de nuestras instituciones”, escribió Lula en las redes sociales.

Lo más curioso es que, en contra de la obsesión de Trump con los déficits comerciales, Brasil es uno de los pocos países con los que Estados Unidos tiene un superávit de cifras nada desdeñables. En los últimos 15 años, el saldo a favor de EEUU ha sido de 410.000 millones de dólares.

La activa diplomacia de Lula, en la que Brasil, como gran conciliador, estaba desplegando todo su poder blando para dotar de un mayor peso geopolítico al Sur Global, también chocó con un demoledor artículo de The Economist, publicado después de que condenara enérgicamente el bombardeo de Irán (miembro de los BRICS) por Israel y EEUU. La revista británica tachaba a Lula de incoherente y de arrastrar a un Brasil, cada vez más antioccidental, a la insignificancia en el tablero internacional. En una carta al director, el Gobierno brasileño defendió la coherencia del presidente en “democracia, sostenibilidad, paz y multilateralismo”.

Uno de los cinco fundadores del bloque BRICS -que ya cuenta con 10 miembros de pleno derecho y diez socios-, Brasil se ha esforzado siempre por mantener un equilibrio entre los intereses occidentales y los orientales. Frente a la dura posición de Rusia, defiende que los BRICS no son un grupo antioccidental, sino “un grupo no occidental” que representa una alternativa al G7.

Numerosos analistas sostienen que aranceles e injerencias empujarán a Brasil a reforzar sus lazos con China, que ya es su primer socio comercial, y con otros países BRICS. Sin embargo, para la economía brasileña no será fácil cambiar de socio. China compra fundamentalmente recursos naturales –petróleo, minerales y soja--, mientras que EEUU adquiere aeronaves, acero y otros productos procesados, lo que es fundamental para fomentar la industrialización del gigante latinoamericano.

Brasil, que desde julio ostenta la presidencia del Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR), ha sido uno de los grandes propulsores del histórico acuerdo de libre comercio entre esta organización y la Unión Europea, alcanzado en diciembre de 2024. El acuerdo, que tiene por delante la complicada ratificación de los Parlamentos de la UE y de Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay y Uruguay, supone un espaldarazo al multilateralismo y a la cooperación económica, política y estratégica entre los dos bloques, cuyo impacto se percibirá a nivel global.

Convencido de que su reconocimiento internacional como potencia pasa por el liderazgo y la construcción de una gobernanza de América Latina que promueva el peso geopolítico de la región -ensombrecida por el vecino del Norte-, Brasil lleva décadas impulsando iniciativas que tienen como objetivo fomentar la integración latinoamericana y en particular de Suramérica. Destacan, además de MERCOSUR, la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (UNASUR) y la Comunidad de Países Iberoamericanos y Caribeños (CELAC).

De hecho, la Constitución de 1988 establece que “la República Federativa de Brasil buscará la integración económica, política, social y cultural de los pueblos de América Latina, con vistas a la formación de una comunidad latinoamericana de naciones”. Sin embargo, las marcadas diferencias entre los países, la incapacidad para gestionar crisis como la de Venezuela y las injerencias de Washington frenan el establecimiento de una gobernanza regional que impulse el posicionamiento tanto de América Latina como Brasil en el escenario mundial.

En la COP30, conocida como COP Amazonía por celebrarse en el gran pulmón de la Tierra, Brasil se juega sus ambiciones multilaterales. Tendrá que rendir cuentas de la deforestación que, aunque se ha reducido considerablemente en relación al periodo en que Bolsonaro dirigía el país, sigue amenazando la salud del planeta. Pero, sobre todo tendrá que demostrar su liderazgo moral defendiendo la paz y uniendo la lucha contra el hambre y la pobreza a la del cambio climático.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Film director Luchino Visconti chose the title of Wagner’s opera ՙGötterdämmerung՚, taken from Norse mythology, for his masterpiece about the collapse of Germany’s traditional political system in 1933 and the rise of the Nazi Party amid a deep social and economic crisis. Ragnarök is an apocalyptic Norse prophecy, including a great battle in which their old world will perish, accompanied by a catastrophic series of natural disasters, that culminate with great fires and the underwater submersion of the world. After these events, the surviving gods will return and life shines again in a world renewed and purified. The event is attested primarily in the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda, referred to as Ragnarøkkr or ՙTwilight of the Gods՚, The Prose Edda relates that “over all the world there shall be mighty battles” and that “brothers shall slay each other for greed’s sake.”

The second presidency of Donald Trump and the high-profile role that Elon Musk is taking in the definition of the global agenda of the new US presidency is creating growing anxiety in the international establishment. There is a feeling of helplessness and distress rapidly spreading among European leaders as the certainties and truths on which EU narratives had been built are challenged as never before. The end of our old political order could be coming very soon to a theatre near us, as the Ragnarök imagined by the Viking sagas.

The scenarios presented in my essay on ՙThe Rise of digital feudalism՚, published in zenith Magazine five years ago, seem to be close at hand with the rise of Elon Musk, the leading example of the power and influence that today՚s Big Tech billionaires wield in the international arena. The alliance between an imperial US presidency and the most powerful non-state actors at a global scale can accelerate a transformation of unprecedented scope of the fundamentals of our society. The rules-based international order may survive the incoming upheaval, but the rules will certainly not be the same.

Elon Musk has taken an unprecedented role, not only in American politics, but in the definition of Trump՚s new international agenda, articulated around a global ideological project of like-minded right-wing libertarians. The fight against the traditional political establishment in Washington, that was the leitmotiv of his first term, has now taken a new international dimension, using the unlimited resources of social media and digital platforms with devastating effectiveness.

What is now terrifying the European establishment is not just the possibility of new tariffs or trade wars with Washington, but the realization that climate change and migration policies are increasingly unpopular among voters and digital transformation programs are being weaponized by new political actors that cannot be confined any more to the far-right corner which kept them far from decision-making positions in government. Elon Musk has brought with him a combination of unlimited wealth and social media power with the political backing of the US Presidency and the determination of a believer in a new political model beyond state controls and stifling regulations. He has chosen Germany and Great Britain as the battlefields for this ideological battle that will redefine the political balance in the Western world for a long time to come.

Yuval Noah Harari has defined the capacity to create and share myths as the driving force of human civilization. Harari argues in ՙSapiens՚ and ՙHomo Deus՚ that all political orders are based on useful fictions which have allowed groups of humans, from ancient Mesopotamia through to the Roman Empire and modern capitalist societies, to cooperate in numbers far beyond the scope of any other species. Our modern Western society has been looking desperately for one undisputed myth to replace the old order since the French Revolution, making Europe a battlefield not just for territorial expansion but for the undisputed narrative that would give purpose and meaning to our lives.

That is closely connected with our monotheistic worldview that considers truth its exclusive domain, contrary to most Asian beliefs systems that are non-dogmatic in nature and accept that if something is true, the opposite can also be true. The Communist Manifesto and the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as Fascism or Nazism, have been at the centre of the Culture Wars of the 20th century. All of them seemed gone and anachronistic at the beginning of the 21st century, when Francis Fukuyama tried to close that search affirming that with the final triumph of Western liberal democracy, after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, humanity had reached the endpoint of its ideological evolution.

Obviously, the search continues and well beyond the narrow borders of Western culture, with other alternative world views disputing the narrative of Western liberal democracy, as the successful marketing of prophecies of an Islamic apocalypse propagated by the so-called Islamic State testifies. China and India have developed their own responses, based on their own cultural and political traditions that are much older than the Western models that regulate the existing international order. The unique blend of socialism with digitally powered Confucianism makes the Chinese model difficult to replicate elsewhere, but it remains a reminder of alternative successful models.

In fact, we can argue the Chinese system of a state-controlled AI revolution is the alternative model to the US-led digital libertarian utopia. It would take too long to analyse in detail how the Chinese leadership is designing their strategy to become a global technological empire but it is certainly one of the most relevant questions in the debate that will shape the future international order. In any case, the question is not which narrative will be more convincing but what will define how our future as a species will look like and the answer will probably be the interaction between Artificial Intelligence and the human mind, in the framework of a digitally defined society. The new realities of AI, cloud computing, biometric social control or 5G are erasing the cultural differences between Beijing, Washington, London, Mumbai or Berlin.

The dark mirror

A growing fear of the future is spreading and not just among the less privileged in our society, but even more among the super-wealthy tech elite. Douglas Rushkoff’s article on super-rich preppers planning to save themselves from an apocalypse of their own creation paints a darker picture of the future of the digital society. Elon Musk’s proposal of interstellar redemption by colonising Mars, Peter Thiel’s obsession with reversing the aging process or Sam Altman’s and Ray Kurzweil’s search for immortality by uploading their minds into supercomputers, reflect the doubts of many of those leading the digital transformation concerning the meaning of human existence. Never before have our society’s most powerful players assumed that the primary impact of their own conquests would be to render the world itself unliveable for a large number of our fellow humans. Nor have they ever before had the technologies through which to imprint their ideas into the very fabric of our society and the power to set the political agenda without challenge.

In fact, the mantra of the power of technology to improve our lives is the dominant narrative that most political leaders remain committed to, without any alternative to offer. Be it the Chinese version of socialism, the Saudi Islamic remix, India’s Hindutva masterplan or Argentina’s libertarian model, Artificial Intelligence is at the centre of it. The question that seems unpolite to ask is how compatible the new digital economy will be with democracy, economic mobility and equal opportunities, wealth redistribution and state-guaranteed social services.

The growing inequalities, climate crises and resource scarcities, unprecedented population displacements and the return of supposedly extinct health hazards are triggering a more pessimistic and inward-looking mindset in our societies. The result is the exponential growth of former fringe groups that propose radical solutions for problems the establishment refuses to deal with. The last EU parliamentary elections saw the share of far-right parties rise to 18% of total votes, reflecting a trend that is already shifting the balance of national governments to the right in most European countries.

The reason for that trend is puzzling for the traditional left, that sees growing numbers of its former electoral base migrating to far-right parties in a highly polarized political environment. Between the financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic outbreak of 2020, the old international liberal order, based on globalized financial capitalism, started to crack and the new digital revolution triggered by social networks and AI expanded at an unprecedented speed, being hailed from all sides as the painless solution to our impossible contradictions.

Political leaders jumped enthusiastically on the technological train, thrilled with the speed of change without further consideration of its final destination. While a tenth of corporations accumulate 80% of international capitalization, many of which are tech juggernauts, large parts of the traditional productive economy were starved of capital. The ensuing concentration of wealth and political influence in the hands of the owners of the technological corporations has been unprecedented, making Elon Musk, now the richest man in the world, the model of a new technological elite, wielding more power than many national governments.

The domination of the new data economy and information flows was not only a boon for business, but it has also given the owners of these companies uncontrollable influence in world politics, particularly with the unstoppable development of social networks and AI expanding into all domains of economic and social activity. In her book, ‘Don’t Be Evil’, journalist Rana Foroohar argues that our Big Tech overlords are now able to modify the perceptions and behaviour of internet users both for greater profit and social control.

The remarkable truth is that such a transformation is not only failing to provoke a negative backlash, but is actually receiving growing support from public opinion in our democratic societies, that perceive this disruptive transformation as a more desirable future than the stifling regulations imposed by inefficient bureaucracies in an endless search for their own relevance. The EU has become a prime example of such a voracious regulatory appetite, and even if that narrative has been exaggerated considerably as part of the demagogic Brexit campaign, there is an average 1,200 regulations issued per year, dealing with issues such as the mandatory curve of cucumbers or the compulsory attachment of plastic caps in bottles. That is the kind of argument that won the Brexit case and that is now feeding the growth of far-right parties in Europe, laced with the growing rejection of what is perceived as bias in favour of illegal immigrants over tax-paying citizens. Social networks are creating a huge amplifier for the anger and resentment that many feel towards well-meaning but poorly presented positive discrimination policies.

The world’s attention is focused like never before on the second presidency of Donald Trump and his plans of reshaping not just the US political dynamics, but the whole international system. A growing number of analysts are already talking about an imperial presidency that will concentrate unprecedented power in the hands of the president, who has made no secret of his intentions of using it to usher in a new era of ՙAmerican greatness՚ at a global scale. As world leaders rushed to congratulate the president-elect, mixed feelings accompagnied them, particularly in European capitals and at the EU Commission where initial disbelief gave way to growing anxiety.

The second Trump presidency begins with an ambitious agenda of national transformation at multiple levels, and sometimes with contradictory goals, that will have severe international repercussions. I believe that its main defining factor will probably be the new alliance between the new president and the Big Tech overlords. Never before such highly disruptive forces have found common ground to work together in a joint global plan, unleashing the power of digital technologies with no hindrance of regulations or controls.

MAGA Tech

The clearest signal that now we are about to embark in a process of historic change is the appointment of Elon Musk to a position of unclear boundaries but with extensive powers, as co-chairman of the ՙDepartment of Government Efficiency՚. The close relationship developed by Trump and Musk on the campaign trail goes beyond personal bonds of friendship and trust, since the now richest man in the world is also the representative of the technological elite at the highest level of political power.

That alliance is already causing frictions within the traditional base of Trump loyalists, and Steve Bannon is clearly resenting the rise of the new best friends of the president, while recognizing the tremendous impact of the mix of technology, wealth and ideology for their political agenda. During his first mandate, Donald Trump had a fraught relationship with Silicon Valley billionaires, that he considered supporters of Hillary Clinton and opponents of his political agenda. Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Sundar Pichai and Sergei Bryn, among others, have all shifted course and rallied behind President Trump.

Silicon Valley’s right-wing libertarians used to orbit around one man: the venture capitalist Peter Thiel and his protégé David Sacks. Their revolutionary, techno-utopian vision began in the early 2000s, after the success of PayPal, in a diaspora of entrepreneurs and investors that expanded across Silicon Valley to build more revolutionary, billion-dollar companies. Most of them were progressive libertarians with sympathies for the Democratic party, but during Biden’s presidency they felt increasingly alienated from the Democrat’s agenda. In the course of the 2024 campaign, that small circle of right-wing libertarians led one of the most significant shifts in contemporary politics, bringing the core of the already disaffected Tech barons into Trump’s camp. That single event may trigger a far-reaching revolution that will not only transform American politics but the global order as a whole.

Donald Trump did not disappoint his audience from the moment of his victory celebration at Mar-a-Lago, announcing some controversial appointments and policy decisions. He declared that he would put an end to the war in Ukraine in line with his long-time goal of putting an end to US involvement in foreign conflicts. At the same time, he also expressed his intentions to incorporate Canada into the United States, take control of the Panama Canal and annex Greenland and made some chilling remarks about NATO allies forfeiting Washington՚s protection lest they foot the bill he considered appropriate.

France, Germany and the EU Commission reacted in shock, issuing the usual statements of hurt feelings of allies in distress considering these remarks “wild hypothetical stuff” that should not be taken seriously. In contrast, international leaders that before Trump՚s victory felt lost in the wilderness of political correctness, such as Javier Milei in Argentina or Giorgia Meloni in Italy, have enthusiastically welcomed the new axis of libertarian disruptiveness, as have other leaders in the Global South that seem to prefer the personal negotiating style of Trump over a political correctness they consider hypocritical.

The Twilight of the (European) gods

The signs are pointing at a very different Trump presidency from his first one, when the buraucracy that he dismissively calls the “deep state” limited the disruptive impact of some of his ideas and policy decisions. Former president of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has given some advice on how to approach negotiations with Trump, based on his personal experience, but it remains to be seen if we can swim twice on the same river. To begin with, the size of EU economy and its share in the new digital technologies, particularly AI, has shrunk compared to the US. European political leadership is in disarray and the war in Ukraine has made Europe much more dependent on US military protection than ever. It remains to be seen how the new US administration will approach the ailing multilateral system, and its key institutions such as the UN, NATO, WTO, and so on. So far, those who are finding the doors of the elected president open are leaders previously frowned upon by the political establishment such us Viktor Orban, Giorgia Meloni, or Javier Milei, the only foreign leader invited to the victory celebrations at Mar-a-Lago.

Surprisingly enough, the case of Javier Milei, the Argentinian president that has embarked in a far-reaching process of structural reforms based on ambitious deregulations and economic liberalization, has become the subject of debate in Germany by the hand of Musk՚s aggressive intervention in the campaign. The high-stakes game that the German elections have turned into is a prime example of the ՙbrave new world՚ of European politics, where traditional parties are no match for social media networks owned by Big Tech.

Elon Musk is not the cause of the increasing disaffection of German voters with the traditional parties and the growing support for the ՙAlternative for Germanyՙ, that already has 21% of voter support according to recent polls. But when he entered the election campaign, he broke the tabu that had limited the appeal of such parties for mainstream voters. The efforts of EU regulators to limit the capacity of digital platforms to shape public opinion and influence elections has become the subject of a heated debate as EU authorities try to explain that their decisions sre not meant as retaliation against Elon Musk՚ interference in German elections.

The Middle East offers a particularly stark example of how this crisis can accelerate a process of authority fragmentation and institutional collapse. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya or Yemen already can be considered test cases of this neo-medieval model, in which non-state actors are already the main decision-makers. The diminishing role of the EU and its member states has become painfully obvious in the recent Middle East conflicts from Gaza to Lebanon or Syria.

None of those conflicts have seen significant diplomatic initiatives from the EU, in contrast to the engagement of Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, or even China in different mediation initiatives. The disastrous situation in the Sahel after the ill-fated intervention in Libya has taken a toll on French and European international involvement which African leaders blame for their current predicament. The rise in anti-French feelings in Africa is related to a parallel rise in popularity of Russia’s purported underdog resistance against the “Global West” and a deployment of the Wagner Group Africa Corps in several countries of the region to replace French troops.

Paradoxically, Trump’s unorthodox style seems to be more welcomed than the sanctimonious EU well-meaning and ineffective preaching by countries in the region. The Turkish leadership has been signalling that shift since they adopted a decisive role in Syria and in a matter of weeks, cut the Gordian knot the EU has been unable to untie for decades. Recent declarations of Türkiye’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan, warning European countries, such as France, to stop interfering in Syria because his country only recognizes the US as a credible partner, would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

Even the Iranian government is trying to prepare some new negotiating proposals to appease a US President that it does not want to infuriate. According to some sources close to the Iranian leadership, a deal with the new US administration could be seriously considered if there is genuine interest on the other side. The example of the deal with Reagan administration in th 1980s, publicly known as the Iran-Contra Affair, has been mentioned as a blueprint for pragmatic negotiations with the Republican party. The deal-making mantra of Donald Trump may have more traction than traditional diplomacy, even if the scope of the agreements is transactional and limited in scope.

Over the past decade, the trust that citizens have in their leaders, and liberal democracy in general, has been rapidly diminishing as social media has expanded, filling that space. The problem, however, runs deeper than fake news, defective governance, or corruption. The narrative of the international liberal order, based on ever-increasing prosperity fuelled by endless economic growth, is simply not credible anymore. The rules-based international order that the EU has been supporting and that has given the European External Action Service a relevant international voice since the publication of the Global Strategy in 2016, is being irreversibly transformed by international events. The EU has not been able to reformulate a new vision and a plan to implement it given the current volatile global dynamics, refusing to even engage in contingency planning for a Trump return to power, which is a luxury that EU leaders cannot afford anymore.

President Macron gave a premonitory interview to The Economist in November 2019, in which he foretold that Europe would become irrelevant in the new international order if it did not address the structural challenges of the institution-building in process and develop its strategic autonomy. This much-needed progress has not only not taken place but actually regressed in the last five years, widening the gap in productivity and innovation with both China and the US. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has deepened the crisis of the German economic model and put in question the viability of the transition to the Green Deal, already under attack from different sides as a prime example of the “woke economy”.

The sustainability of current migration trends and the limits of the multicultural policies associated with them is becoming the most divisive issue in European politics at the moment, benefitting far-right parties. The political crisis has deepened, as more citizens feel alienated from an agenda disconnected from their daily problems and far-right parties thrive on that resentment. The upcoming German elections will give a sobering diagnosis of where the soul of Europe is heading at this critical moment, but may not offer the solutions we seek. Most likely, election results will offer another warning sign of the waning prestige of the traditional elites and the political establishment they represent.

The Vikings, and Silicon Valley’s leading figures do not consider the destruction of the old order as something negative, but a necessary renewal that would bring about a refreshed and better world. Ragnarök is the opposite of Tomasso di Lampedusa’s famous sentence that everything has to change so that everything remains the same, the motto of traditional politics for a long time. We will certainly witness wondrous transformations in the coming years that will open new and unthinkable possibilities for those that dare to thread this unchartered territory.

Living in a more unstable international order, with an eroded multilateral system and diminished national sovereignty of nation states, as non-state actors become increasingly assertive, will be certainly challenging and it will demand creative initiatives, particularly from the next US administration, the EU Commission or the United Nations. The question of how the international order will adapt to the new realities remains to be seen, since Trump has demonstrated that he is not changed in his disregard for multilateral institutions, in particular the UN system. If we want to play a role in the world to come, we need to understand the extent of the transformations taking place as well as the leading forces shaping them, and a figure like Elon Musk is certainly one of them.

Ramon Blecua is a Spanish diplomat, former EU Ambassador to Iraq and former Ambassador at large for Mediation and Intercultural Dialogue. The opinions in this article are his own.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The 90-day tariff truce announced on 10 May between Beijing and Washington may feel like a welcome pause, but it looks more like a tactical timeout than a strategic reconciliation. Only weeks after the handshake, Washington locked in a 100 % levy on Chinese electric vehicles, and staggered hikes on batteries, solar cells and chips that will keep ratcheting up through 2026 — a reminder that the U.S. is hard-wiring “selective disengagement” into its trade playbook. Beijing, reading these moves as part of a “grand trade encirclement”, has answered with sharper rhetoric and its own contingency planning. Market data collected by Reuters show that bilateral flows in goods, capital and students are already shrinking, while Trump-era threats of 145 % blanket tariffs hang ominously over what remains of the $582 billion trading relationship.

Beijing’s decision to require export licences for seven heavy rare-earths—scandium, yttrium and the five “magnet metals” from samarium to lutetium—adds a resource front to the tariff battlefield. The move comes on top of last December’s outright ban on gallium, germanium and antimony shipments and the tightening of graphite quotas, a sequence that now threatens entire upstream chains for EV motors, wind turbines and precision-guided weapons in the United States. Washington has -for now- scant domestic capacity to offset the squeeze, so the measure functions as a calibrated reminder that supply-chain leverage can be as potent as tariff firepower and that any 90-day truce is operating under a mineral sword of Damocles.

A reinforced deep-tech venture-capital state

Against that backdrop, Xi Jinping is doubling down on a “venture-capital state” model designed to insulate the innovation pipeline from external shocks. In March Beijing unveiled a ¥1 trillion (around US$138 billion) national venture-capital guidance fund that blends public money with “social capital” to bankroll semiconductors, AI, quantum and green tech over long investment cycles. The scheme amplifies hundreds of provincial “guidance funds” already at work and signals that, if decoupling is inevitable, China intends to pivot inward and scale faster, not slower, in strategic technologies.

In fact, the logic behind these controls aligns with what Arenal, Feijoo et al call China’s “asymmetric Triple-Helix” innovation system: a configuration in which the state not only sets the rules of competition but also steers data flows and capital toward mission-critical technologies such as AI, chips and quantum. Their 2020 paper shows how public “guidance funds” and preferential data access give Chinese firms a structural advantage over foreign peers, while leaving room for entrepreneurial risk-taking at the periphery—hence the description of a “venture-capital state.” From that vantage point, export licences are less retaliation than system maintenance: they ration strategic inputs abroad to preserve the domestic learning loop that Xi Jinping wants to accelerate.

Production capacity as the new currency of power

The renewed centrality of manufacturing is therefore less a failure of imagination than a recognition that production capacity is a currency of power in an age of fractured supply chains. In the United States and Europe, more than 90 % of large companies now cite tariff risk and geopolitical tension as triggers for “re-industrialisation” and friend-shoring strategies; 82 % plan to curb dependence on Chinese suppliers in the next three years. Flagship policies in the US such as the CHIPS and Science Act have already unlocked almost US$400 billion in private investment, while Taiwan’s TSMC has just expanded its Arizona commitment to an eye-popping US$165 billion—the largest single foreign-direct investment in U.S. history. In other words, the trade truce may slow the firefight, but the deeper contest over who owns and governs the next generation of industrial ecosystems has only intensified.

Yet Beijing’s ability to weaponise inputs may erode as its own firms become the suppliers of choice for other regions’ re-industrialisation drives. In Southeast Asia, Chinese greenfield FDI in manufacturing doubled to an annual US$12.9 billion between 2020 and 2023, accounting for a full third of new factory projects in ASEAN; in Africa, Ethiopia’s industrial-park network openly courts more Chinese tenants to jump-start export manufacturing; and in Europe, mega-plants by CATL and BYD have pushed Chinese investment back up to €10 billion after years of decline. These host economies welcome the jobs and technology transfers today, but they are already writing localisation clauses and supplier-diversification rules into their incentive packages—offering Beijing a taste of its own medicine should political winds shift. In other words, China’s outward industrial surge may secure markets, but it also multiplies the venues where strategic dependencies can be reversed.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Quo vadis, Europa?

A few days ago, a joke circulated in Spanish on social media:

— Excuse me, the Council of Europe?
— I don’t know… watch out for Zeus?

The original Spanish joke plays on the double meaning of "consejo" (council/advice), which doesn't exist in English, making the pun untranslatable. But you can get the point.

The quip about the myth in which the Olympian god abducted Europa got me thinking. The story goes that Zeus, enamored with the Phoenician princess, transformed himself into a bull and, with his apparent docility, seduced her. She climbed onto his back, and he ran into the sea, eventually carrying her to the island of Crete, where he made her queen. With her, the myth says, he fathered three sons: Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon. And these three figures can help articulate some reflections on the multifaceted crossroads Europe now faces in the current geopolitical landscape.

After World War II, devastated Europe declared its will to never repeat that horror and—with fundamental support from the United States—rebuilt its economy and gradually unified, especially after the Cold War and German reunification, culminating in the current European Union. Since then, it enjoyed sustained economic growth while expanding its membership. And despite episodes like the Balkan Wars or the ongoing war in Ukraine, Europe has since experienced an unusual period of peace in its history. All of this was made possible—or at least cheaper—by three factors:

• “Cheap” military protection:
  The U.S. largely took over Europe’s foreign policy and abducted its economy as a preferred partner in exchange for Europeans trusting the U.S. nuclear umbrella—the real guarantor of NATO’s transatlantic alliance.

• “Cheap” energy:
  Europe benefited from a stable and low-cost supply of primarily Russian gas and oil, which sustained an industrial and welfare development model without energy autonomy. While France maintained autonomy with its commitment to nuclear power, Germany built its export strength on this formula: importing abundant, cheap energy from the East and exporting high-end technology and machinery. This tacit pact allowed Europe to pursue ambitious climate policies and shut down more polluting internal sources—like coal or nuclear plants—without sacrificing competitiveness.

• “Cheap” manufacturing:
  Since China’s access to the World Trade Organization in 2001, it became the world’s factory. Globalization saw Europe, alongside other Western powers, outsource much of its industry to the Asian giant, benefiting from low production costs and unprecedented logistical capabilities. This relationship kept consumer prices low in Europe, preserved margins for many companies, and supplied an increasingly consumption-oriented economy, while China emerged as a voracious market for Europe’s high-end goods.

But as we move past the first quarter of the 21st century, the global outlook has changed significantly. Geopolitical reflection is intensifying these days, especially in light of recent events along the same three axes:

• Trump’s United States has decided to end the balance that had characterized U.S. hegemony for eighty years. European complacency has reignited debate over the need to rearm1, especially as its oldest ally begins to lift its protective hand, as seen in Ukraine. Simultaneously, that former ally has launched an aggressive trade war with significant tariffs that hurt strategic European sectors. This follows years in which the U.S. has opened a major gap in productivity and growth compared to the old continent, particularly driven by technologies like AI that seem to mark a new great divergence:

• Putin’s Russia has exposed Europe’s vulnerability in its structural energy dependence (around 60% of its consumption). Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine shattered that balance and revealed how Europe had mortgaged its strategic energy autonomy in exchange for illusory stability. The forced redirection toward alternative, costlier, and less stable sources marked a turning point, compelling a rethink of both the energy transition and Europe’s economic model. Despite the relatively successful decoupling from Russian gas, energy prices have soared well beyond those of its competitors.

• Xi Jinping’s China has emerged to highlight Europe’s growing vulnerability to global bottlenecks, the erosion of its industrial base, and the loss of technological sovereignty. Geopolitical tensions and China’s strategic pivot toward self-sufficiency have prompted reconsiderations about industrial relocation, strategic autonomy, and supply security. China has used its growing economic power not just to manufacture cheaply but also to acquire technologies—often through dubious means—and deepen its own innovation. This has undermined various European industries, even those with political favoritism, such as automobiles, batteries, and solar panels.

For many, today’s Europe is, deep down, in a state of decline—lacking unity, budgetary strength, and industrial capacity—now scrambling to reposition itself as a military, energy, and economic power, perhaps without the necessary conditions to succeed. Its growing irrelevance has forced it into the role of mere financier in other actors’ power games, particularly those of the United States—for instance, in its posture toward Russia. It is also experiencing a crisis of identity that challenges and demands an urgent response from today’s EU.

More than thirty years ago, in a well-known phrase, then Belgian Foreign Minister Mark Eyskens described Europe as “an economic giant, a political dwarf, and a military worm.” As we complete the first quarter of the 21st century, history presents us again with the same question: Quo vadis, Europa? Where are you going, Europe? Who is today’s Zeus trying to take advantage of you? What model should we allow to abduct us? In what do we wish to be distinct, to find our identity, and to project our future? These are turbulent times, and Europe seems to be under pressure to speak out. Contemplation can no longer be delayed, and public debate is accelerating. But before moving forward, we must reposition ourselves to understand our own idiosyncrasy—if, indeed, there is still a sufficiently meaningful “us.” The three sons of mythical Europa outline, in a sense, a model, a spirit, a reference worth exploring in this search.

Minos: The architect of order and the bureaucratic paradox

Legend tells that Europa’s first son, Minos, became king of Crete and was granted by the gods the privilege of ruling with justice and order. To ensure his kingdom’s balance, he established laws and norms, becoming a symbol of political and social organization. His reign was marked by the creation of complex structures and a constant search for harmony by subjecting the exceptional to the rule of law. In life, he imposed authority; in death, he became a judge in the afterlife.

However, his legacy also carries a troubling undertone: his ability to construct complex institutions and buildings ultimately led to the famous labyrinth, designed to contain the uncontrollable—the monster hidden in the heart of the system: the Minotaur. In trying to tame the wild, he ended up creating a hybrid creature, a mix of nature and artifice, which had to be hidden. Minos thus represents the paradox of perfect organization that, in its quest for order, generates its own anomaly. Trapped within that construction, only a foreign hero like Theseus managed to kill the monster and escape the labyrinth, unwinding Ariadne’s thread against the wishes of Minos, his father.

In this figure, we can glimpse an image of contemporary Europe: a power that accumulates a rich historical legacy now slowly eroding, entangled in its own labyrinth. Having renounced imperial ambitions, Europe has tried to make its regulatory and normative authority its civilizational calling card. Like Minos, it has built complex systems to contain global imbalances and guarantee rights, becoming a global reference in environmental protection, social justice, and human rights. But this very complexity has forged its bureaucratic Minotaur—one that has cost it agility, capacity for innovation and entrepreneurship, while also concealing internal tensions and creating administrative labyrinths that hinder its ability to respond swiftly to global challenges.

The well-known and extensive Draghi report focused precisely on this dysfunction: overregulation in Europe has become a structural obstacle to innovation. Many startups and companies—especially in strategic sectors like AI or biotechnology—criticize the dissuasive effect of an excessively heavy legal environment that slows down, increases the cost of, or outright prevents the agile development of new initiatives. Minos’ labyrinth becomes a metaphor for national fragmentation, excessive paperwork, stringent certifications, regulations detached from reality, and a risk-averse culture that is excessively cautious.

In contrast to the rapid race between the United States and China to lead quantum computing or foundational AI models, Europe often appears in memes and satirical commentary as the continent that legislates the mandatory use of inconvenient non-detachable bottle caps for recycling purposes. The pinnacle—people joke—of 21st-century European innovation. While this image is largely unfair, it reflects a growing perception: that of a regulatory superpower trapped in its own labyrinth, at risk of legislating minutiae while the world redefines the fundamentals.

Nevertheless, we cannot deny that Europe has become a bastion of human rights, environmental stewardship, and respect for diversity. This continues to make it a magnet for immigration, which it particularly needs due to its aging population. That dynamic strains its internal relations and has fueled the xenophobic discourse of emerging far-right parties, fearful of losing a nationally tinted ethnic identity. But Europe can turn this into an opportunity if it harmonizes its legislative and protective capacity for citizens and consumers with cultural integration and is able to attract qualified talent from other parts of the world that long to enjoy European well-being.

The motto of the French Revolution, which ignited Europe’s path toward democratization—“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”—can today be reinterpreted in a new triad: liberty has been the quintessential American banner, based on expansion and individual initiative; equality has been the socialist proclamation promoted by China, grounded in collective harmony centrally controlled; Europe, for its part, might aspire to a third path under the banner of fraternity, it can make its common project truly inspiring.

This appeal to fraternity is not an empty slogan but an invitation to replicate the model that once brought the United States its success: a model capable of receiving immigration in a fair, orderly, and enriching way—regulating without excluding, integrating without losing itself. That kind of fraternity does not shun rules; it uses them as a bridge between diverse identities. It is urgent that Europe preserve the core of its regulatory identity, if only to attract that talent—but also because its openness is a moral beacon in a world increasingly led by “strongmen.” Europe must retain Minos’ sense of justice but open the labyrinth’s gates to compete and thrive. The question is whether that’s feasible while coordinating the swarm of sovereign nations.

Rhadamanthus: Centralization and collective harmony

Rhadamanthus, after a dispute with his brothers, fled Crete and also became a fair and upright judge, celebrated for the integrity of his decisions and for the trust his subjects placed in him. According to Diodorus Siculus, all his people willingly submitted to his jurisdiction, knowing his reputation for justice—suggesting that his power was deeply legitimized by his effectiveness. In life, he was an exemplary lawgiver; in death, another of the judges of the underworld.

In the Aeneid, Virgil adds another layer to his character: “He investigates and punishes frauds and forces men to confess their hidden sins, those they took vain pride in keeping secret.” He was thus an unrelenting prosecutor of the human soul, unsatisfied with appearances or visible law, probing the moral depths of the individual to render judgment. In him coexisted legitimate authority and rigorous control, social harmony and deep scrutiny.

It’s hard not to see in this figure echoes of China’s civilizational model, where justice is conceived not so much as individual liberty but as collective harmony sustained by merit, discipline, and obedience to the established order. China has a very ancient Confucian tradition of respect for knowledge and hierarchy, where access to the administration—historically through arduous imperial exams, now transformed—was a symbol of moral excellence and intellectual competence. This never hampered China’s capacity for practical innovation; for centuries, it was a beacon of technological disruption—until it ceased to be in the Age of Discovery.

After the so-called Century of Humiliation, China has reemerged with strength, asserting its place in the world through a combination of cultural pride, historical memory, and political ambition. Today, technocratic socialism with Chinese characteristics exercises near-absolute power over Chinese society in exchange for security, prosperity, and order. Technology has become an instrument of control and planning. Its most recognizable symbols are the social credit system and extreme surveillance.

Moreover, China is no longer merely “the world’s factory”: it is advancing as a technological, industrial, and military power, competing globally with a model that doesn’t aim to imitate the West, but to surpass it from a different idea of justice—one that is efficient, hierarchical, and deeply national. Like Rhadamanthus, China doesn’t ask for permission to judge, and its strength lies not in seduction, but in its conviction that it is restoring a lost balance.

Paradoxically, this centralism was once a historical burden. China missed the train of the scientific and technological revolutions, arguably because its centralized political system—though effective at maintaining order—stifled internal competition and the circulation of divergent ideas. Meanwhile, fragmented Europe, full of rival kingdoms, gave rise to a more dynamic equilibrium, as Joel Mokyr2 has explored: the “Republic of Letters,” with Latin as a lingua franca, enabled the diffusion of ideas through an informal network of intellectuals that nourished modern scientific thought through debate, competition, and mobility. Borders played a decisive role. Competition among nations and the rise of the printing press, which gave dissidents safe havens across frontiers, were crucial to Europe’s intellectual and technological growth.

Other historical hypotheses have also explored the causes behind the so-called Great Divergence that Europe experienced—many emphasizing the role of competitive individualism3. One study, published in Nature Communications, examined how the near-random allocation of people to rice or wheat farming in two state-run Chinese farms shaped their cultures. The results showed that rice farmers exhibited less individualism, greater loyalty to friends, and a more relational thinking style than wheat farmers. This supports the idea that rice cultivation—due to its labor demands and need for coordination—fosters more collectivist cultures, and that such cultural differences can emerge within a single generation. Another hypothesis, the “fractured land” theory, suggests that Europe’s natural borders—mountain ranges, rivers, and coastlines—prevented early political unification, stimulating emulation among states and sustained development4. In contrast, China’s flat plains favored rapid unification under centralized authority.

Some research has also emphasized how European individual action was uniquely incentivized. Though I’ll return to this theory later, it’s important to mention the work of Jonathan Schulz and Joseph Henrich5, who identified the emergence of a distinct psychological mindset within WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) cultures. This, they argue, stems from the Roman Church’s ancient prohibition on cousin marriage, which dismantled traditional kinship ties that had constrained growth in other regions. By forcing individuals to leave their family cores, nepotistic networks gave way to new social structures more favorable to economic cooperation and fair exchange of ideas in science, technology, and politics.

This brings us to the spread of the printing press, a topic I studied extensively in my book. While Max Weber and his followers argued that the Protestant work ethic solidified capitalism through effort and investment, other researchers—like Becker and Woessmann6—focused instead on the effects of mass literacy. Encouraged by Luther’s call for direct Bible reading, mass literacy more accurately predicts Europe’s extraordinary growth and the Great Divergence from the rest of the world. Europe cannot ignore the current loss of human capital competitiveness it is allowing in its younger generations and companies. Removing innovation-hindering regulations, investing in education, promoting STEM training, and boosting labor mobility within the Union are all essential.

In the face of these tectonic historical forces that once favored Europe’s diversity and competition, there are now voices calling for greater political integration to compete with large structures like China or the United States. Yet discredited European nationalism is in decline. There’s no shared language—and the dominant one belongs to the country that left the EU after Brexit. Much of this lack of appeal is due to various causes: the EU was scapegoated for the most unpopular measures after the Great Recession7; it is perceived as labyrinthine in its legislation; and its internal disputes—north versus south, austerity debates, and migration tensions—have reawakened reactionary political movements that call for a return to national identity. A shared “we” still remains to be built. Eurovision and Erasmus aren’t enough.

In fact, some authors are blunt in their criticism of the Brussels-centric unification approach, blaming it for Europe’s decline into irrelevance. They describe the EU as a soulless bureaucratic superstructure, incapable of innovation, unfavorably compared to imperial China. The economic, cultural, and moral stagnation is striking: in 2008, the eurozone had the same GDP as the U.S.—by 2023, it barely reached half. For many, Brussels has become a symbol of decadence: an artificial power center, inhabited by arrogant and gray officials wielding ineffective and dogmatic power. Bureaucratic obstructors.

These critics compare Europe to the worst version of old centralist China, highlighting how China’s most technologically innovative periods flourished during political fragmentation, while imperial centralization—like under Emperor Qianlong—led to censorship, stagnation, and rejection of innovation. They argue that historically, Europe surpassed China thanks to its political diversity and inter-state competition. Now, by centralizing around Brussels, it may be repeating China’s errors: censorship disguised as regulation, absurd policies, and a lack of real power or response capacity. Europe may have lost the dynamism that once made it innovative, reduced to a regulatory zone disconnected from the urgency of contemporary challenges.

Yet unity is still far from effective, even if what we do have is inefficient. Greater integration of the common market for energy, industry, and transport is needed. Europe’s current inefficiency in collectively acquiring resources (like energy), streamlining its economy (due to disharmonized national regulations), or developing a shared foreign policy and military are challenges it can no longer postpone—especially if it wants to remain viable in such a competitive geopolitical landscape.

In fact, Rhadamanthus only gained full recognition as a legislator and judge after death, when he earned his true authority in the underworld. Will Europe have to wait until that moment—when it’s too late—or might it be wiser to seek the virtues of greater political unification now? One that allows for both internal and global competitiveness while protecting and encouraging its human capital and economic initiatives? Perhaps, in that sense, Europe would do well to draw closer to the dynamics of her third son: Sarpedon, the migrant and competitive warrior.

Sarpedon: The tragic hero and the libertarian impulse

Sarpedon, after clashing with his brothers, was condemned to exile. Far from his homeland, he became a foreign king and a valiant warrior whose life reached both its peak—and its end—in the Trojan War, where he fought as an ally of the Trojans. His death, movingly narrated in the Iliad, stirred even the gods. Zeus, his father, watched his fall in sorrow, yet could not intervene: fate had already been sealed. Sarpedon was a free man who accepted his destiny to the fullest, fighting for his own principles, even far from home.

This figure bears a strong individualistic, bold, and tragic character that sets him apart from his brothers. Unlike the legislator or the judge, he does not build systems or administer justice; instead, he projects outward—toward combat, adventure, and personal assertion. He is the solitary hero who answers only to his conscience and does not fear paying the ultimate price for his intervention. His life is brief but intense. His name endures more as legend than as institution. His legacy is not stability but heroic action.

This archetype finds its clearest counterpart in the American model, built on an idea of individual freedom, personal initiative, and self-assertion in the face of power. The United States has shaped its identity around this Sarpedonic ethos: political and economic liberalism, rejection of external imposition, and glorification of the individual who carves their own path. This idea has spread globally through American pop culture, with figures like the Western cowboy, the lone superhero, or the soldier who saves the world. Sarpedon’s epic is revived in every story where a single man—or a single nation—intervenes to change the course of history.

Moreover, like Sarpedon, who was a powerful foreigner, the United States is a nation of immigrants. Since the 18th century—especially in regions like New England—it received waves of Europeans who brought knowledge, values, and energy to build a new civilization. This European human capital—translated into universities, industries, laboratories, and social innovation—formed the foundation of American power.

Yet along with his creative spirit, Sarpedon also embodies the belligerent and interventionist side of the model: the U.S. has played a central role in numerous conflicts—World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan—acting as a champion of freedom, but also as a controversial force in foreign settings. Like the Trojan warrior, its interventions have been decisive but not always victorious, nor free from tragic consequences. The U.S. lives in tension between its heroic ideal and the price of hegemony—between glory and exhaustion, between the freedom it proclaims and the power it exercises.

This Sarpedonic ethos, however, shows signs of wear. Among others, Ray Dalio8 has warned that we may be witnessing the beginning of the American empire’s decline—a process marked by rising debt, internal polarization, and loss of international dominance. This fits with various theories on the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations:

Some analysts reject this notion of decline and argue that certain regions of the U.S. continue to innovate and grow spectacularly compared to the rest of the world—explaining, for example, the Trump administration’s push to break ties that no longer bind them. Others, however, highlight alarming signs of decline: widening social inequalities compared to Europe and other regions that, in relative terms, are increasing life expectancy, social cohesion, and political stability. Structural inequality, lack of healthcare protections, crime rates, political polarization, the decay of many urban areas9, the gradual dismantling of the so-called “American Dream,” and the erosion of international credibility—all continue to undermine America’s internal legitimacy and external influence. While the U.S. is still far from falling like Sarpedon on the battlefield, its symbolic and real weight is indeed diminishing, revealing an increasingly multipolar world.

Should Europe then embrace a model that unleashes unbridled private initiative by scaling back regulation and social protections? Is it wise to shrink public administration—the cornerstone of the European welfare state—and follow the libertarian and minarchist impulses now echoing across the Americas, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego? Europe cannot ignore the strategic importance of public investment and collective action in driving innovation, as China’s example demonstrates. Many of the most recent technological breakthroughs would not have been possible without them10. But Europe must rethink the imbalances in its social protection—such as continued support for obsolete industries or intergenerational disparities—and indeed, coordinate its efforts more effectively to achieve energy autonomy and self-defense.

Lastly, we must not forget the symbolism of the bull itself. Although the main arguments here point toward political, economic, and military rearmament, it was the bull—symbol of economic power—that once launched Europe into global dominance, only to lead it into disaster after a blood-soaked imperial hegemony driven by competition. The bull is Zeus—capricious, granting gifts one moment and taking them away the next. The bull is the golden calf once idolized by the Israelites. The bull stands as a statue beside Wall Street, the emblem of power and ambition. Perhaps Europe, without naïveté, should adopt the stance of the girl raised to face the charging bull: defiant, self-assured, and full of future.

10

Undoubtedly, private initiative fuels innovation. But some breakthroughs would not have been possible without the activation of public agendas and resources. One might ask whether the Internet would exist without ARPANET investment, or whether the mRNA vaccines that saved us from COVID could have been developed so quickly without non-repayable public funding for research with no guaranteed return.

In the first part of the Draghi report, the initial premise is that the European defence industry suffers not only from lower defence spending by countries than would be desirable, but also from a lack of attention to technological development, despite being a highly competitive sector at the global level, with high export volumes, and in which it is assumed by all actors that technology plays an essential role in achieving military superiority. Again, the military conflict in Ukraine has clearly proved this in the technological acceleration it has promoted.

The second point that the Draghi report warned about is that the European defence industry is fragmented, which limits its scale and hinders achieving the desired operational effectiveness on the ground; many national industries duplicate efforts in the development of almost similar projects and weapons programmes, and, each country, focuses primarily on meeting the needs of the domestic markets. These are not unknown baseline data that have not been previously described in countless reports. What is relevant is that they are now part of a report focused on competitiveness and at a very delicate geopolitical moment for Europe. Draghi, and with him many other analysts, is aware of the duplications and inefficiencies in EU Member States' defence spending.

In relation to the “space” sector, discussed in the same chapter in Draghi report, it is assumed that "the EU has developed a world-class space sector, despite much lower levels of funding, but is now starting to lose ground". It is important to bear in mind that the space sector is a dual sector, with space technology, and that of the ground segment of platform operation and space data exploitation, largely serving civil and military markets in areas such as observation, navigation and communications as aerospace companies are well aware. They are strongly intertwined, albeit with their own nuances and issues.

It is no secret that the current situation of the defence industry responds to a logic of "national interests" that has permeated the construction of the EU since 1954, when the proposal to create the European Defence Community[1] was dropped and a pragmatic vision based on "small steps" was adopted to make it a reality This is the vision consolidated in the 1957 Treaties of Rome, and in subsequent amendments up to the current Treaty of Lisbon. We must recognise that Jean Monnet's idea in the fifties of the last century has been an undeniable success and has led to today's European Union.

The third element of the Draghi report from a defence and security perspective is formulated as "for both defence and space industries, insufficient aggregation and coordination of public spending in Europe compounds industrial fragmentation"

In Draghi's view, even if the legislative framework of EU competences is not altered, which is a reality in the short and medium term, it is possible to undertake reforms: "In the absence of common European spending, political actions for the defence sector should focus on aggregating demand and integrating industrial defence assets". In any case, it implies reaching timely agreements among all Member States in the European Council, accepting and accommodating very different historical sensitivities, internal situations and external geographical constraints among EU Member States.

This view is complemented by the view of the group of experts who have contributed to the Draghi report that

Together with the urgent need to increase overall defence investment, there is a strong case to reinforce cooperation and pooling of resources for defence R&D at the EU level. Personally, I believe that there is room for manoeuvre in this area to make use of the "enhanced cooperation" in the EU context already used in the past and mentioned by Draghi in his report. [2]

The second part of the Draghi report, in which the different proposals are described (Part B. In-depth analysis and recommendations), devotes Chapter 7 to Defence, in which it is aware of the need to ensure strategic autonomy at a time of increasing geopolitical threats. Specifically, the report states:

The EU’s defence sector is critical to ensure Europe’s strategic autonomy in facing increasing external security threats, as well as driving innovation through spillovers across the entire economy. The concept of strategic autonomy to which the EU has given great political relevance[3] requires achieving a sufficient level of technological sovereignty to reduce external dependencies, assuming that technological autarky is not possible, thus acting as an enabling factor to achieve the intended strategic autonomy. The European Parliament's Research Service defined it as the "ability to act autonomously, to rely on one's own resources in key strategic areas and to cooperate with partners when necessary". However, the starting point is worrying.

For Draghi, Europe's dependency situation in the defence context is formulated as follows:

EU Member States are highly dependent on non-EU defence solutions, especially from the US. The vast majority of European defence investment has recently been diverted to the US and to other international defence industry players (including Israel and South Korea).

He continues:

The choice to procure from the US may be justified in some cases because the EU does not have some products in its catalogue, but in many other cases a European equivalent exists, or could be rapidly made available by the European defence industry European defence officials can tell Draghi that there are many reasons why a European solution may not be appropriate for a particular weapon system (be it a fighter aircraft, a tank, a missile, a command and control system, etc.) at a particular time and in a particular country. It is a complex analysis that must take into account the urgency of the decision based on the degree of technological obsolescence of existing equipment, the capabilities of industry to deliver the desired performance, the associated costs, the need for interoperability within NATO or with pre-existing systems, past commitments and, of course, an up-to-date assessment of threats from other countries and the best military systems to reduce them. It is an equation with many variables and no single solution.

It should be acknowledged that some progress has been made in the Union with the approval in March 2022 of the Strategic Compass to strengthen the EU's security and defence in the next decade[4] . Also noteworthy is the effort made in recent years with the creation of the European Defence Agency[5] , the European Defence Fund[6] or the approval of various Council regulations such as the one adopted in 2023 establishing an instrument to strengthen the European defence industry through common public procurement (EDIRPA), or the Regulation to support the production of munitions (ASAP). Also by the use of other essential regulations for the defence industry, albeit of a more specific dual technological scope, such as Chips, or Critical Raw Materials, all of which indicate that progress is possible in a complex situation such as the current one.

In fact, and on the basis of the Draghi report, the Declaration issued on the occasion of the informal European Council held in Budapest on 8 November 2024[7] agreed to: "Enhance our defence readiness and capabilities, in particular by strengthening our defence technological and industrial base". In the same Declaration, another complementary agreement can be read: "Strengthening the EU’s technological capabilities, accelerating the digital transformation across industries, […], as well as fostering the development of innovative technologies ".

This dizzying succession of relevant developments is complemented by proposals and debates on the need for reform of European defence governance.

In this context, Commission President Von der Leyen has already decided to create the portfolio of Commissioner for Defence and Space in 2024, which has been entrusted to former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius. In her mission letter to the new commissioner with the mandate and tasks of his new post[8] , Von der Leyen reminds him that the Member States will always be responsible for their armed forces (from doctrine to deployment).

The European Commission is aware that, according to the Treaties, it cannot lead European defence. It can "support" that defence through concrete decisions and programmes in terms of investment, industry, equipment procurement, research and innovation, or intra-European military mobility, but this reflects the assumption of a secondary role to that of the Member States.

In practice, we will see how this new post of Commissioner plays out alongside that of the new High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, and with many other Commissioners with budgets and direct competences in the aforementioned “support areas”; and how Member States respect these attributions. Past experience shows that this is not easy, and other powers will use it to weaken the European Commission. Specifically, in the mission letter for the new Commissioner for Defence and Space there are some relevant aspects related to innovation policy in the context of the Draghi report which I highlight below:

· Working with the High Representative/Vice-President, you will present the White Paper on the Future of European Defence in the first 100 days of the mandate. It should frame a new approach to defence and identify investment needs to deliver full-spectrum European defence capabilities based on joint investments, readying the EU and Member States for the most extreme military contingencies.

· Working with Member States and in close coordination with NATO, you will lead the work on proposing Defence Projects of Common European Interest. To that end, I would like you to start working with Member States on the design and implementation of a European Air Shield and cyber defence common project, working closely with the High Representative/Vice-President.

· You will be responsible for overseeing the implementation of the European Defence Industrial Strategy. You will support the swift conclusion of negotiations on the European Defence Industry Programme and then focus on its implementation, notably to promote and incentivise common procurement of European equipment.

· You will also rapidly implement the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through Common Procurement Act (EDIRPA) and of the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP). You should look for ways to scale up such short- term measures to pave the way for a more ambitious future defence programme.

· You will work to incentivise public and private investment in defence, notably working with the European Investment Bank, other financial institutions, and private banks to help finance and de-risk common defence projects and defence innovation.

· You will ensure the continuous implementation of the EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence, working with the High Representative/Vice-President..

· ...

It is worth recalling at this point the words of Josep Borrell, the former High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, when he said, when presenting the Strategic Compass in March 2022, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began:

The threats are growing and the price of inaction is clear. The Strategic Compass is a guide to action that charts an ambitious course for our security and defence policy for the next decade. It will help us to live up to our security responsibilities, both to our citizens and to the rest of the world. If not now, when?

The key question is whether this effort is sufficient, whether it will be timely, whether the necessary financial resources will be available to carry it out, and whether it will be supported by other types of action in an integrated approach between the Commission and the Member States.

This is the basis for the re-reading of the Draghi report, contextualised in the current situation, which I discuss in the next section to support the EU's repositioning in the coming years at the intersection of innovation and defence with the recovery of European competitiveness.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/es/sheet/1/los-primeros-tratados

[2] Enhanced cooperation (Article 20 of the Treaty on European Union and Title III of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) is a procedure authorising at least nine Member States to establish advanced integration or cooperation in a particular area of the European Union (EU), where it has become apparent that the EU as a whole cannot achieve the objectives of such cooperation within a reasonable period of time. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/ES/legal-content/glossary/enhanced-cooperation.html

[3] https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/por-qu%C3%A9-es-importante-la-autonom%C3%ADa-estrat%C3%A9gica-europea_es

[4] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/es/press/press-releases/2022/03/21/a-strategic-compass-for-a-stronger-eu-security-and-defence-in-the-next-decade/

[5] https://eda.europa.eu/

[6] https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/european-defence-fund-edf-official-webpage-european-commission_en

[7] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/es/meetings/european-council/2024/11/07-08/

[8] https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/1f8ec030-d018-41a2-9759-c694d4d56d6c_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20KUBILIUS.pdf

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Draghi himself in his presentation of his report to the European Parliament on 17 September 2024 said:

The European Union exists to ensure that Europe’s fundamental values are always upheld: democracy, freedom, peace, equity and prosperity in a sustainable environment.

If Europe cannot any longer deliver these values for its people, it will have lost its reason for being.[1]

This is, as the report states several times, an "existential" issue.

In the context indicated in the previous section, the analysis in Mario Draghi's report on European competitiveness was a stark wake-up call to which the EU had to respond with a change of direction to assume its own responsibilities in a geopolitically complex world. It was a change whose necessity had been announced for years, but which now took on greater urgency and should become a key axis of action for the new European Commission that was beginning its work, but also for the rest of the EU institutions.

The proposal to increase investment by 800 billion euros a year to ensure the bloc's competitiveness was a shock which, beyond the figure (not fully justified in the report and debatable, but put on the table) showed that the problem would not be solved in the usual way nor with the available resources. There was a clear talk of the need for a different budgetary scenario.

It should not be forgotten that the Draghi report comes at a time of high-intensity military conflict to which the EU is no stranger. In a different and calmer situation than the current one, this report could have triggered the lengthy Community discussions in the context of the drafting and discussion of the next multiannual financial perspectives from 2028 onwards, framed in the slow processes of reform through successive "Commission communications", Council and Parliament agreements, and multiple directives and regulations. It corresponded to an environment of change that could be profound and complicated, but which could be developed within the usual framework of weaving agreements between Member States as had happened repeatedly in the past. Indeed, we had three years to reflect this in a new budgetary framework. But that scenario is not going to be feasible.

The idea that the defence and foreign policy of the Member States could not be subject to a transfer of competences to the Community institutions, even if they were shared, has been anchored in successive EU treaties. The problem is that now, following the various enlargement processes, agreements must be reached in the European Council with 27 States, and the open question is whether, under the current conditions, this is desirable in order to maintain the EU's relevant weight in the international geopolitical context. My opinion is that it is not, and the open question is whether we prefer to give up this weight and relevance in order to preserve national positions or take a further step towards European integration.

Focusing attention on European defence, the "Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)", as defined in the Lisbon Treaty, is considered an intergovernmental policy in which the Member States decide in the Council, requiring unanimity to adopt an agreement. It is not, therefore, a Community policy and therefore does not involve the Commission, nor is it adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure (co-decision) of the Council with the European Parliament. In fact, the defence dimension of the CSDP is not yet fully developed.[2]

In the current scenario, the EU's room for manoeuvre in the EU budget is small[3] as had already been demonstrated by resorting to the use of the European Peace Facility[4] instrument, designed in 2021 for something else, to provide military aid to Ukraine to the tune of 6.1 billion euros so far. On the other hand, the financial rules of deficit control and inflation did not allow Member States for any budget expansion either, not even for defence and security.

Draghi report, from a macroeconomic point of view, already proposed the urgent need to carry out some actions to recover European competitiveness against the United States and China (both powers indirectly supporting different sides in Ukraine) supported by a large set of tables, figures and indicators, and with the proposal of access to substantial economic resources.

The report focused on three axes:

1) need to accelerate innovation and find new drivers of growth,

2) reduce high energy prices, and continue the decarbonisation process in a circular economy context,

3) react to a world that is less geopolitically stable, where dependencies are becoming vulnerabilities and where Europe cannot rely on others for its security.

In his report, Draghi calls for urgent action and not to delay a decision using the usual EU procedures:

In fact, procrastination has only produced slower growth, and it has certainly achieved no more consensus. We have reached the point where, without action, we will have to either compromise our welfare, our environment or our freedom. Every day we delay, the technological frontier moves further away from us.

It is in 2025, from the perspective of defence and security, the third axis mentioned, when its consequences, intertwined with the other two axes, make it necessary to review and update the viability of the proposals included in the Draghi report. The key to this analysis is to assume that the current situation we face as Europeans not only affects the Union's economy, its competitiveness, its budgets, the innovation process, its capacity to export goods and services, or its interdependence with other countries, but goes beyond that: it affects the role we should, want to, and can play in the world. And keeping the economic perspective of the problem as an axis is not enough.

In the following sections I will present my views on what the EU should do in the current situation, even if we do not like it, focusing the analysis with a defence and security perspective. This will force us to "reread" the Draghi report with the (admittedly misted by the fog of conflicts) spectacles of the year 2025 and not with those that the group of experts worked with in 2024 when drafting the report.

[1] https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/draghi-report_en#:~:text=Preview-,Download,-Related%20links

[2] CSDP actions are limited to crisis management outside the territory of the Union and do not for the time being envisage deterrence or defence of European territory, beyond cooperation with NATO to which many EU countries belong.

[3] For reference, the average EU budget in the period 2021-2027 is 1.02% of European GDP plus 0.7% from the programmeNext Generation EU , the collective European borrowing approved to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. https://next-generation-eu.europa.eu/index_en

[4] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/european-peace-facility/

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The command of the high ground has always been a military axiom; even warships have their own “castles”. Surely, Sun Tzu was not the first to recommend seizing the heights or to discourage attacking uphill. That which is prominent dominates what lies beneath, though it is, of course, exposed to the gaze and scrutiny of all. Great power, as we know, comes with great responsibility.

Over the last century, control of the heights became command of the air, and in recent decades, of outer space. The principle remains unchanged: to accumulate potential energy in order to minimize the effort required to unleash kinetic force against an adversary lying in a subordinate position. The ramp built by the Tenth Legion “Fretensis” under Lucius Flavius Silva to conquer Masada from the Jewish rebels still bears witness after two millennia to the arduousness of attacking from below.

Julius Caesar applied this principle during the siege of Alesia too. The citadel —much like Spain´s Numantia eighty years earlier— stood atop a mound that made assault difficult. The proconsul chose to use the surrounding elevations to encircle the Gallic walls with his own, ensuring his positions were also dominant over defenders who might attempt a sortie.

The universality of the principle is such that it has transcended the military and the physical. The expression “to take the moral high ground” notably lacks a direct equivalent in Spanish —hence, for example, the enduring “Black Legend.” The moral high ground reflects the ability to adopt a position of moral superiority from which to dominate interactions with others. If there is an expression of soft power, it is precisely this moral superiority.

Moral superiority is the greatest source of soft power. Drawing on reputation and trust, it establishes a network of alliances and markets in which one’s products enjoy the added value of coming from above, from the superior. Its customs and currencies become the standard. Its politics always seem to be ahead, simply because the right path is defined by the one it takes and the right timing is when it chooses to take it.

This moral superiority translates tactical advantage into the strategic and political arena. Hence the constant obsession with securing it for oneself and denying it to any potential adversary. Peoples have always distinguished between “us” and “them,” between the civilized and the barbaric. In the chronicles of the Battle of Little Big Horn —where Custer and his Seventh Cavalry held their last stand atop a hill only to succumb to a vastly superior force of Americans— the latter are labeled, as was customary in the narratives of the time, as “savages.”

The power of names to exclude others from debate or coexistence is a topic deserving of its own essay.

Moral superiority is useful both in peace and in war, in offense and in defense. It offers so many advantages that, over time, those who possess it often forget that these advantages derive from their position, not from their own inherent abilities. They come to expect the same benefits even when the playing field is leveled. They assume that the moral high ground lays wherever they are, even when one strays from it. The rules dictate: I always win.

China occupied such a position across much of the world for centuries. Its internalization of moral superiority is inscribed in the very characters of its name: the Middle Kingdom. Everything was to flow from and towards Chang’an, the capital city at the time. China saw and defined itself as a civilization, in contrast to others being mere cultures —again, more or less “barbaric” or “savage.”

Once more, the power of language.

Yet, the strength of the Asian colossus was rarely channeled into conquest. A country that builds walls does not intend to expand beyond them. Nor does a nation that destroys its own unrivaled fleet out of fear of contamination by barbarism. China’s heartland remains today sort of an island, surrounded by the highest mountains, the deepest oceanic trenches, and the most impenetrable jungles and deserts.

Europe, for its part, continues to live in the inertia and illusion of its (few) golden centuries. Our history books recount each era according to the geography in which we were relevant, as if the rest of the world had yet to be born. Yet, for a long time, this privileged Eurasian peninsula was but a marginal corner.

Today, we still measure time from our own meridian, but countries like India assert their independence by setting a time zone five and a half hours apart from the former Empire —no whole hours that might make them appear subordinate to Westminster. We Europeans are focused in a mirror that requires ever greater distortion to reflect us at the size we wish to see ourselves. The old continent can no longer dispense of its reading glasses, and they are anything but fit to look afar or ahead.

Our self-styled moral superiority compels us to legislate and regulate what we do not manufacture, not quite realizing that our watchtower has eroded in the eyes of others. The most recent example of this erosion is found in our near South, in the Sahel, which rejects us yet still aspires to live here.

On the current world map, when each country’s main trading partner is represented, many more now display the five-starred red flag than those that show the tricolor one of fifty. Invariably, they run trade deficits with China. Yet neither a surplus in the exchange of goods and services necessarily implies ascendancy, nor does a deficit indicate a loss of attractiveness.

The world has grown accustomed to American leadership, to the Pax Americana —which was never more than relatively peaceful. The ultimate test of success is to triumph in Hollywood or on Wall Street, for, as Sinatra crooned, “if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” Cars, computers, or ships may increasingly be manufactured elsewhere, but talent continues to flow to Ivy League universities, to the point where most of their research papers bear foreign signatures.

In most countries, regardless of the number of stars on their trading partner’s flag, it is still more likely to find a Budweiser than a Tsingtao, Tom Cruise is better known than Hu Ge, and jeans are more popular than hanfu.

The high ground —or, for that matter, the moral high ground— is not relinquished without very good reason. Only arrogance or desperation could induce one to willingly forfeit such an advantage. For decades, the United States has enjoyed this privileged position. It is the country everyone seeks to study or work in, to conduct research or hunt for opportunity. A nation that expanded like a gas, filling the continent that housed it, and whose influence crossed the two oceans that bound it.

It would therefore be highly surprising if the United States were willing to sacrifice the ascendancy it undoubtedly enjoys, reversing its policy of offshoring and outsourcing to labor “paradises” (not so for the workers), now that risks are rising and returns are diminishing.

There are, however, some factors that explain this. Not least is the instinctive fact that, in the face of danger, we all tend to root our feet firmly and lower our center of gravity. China’s growth must be no doubt perceived as sufficiently threatening to American hegemony that it shrinks available margins. There is no longer room for generosity. Everything is too critical to be left to the (otherwise supreme) market —not even to allies. Some perceive that the time has come to bring the wounded and the horses inside the circle of wagons and bristle the defenses; a strategic reshoring, recurrent in the country’s history.

These are not times of turmoil, but of paradigm shift. The Ignatian maxim of “not making changes in times of desolation” does not apply, yet there are still no new rules to adapt to. The entire architecture that has supported global governance is crumbling before our very eyes, and it is unlikely that its pieces will even serve as building material for the new design.

In addition to his famous “trap,” Thucydides left us the enduring maxim of political realism: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Today, the great powers —and those who imagine themselves to be— vie with one another, and others will suffer collateral damage in this clash of titans. A game of musical chairs is beginning that will reshape the global board.

In the tectonic shift now underway, some plates will rise while others will sink. The moral high ground will be redefined with new values and principles. In this context, leadership, flexibility, and the ability to find the new summit will be essential —and the more tightly we cling to old concepts, the harder that ascent will be.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The European Commission's priorities, and discussions within the Council and the European Parliament, have been fed by a number of studies on the state of the Union and the actions it should take in the future, coming from various institutions and personalities in different countries.

Among these studies, the reports carried out, in chronological order, by Enrico Letta, (Much more than a market[1]), presented in May 2024, and by Mario Draghi (The future of European competitiveness[2]) published in September 2024 stand out. Both have had resonance due to their impact on the discussion on the future of the EU from the perspective of the single market, in Letta's, and from the perspective of the loss of European competitiveness vis-à-vis other powers, in Draghi's. To these, it can also be added the report prepared by Sauli Niinistö, former president of Finland, presented on 30 October 2024 (Strengthening Europe's civilian and military preparedness and readiness[3] ) and more related to security from the perspective of a high-intensity military conflict at the Union's borders.

The three reports mentioned above are complementary, with different emphases, but all reflect a common concern: the EU must turn the corner if it is to become globally relevant, more secure and competitive.

These reports have been followed by many analyses from public and private institutions as well as various analysts[4] that have addressed their consequences from a general viewpoint or focused on a specific area. In the field of defence in particular, the position of the European industry, the ASD (The Aerospace, Security, and Defence Industries Association of Europe[5]) and, in Spain, the report presented by TEDAE (Asociación Española de Empresas Tecnológicas de Defensa, Seguridad, Aeronáutica y Espacio[6]). In both cases, from a positive perspective due to the opportunity that the Draghi report represents to frame and accelerate the debate, aware of the role that the (defence) industry plays and will play in the future.

This contribution focuses on the second of the aforementioned reports, informally known as the "Draghi report", although references are made, where appropriate, to the other reports mentioned, as well as to the positions of various entities and the EU institutions themselves. The aim is not, therefore, to analyse a specific report in isolation, but to contextualise its drafting and impact at a historic moment in which the EU's future is at stake. We must be aware that the current situation affects not only the EU from a Community point of view, but also all its Member States; even more, in my opinion, it involves all Europeans.

When Mario Draghi presented his report on 9 September 2024, drawn up, let us not forget, at the request of European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, some very important developments for the EU had not yet taken place; now, barely six months later, we do know about them, and they are changing the context in which the Union acts.

To begin with, Donald Trump's victory in the US elections in November 2024 had not happened yet, although it was a plausible scenario. Nor was it obvious a few months earlier that a tariff war would be unleashed by the United States against many countries, including the EU, or that it would be conducted in the unilateral terms in which it is being conducted now that the new US administration has taken office with threats of general tariffs of 25% on imports from Europe, which will most likely be responded to by the EU with similar tariffs, raising the tone of the trade war; it is true that some signals in this direction were already explicit during the US presidential campaign.

Nor, although it was predictable, was expected to be heard the US position at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit held on 10-11 February 2025 in Paris, based on a plea against the regulation of digital technology (not only AI) created by the EU in the last decade. A regulatory process with which the EU sought to channel data protection, access to digital services, the establishment of a fair, open and citizen-protective digital market or to allow the development of AI from an approach that sought to ensure security principles while allowing the process of innovation. Finding this balance is, in my opinion, feasible and many countries that signed the Summit Declaration[7] believe so, although not the United States nor the United Kingdom, which did not sign it.

It is clear that the implementation of the EU digital regulations imposed conditions on digital service providers in the EU to operate in the EU and, from time to time, brought sanctions on significant large US digital companies[8] ; companies now very close to, if not within, the new Donald Trump Administration, to a greater extent than Europeans expected.

But another relative surprise from the Trump Administration awaited on February 2025 at the Munich Security Summit[9]. In short, the US 'threatened' Europeans to leave us alone in our defence. To top it off, the US declared its position to reach an agreement with Russia on ending the Ukrainian war without the EU, and without Ukraine either; a process that has begun on those terms. This was not only a matter of form, but also of substance that appeals to the Union's global relevance.

It is too early to know how the talks on the future of Ukraine will develop and how they will affect the EU from a European security perspective, or how and when the EU will be involved in them, but I am convinced that the EU's various positions and any decisions resulting from them will no longer be able to keep up with the leisurely pace of EU policy.

The paper published by Bruegel (a Brussels-based think tank) on 21 February 2025 on estimating what Europe would need to defend itself against a Russian attack without the US[10] paints a not simple picture. In its analysis, Europe might need 300,000 more troops and an annual increase in defence spending of at least 250 billion euros in the short term. In my opinion, Europe, with an annual defence expenditure of some 300 billion euros, does not spend little - globally it would be the third largest "country" in the world - but it spends wrongly, with duplication and a much lower level of coordination in defence spending than is desirable.

The succession of extraordinary European Councils, the latest one convened for 6 March 2025 by European Council President Antonio Costa, with the express invitation to Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski to discuss European defence in the context of developments in Ukraine, following the International Summit in support of Ukraine on 24 February 2025, is a good example of this. In his letter of invitation to Member states Antonio Costa says:

The EU and its Member States are ready to take more responsibility for Europe's security. We should therefore be prepared for a possible European contribution to the security guarantees that will be necessary to ensure a lasting peace in Ukraine.[11]

At the heart of the debate is the recognition that as Europeans we face a real problem of geopolitical irrelevance that the Gaza situation and the subsequent negotiation of the Israel-Hamas agreement outside the EU had already highlighted, and which was now very evident at the very borders of the EU itself in the search for a solution to the Ukraine conflict or at least to reach a ceasefire.

Europe, until very recently, still assumed, or wanted to assume, that the United States was a reliable and permanent ally that would provide collective security coverage in the NATO context[12] indefinitely. Unfortunately, after recent events, doubts arise and we are no longer so sure of this, even if we do not yet know how to react because we also do not know the next steps of the United States and how it expects NATO to evolve[13] ; basically, nobody likes to hear what they do not like because the United States has repeatedly said in recent years, with better manners than now, that its priority was in the Pacific.

It is logical that it is taking time for European leaders to come to terms with the need to devote resources to prepare in advance for an eventuality of defence decoupling from the United States that breaks with the situation of previous decades and which was assumed to be immutable. Possible scenarios of whether such a decoupling, if it were to occur, would take place in one to three years or over a longer period of five to ten years are very different because the EU, heavily dependent on the United States for its weapons systems, requires time to reduce its dependence. We are entering another "grey zone" in international relations that I hope, for the sake of the EU, will not be prolonged in time.

I recognise in this situation the emergence of "grey rhino" type events grazing quietly before our eyes, alluded to by Michele Wucker in her well-known metaphor used in her 2016 book[14] ; within a few months, several of them had suddenly charged in, all at once. Despite the many reports prepared on future EU scenarios analysing what might happen, it seems that it is now, and in haste, that the EU must orchestrate an orderly, consensual, intelligent and very rapid response, so that the onslaught does not sweep away part of the process of European construction, nor our way of life, nor our role in the world; and all this, without having as a starting point a consensual and approved plan for it.

During the three years since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, during which, it is fair to say, the Union has adopted courageous and committed positions in support of Ukraine, making an intelligent use of available resources, the EU has tried, together with the Governments of the Member states, to ensure that this was compatible with their economic growth, that basic macroeconomic indicators such as inflation, budgetary deficit and public debt were controlled, and that, basically, the lives of European citizens were not substantially altered.

For a high percentage of European citizens and media outside Ukraine, their concerns remained "domestic" and far away from the conflict and its global geopolitical repercussions. It seems to me that, with exceptions such as the Baltic States or Poland, there has been no attempt to transfer the perception of risk to the population, or at least of the economic problems arising from it. There has been no intention to emphasise how the EU is part of a 'hybrid war' launched by Russia with destabilising cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns.

It is true that Ukraine and Russia have had to transform their economy into a war economy; they were directly involved in it and suffering a high number of daily casualties. The EU has not had to do so by means of a continuous modulation of its level of involvement and the associated risk in its military assistance to Ukraine: in the type and conditions of use of the equipment delivered. There will be time in the future to reflect on whether this was the right approach.

Three years after Russia's invasion, despite the rising energy prices, the adoption of successive sanctions against Russia and Belarus, the massive influx of Ukrainian refugees, the acceptance of Ukrainian military training in several EU countries, the successive arms shipments, and the geopolitical consequences of the reinforcement of NATO's borders, now strengthened by the accelerated accession of Sweden and Finland, the future impact on the EU has been "tiptoed" over, hidden among the usual domestic disputes, with key countries gripped by multiple elections and weak Governments.

In my opinion, a large percentage of the population, and many politicians in national and local parties and administrations, acted numb as if everything could remain the same.

Indeed, for people in many EU Member States geographically distant from the direct conflict zone, the war in Ukraine, but also from the conflict in Gaza or in the Red Sea, the war in Sudan, in Somalia or in Ethiopia, or the growing terrorism in the Sahel, from which Europe has been expelled, felt like 'distant drums'; they seemed to be merely 'humanitarian problems' that needed to be addressed.

At the same time, and regardless of the inclusion in formal European councils of agenda items on the situation in Ukraine or Gaza, concern is growing among European countries. The meeting, urgently convened by the French president, of the presidents of seven European countries, including the United Kingdom, together with the Secretary of NATO and the president of the European Council on 17 February 2025, to respond to the crisis arising from the start, without Europe, of talks between Russia and the United States to end the war in Ukraine, followed two days later by a meeting with other European countries not present at the first meeting (with the exception of Hungary and Slovakia due to their proximity to Russia's positions), is a symptom of this concern.

But beyond declarations, not much progress has been made on concrete joint decisions in the short term.

[1] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/ny3j24sm/much-more-than-a-market-report-by-enrico-letta.pdf

[2] https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/draghi-report_en?prefLang=es&etrans=es#paragraph_47059

[3] https://commission.europa.eu/topics/defence/safer-together-path-towards-fully-prepared-union_en#:~:text=long%2Dterm%20actions.-,Download%20the%20report,-Background

[4] The future of innovation in Europe: the response to the Draghi report. Pier Next. 21 February 2025. https://piernext.portdebarcelona.cat/en/governance/the-future-of-innovation-in-europe-the-response-to-the-draghi-report/

[5] https://defence-industry.eu/europes-defence-and-aviation-industries-welcome-supportive-eu-draghi-report/

[6] https://tedae.org/defensa/el-sector-de-la-consultoria-urge-a-reactivar-europa-con-la-aplicacion-inmediata-de-los-informes-draghi-y-letta/

[7] https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2025/02/11/statement-on-inclusive-and-sustainable-artificial-intelligence-for-people-and-the-planet

[8] As an example, Google was fined €2.4 billion for giving preferential treatment in Google search results to its own shopping price comparison service over rival offerings. Google lost an appeal in 2021 by the European Commission and in September 2024 the EU Court of Justice upheld the decision. In the Apple case, the court reaffirmed a 2016 EU order for Ireland to collect €13 billion in unpaid taxes.

https://www.nytimes.com/es/2024/09/10/espanol/negocios/google-apple-sanciones-ue.html

[9] https://www.dsn.gob.es/es/actualidad/sala-de-prensa/munich-security-report-2025

[10] https://www.bruegel.org/analysis/defending-europe-without-us-first-estimates-what-needed

[11] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/european-council/2025/03/06/ y https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/1bhmpfb5/president-costa-s-invitation-letter-to-the-special-european-council-on-6-march.pdf

[12] The UN vote on a Declaration on Ukraine on 24 February 2025, pushed by Kiev and its EU partners, passed with 93 votes in favour, 65 abstentions and 18 countries voting against, including not only Russia and its usual allies, but also the US, Hungary and Israel. Subsequently, coinciding with the third anniversary of the invasion, the UN Security Council passed a short resolution presented by the United States on the "rapid end of the war", which 10 of the 15 members voted in favour, including the United States and Russia jointly, while France and the United Kingdom - the main members of the Security Council - abstained, as did Slovenia, Greece and Denmark.

[13] The next NATO summit will be held in The Hague from 24 to 26 June 2025. https://www.nato.int/cps/is/natohq/news_225618.htm?selectedLocale=en

[14] https://www.amazon.es/Gray-Rhino-Michele-Wucker/dp/125005382X

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Japan is increasingly convinced that only a military alliance involving several Indo-Pacific countries, along with the United States, can deter China, Russia, and North Korea from taking aggressive actions in the region. The prevailing global uncertainty, exacerbated by Donald Trump’s electoral victory, heightens Japan's perception of insecurity in light of China’s significant military buildup, North Korea’s frequent ballistic missile tests, and Russia’s hostile actions in the far north of the Japanese archipelago.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is a leading advocate for Japan’s strategic autonomy, which he argues should be built on the creation of a “Pacific version of NATO” that would include sharing U.S. nuclear weapons within the region. Like other U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, Japan relies on the Pentagon's ‘extended deterrence nuclear umbrella.’ While nuclear weapons are not stationed in the region, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) highlights a replicable example in Europe, where five non-nuclear states (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey) host about 100 U.S. nuclear missiles.

Ishiba, who served as Defense Minister in 2007 and 2008, outlined this proposal in an article published last October by the Hudson Institute in Washington. He also supports remilitarizing Japan’s Self-Defense Forces by equipping them with long-range missiles and other capabilities that go beyond mere defense to establish a new national security architecture. His goal is not to weaken the alliance with Washington but to demonstrate Japan’s commitment to addressing global security challenges collaboratively with other international actors.

His predecessor, Fumio Kishida, was the only Japanese leader to attend NATO summits. However, multiple corruption scandals forced Kishida to resign last August, paving the way for Ishiba to become the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Although the Japanese public has historically been resistant to amending Article 9 of the U.S.-imposed 1946 Constitution, which restricts the country’s military capacity to self-defense, military policy was not the primary factor in the LDP’s setback in the October 27 elections called by Ishiba. Instead, public fatigue with corruption in a party that has governed almost continuously since 1955 and dissatisfaction with the country’s prolonged economic stagnation since the 1991 financial and real estate bubble burst have been significant factors. Japan has dropped two positions in the global economic rankings: overtaken by China in 2010 and by Germany in 2023.

This relative weakness compared to China’s rise made it easier for Japan’s Diet (Parliament) to support two key pieces of legislation introduced by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (2012–2020). One law enabled Self-Defense Forces to operate abroad for humanitarian missions or in “situations that threaten Japan’s existence.” The other removed restrictions on collective self-defense, paving the way for Japan to join a military alliance beyond its existing partnership with Washington. Donald Trump’s disdainful treatment of Abe during his first term in the White House—threatening to withdraw over 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan unless Tokyo contributed more to its defense—fueled the conviction that Japan’s future hinges on achieving strategic autonomy.

Kishida committed in 2022, during a visit to Washington, to doubling Japan’s defense budget within four years. Additionally, Ishiba’s proposal includes sharing U.S. military bases in Japan, 70% of which are concentrated in Okinawa, a source of significant public discontent.

Japan spearheaded the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) alongside the U.S., Australia, and India, which was initially seen as the embryonic form of a Pacific NATO when established in 2007. However, changes in government in Canberra and Tokyo caused the Quad to fade into obscurity until its revival during Trump’s first term. The forum is now regaining prominence amid discussions of passing a Basic Security Law that would authorize Japan’s integration into a multinational military alliance.

Analysts suggest that a Pacific NATO could emerge by consolidating existing alliances, such as the U.S.’s bilateral agreements with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and some other ASEAN countries. The Biden Administration successfully brought Tokyo and Seoul— mistrustful of Japan for historical reasons—into a strategic dialogue. Additionally, Japan and the Philippines signed a defense pact in 2024 to counter China’s expansionism. Potential members of this alliance could include the Quad and AUKUS (Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.). New Zealand has also expressed interest in joining this group.

During his reelection campaign, Trump refrained from criticizing the costs of defending Pacific allies, instead focusing on blaming China for the U.S.’s woes. Japan remains wary of its neighbor, especially given the rise of Chinese nationalism laced with strong anti-Japanese sentiment and xenophobic attacks, including the murder of a Japanese child las September. However, Ishiba advocates fostering dialogue with Beijing and distancing Japanese diplomacy from Washington.

Similarly, he has offered economic support to North Korea if it halts missile testing. Japan views itself as the primary target of Pyongyang’s militaristic obsession but aims to pursue its own diplomatic path for security reasons and to resolve the longstanding issue of North Korea’s abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s. Tokyo was not even consulted by Trump when he decided to meet Kim Jong-un to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program—a meeting that ended in resounding failure.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The idea lingered in my mind, elusive and fragmented. For years, I pursued the idea relentlessly. I delved into telecommunications manuals that ventured beyond technology. I browsed shelves of books, their yellowed pages brimming with profound insights and extraordinary stories. I grappled with timeless questions about human nature, uncovering truths that transcended the fleeting moments of history. I fine-tuned spreadsheets and econometric models, trying to unravel relationships—intuitive yet elusive, compelling yet fragile.

Finally, a single arrow strung together all those ideas around the central concept of information—a concept that has become a key player in our societies over the past few decades. This arrow pierced through concepts of physics and biology, anthropology and history, technology and economics. It turned abstract notions into a vivid narrative, making connections between the first sounds exchanged by early hominids and the intricate systems of artificial intelligence that govern our digital age. All underpinned by the idea that information is the vital force shaping not only life but civilization itself.

We often say we live in the "information age" because bits permeate and inundate our activities and social organizations, much like sap nourishes the branches of a lush tree. But this historical stage is not as novel as it may seem when we consider that the proliferation of information is an inherent trend in the development of life. For millions of years, information has been growing in this corner of the solar system, opposing the inexorable torrent of entropy that disorganizes everything in the universe. It grows because it offers greater adaptability, from unicellular organisms to the most complex biosystems. Its exchange particularly benefits social species, such as insects and mammals, with Homo sapiens standing out for its cultural contribution to this growth, projecting it through technological artifacts and strategically exchanging it in its most distinctive trait: cooperation.

This book is a multidisciplinary journey through the fascinating and seemingly inevitable growth of information. From the origin of life and biodiversity to animal specialization and encephalization, and finally, to the singular case of hominids. Information, through the earliest stone and fire technologies, weaves together our process of hominization, leading to the first of the major information revolutions that punctuate human history: the language revolution. This revolution shaped us as a species, enabled our triumph over other hominids, and sparked the Neolithic Revolution.

After that came the writing revolution, which gave rise to the civilizations of antiquity. Information continued to grow with the alphabet of the Phoenicians and Greeks, the Egyptian papyrus that articulated Rome, and the Chinese paper that fueled innovation and Islamic science. By the end of the European Middle Ages, we see the germination of the third revolution: the printing revolution, which catalyzed the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, leading to the Great Divergence.

In the second half of the 20th century, a fourth revolution, the so-called Information and Communication Technology Revolution, gave birth to the contemporary Information Society. The final chapters of this incredible story unfold against this backdrop. It is here that we cast one last look toward the horizon of the future, where artificial intelligence and the massive management of data present us with a vision as promising as it is apocalyptic, marking the next chapters of this history of growth still waiting to be written.

What makes this narrative so compelling is not just its breadth but its ability to connect seemingly disparate threads into a cohesive story. It reveals how alphabets were born from acts of rebellion, how money is a system for encoding favors and trust, and how cultural artifacts like the printing press transformed societies and civilizations. It’s a story that stretches from the first spark of life to the algorithms that influence our every decision. Each chapter feels like peeling back the layers of a puzzle, where scientific discoveries, historical turning points, and technological breakthroughs converge into a larger picture of human existence.

Multiple disciplines converge around the concept of information: physics, chemistry, biology, history, computer science, telecommunications, sociology, economics, philosophy... I am reasonably aware of its limitations and shortcomings, though it may have many others. Still, even at the risk of seeming pretentious or of stumbling through domains where I will always be a novice, I have found this journey to be captivating, and I invite you to try it for yourself.

Somehow, I sought to embody the words of E. Schrödinger, who, after being crowned with the Nobel Prize in Physics, had the audacity to venture into the world of biology and speak about life in the physical terms most familiar to him. In the preface to his book What’s Life?, he proposed a bold escape route in an attempt to offer a universal perspective—one that, while sacrificing some precision or detail, gains in scope and narrative coherence. He wrote:

A scientist is supposed to have a complete and thorough knowledge, at first hand, of some subjects and, therefore, is usually expected not to write on any topic of which he is not a master. This is regarded as a matter of noblesse oblige. For the present purpose I beg to renounce the noblesse, if any, and to be freed of the ensuing obligation. My excuse is as follows:

We have inherited from our forefathers the keen longing for unified, all-embracing knowledge. From antiquity and throughout many centuries the universal aspect has been the only one to be given full credit. But the spread, both in width and depth, of the multifarious branches of knowledge has confronted us with a queer dilemma. We feel clearly that we are only now beginning to acquire reliable material for welding together the sum total of all that is known into a whole; but, on the other hand, it has become next to impossible for a single mind fully to command more than a small specialized portion of it. I can see no other escape from this dilemma (lest our true aim be lost forever) than that some of us should venture to embark on a synthesis of facts and theories, albeit with second-hand and incomplete knowledge of some of them - and at the risk of making fools of ourselves.

That boldness gives meaning to this synthesizing effort and the consilience that underpins this book. With its ambitious scope and multidisciplinary approach, El crecimiento de la información. Una historia inevitable offers a compelling lens through which to understand not only our past but also the challenges and opportunities of our present and future.

I hope that if you find it interesting you will enjoy it immensely1. It will be enough if it is only half as much as I enjoyed writing it.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The bestowal of the Nobel Peace Prize upon a Japanese group dedicated to preserving the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki's nuclear explosion victims is no mere coincidence—such matters never are. Surprisingly, this decision precedes the anticipated 80th anniversary commemoration of the bombings next year.

In eight decades, the nuclear powers club has expanded only marginally beyond its initial growth to what are now the permanent members of the UN Security Council. This relative exclusivity in nuclear weapons access has not always stemmed from national restraint. Technological limitations, coupled with political and economic factors, have restricted the number of nations capable of concentrating the equivalent of thousands of tons of conventional explosives into a single projectile.

The perilous game of nuclear deterrence has persisted among major powers through an escalating strategy known as "mutually assured destruction." Meanwhile, mere possession of these weapons has served as a fulcrum for global influence.

The prospect of nuclear weapon use has regained prominence. Russia may be considering uranium and plutonium atoms to bolster its claims in Ukraine, North Korea employs similar tactics to sustain Kim Jong-Un's regime, China multiplies its nuclear warheads, and a U.S. presidential candidate proposes resuming long-prohibited nuclear tests.

The first casualties were non-proliferation agreements limiting nuclear warheads and delivery systems—perhaps more a symptom than a cause of current events.

More visits to the museums in Japan's devastated cities are imperative. The profound silence that envelops visitors as they confront the catastrophe is most striking—as if knowing were insufficient and seeing were necessary to verify the reality of those events.

Some now threaten to endow machines with the ability to deploy these weapons autonomously. Reports suggest the existence of unmanned submarines—Russian and possibly North Korean—laden with atomic explosives, poised to detonate off enemy coasts to trigger radioactive tsunamis.

Interestingly, the internet itself was developed to maintain nuclear deterrence. Weapons of mass destruction gave rise to weapons of mass (or mathematical) distraction, as Cathy O'Neill might say. The internet has evolved into a parallel world, with "artificial intelligence" as the engine capable of exploiting it for both good and ill.

Unlike nuclear weapons, digital arms have proliferated across nations, companies, and individuals. No treaty between powers seems capable of curbing their use. No smoking dome serves as a reminder of their devastating potential. Bits are not perceived as a vital threat; atoms are.

Popular fear of AI stems from Hollywood myths of conscienceless killer robots. Yet, as we fixate on the physical, we increasingly immerse ourselves in the virtual and the hybrid fusion of both—one eye on our mobile devices, the other on the street.

Our individual and societal freedom now depends as much on machine interpretations as on the limited worldly experience our senses provide. Without changing news sources, algorithmic filters encase each of us in a bubble that would render the world unrecognizable to consumers of different news.

In our quest to emulate human reasoning, we have developed more efficient tools for influencing our emotions. We have created a world where truth is tailored not through knowledge, but through emotional manipulation.

Freedom crumbles without the foundation of truth. It is unnecessary to convince the world of a lie; it suffices to deprive it of interest in finding and defending the truth. These new weapons have the potential to destroy dignity and humanity itself—a mass destruction, yet individualized.

The enemy is no longer across the trenches. The war has moved from the front lines to among the people, and from there, to our minds as the primary battlefield.

There is no turning back from technology, but we must ensure it remains a tool serving humanity—a humanity that transcends mere rationality. Otherwise, those who visit the museum of the future will do so in silence, not because they have lost the faculty of speech, but the will to use it.

First released in Spanish in Alfa & Omega, “Nuestra mente es ya el principal campo de batalla”, Oct, 24th, 2024. https://alfayomega.es/nuestra-mente-es-ya-el-principal-campo-de-batalla/

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

At first glance, it doesn't seem obvious. Except for TikTok, the global social media landscape we interact with in our countries is controlled by Western companies or those from allied nations.

Sure, certain information - and misinformation - campaigns eventually find their way into our feeds, but their influence is relatively small. Often, these are one-off operations aimed at covering a specific event, like the current U.S. presidential elections.

They appear - or are made to appear - very flashy, but their effectiveness is far from decisive. Among other reasons, because the goals of all these campaigns aren't always aligned and end up interfering with each other. The end result is more confusion than conviction. Although perhaps that's exactly why they're having a bigger impact.

Recently, news broke about a group supposedly linked to the Chinese Communist Party intercepting phone conversations of Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates. The victims included figures from both parties and key players in the U.S. political and economic scene. It didn't seem to be meddling in one candidate's campaign, but rather a classic, wide-ranging espionage operation.

Earlier, we learned about the Russian bot farm creating profiles to pose as American citizens on social media. The goal is either to steer the conversation in a certain direction or leave it drifting aimlessly. The release of a book titled "Confessions of a Russian Bot" had already served as a prequel to this news. The Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups that operated from St. Petersburg back in the 2016 campaign are also a distant precedent.

OpenAI stepped in to identify and neutralize another group, Iranian this time, that was using the company's own tools - ChatGPT - to generate fake content on social media.

The web of disinformation is, however, much more complex than these isolated efforts to disrupt normal discourse. Just like in the military realm, where multi-domain operations have become popular, those engaged in the cognitive battle also combine various means and methods to achieve their goal.

The ease with which so-called generative AI can create highly convincing texts, images, audio, and videos seems to have sparked the creativity of professional manipulators. This effort, however, is often overkill. Our brains are satisfied with much less sophisticated designs than those generated by these programs, as long as they know how to strike the right chord with the audience. Deep fakes aren't necessary when we swallow cheap fakes just as easily.

There's little doubt that Disney, Marvel, and a few other American groups largely dominate the audiovisual entertainment landscape, which traditionally generates the most engagement. How can we think that, despite such dominance of the narrative, we're still losing to the enemy?

It's worth first defining what or who the enemy is. Because the enemy doesn't have a phone number to call except in (fabulous and fabulously simple) Gila's gags. And because the enemy isn't always the same, though it's always "the other." The Brits have always been clear about this: there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. And interest is always reflexive and, when possible, compound.

Today, the official enemy is Russia, just as yesterday, when there was no enemy, it was "international terrorism." And tomorrow it will be China, which the day before yesterday was an ally and just yesterday was the West's dream factory. In fact, we can have friends who attack - or defend themselves from - their enemies without these being our enemies. Because our friends have their interests, and we have ours.

But the enemy isn't just the one whose interests are opposed to ours. Mostly because we'd have many enemies. An enemy is only one who represents an obstacle to achieving our own interests. In very specific cases, one who might become an obstacle or even one who was once supportive and no longer is.

The enemy is someone who must be defeated because it's necessary to overcome the obstacles in our path. Of course, to defeat them, we must first convince our people and our allies that we need to make a joint effort to eliminate them. To win, you must convince (they say Unamuno said "you will win, but you will not convince," although I'm not convinced he did say it), but you don't have to convince the enemy, just the friend.

If anything, we should confuse the enemy. We wouldn't want to convince them and have them stop being the enemy. In that case, it would be impossible to convince friends to help us eliminate the obstacle that a friend, not an enemy, represents. Demonizing the enemy is part of the necessary process to defeat them. The problem arises when we stop being aware of the storytelling and start believing our own narratives (lies).

If the enemy is what opposes our interests, we'll have to define what our interests are. Imagine a country where its leaders know the interests of the population as a whole and make those interests their own. If necessary, take a few minutes to visualize this.

We might think that the interests of all peoples are the same. But let's try to be a bit more nuanced. Let's equate the vital interests of peoples with the values of their culture and their idiosyncrasy. I specify idiosyncrasy because the values of peoples are often transcribed with the same terms. However, the interpretation of these terms tends to be very divergent depending on each point of view.

The same phrase interpreted from different cultures can have literally opposite meanings. Simply because they depart from different assumptions and preconceptions, and applying the same vector to different starting points can only lead to destinations that are also different.

Is cyberspace - and artificial intelligence in particular - putting the spotlight on the fundamental values of the West?

Although we're nominally in a quest to maintaining privacy, there are currently no signs that allow us to be optimistic that we're moving in that direction. Quite the opposite. Generative models gorge on and plunder all the content of the networks without considering its origin or who it belongs to. Our images are used in training facial recognition algorithms, or any other automated system for individualizing identities and, with it, content.

Privacy is the basis of individuality, and this is the basis of freedom, democracy, and the integral development of people. The loss of privacy gives rise, precisely, to Eastern-style values. I don't want to and am not in a position to criticize these values. They're simply not ours.

Maybe the system we're designing is dragging us towards defeat. Towards the defeat of our values, if you prefer.

The desperate search for funding for the development of "intelligent" systems with fundamentally commercial and competitive purposes carries several traps with it.

First, the selling of digital smoke with parcheesi techniques. They sell us a beta in development with a promotional video where more than half of the possibilities are in the indefinite future (a new tense of this digital era). They develop one and tell/sell you twenty that could be done if the system were ready. A fundamental technique to get ahead of rivals' presentations for funding or to respond to the competition's within just twenty-four hours.

Second, the Easter procession in which we parade these systems. Carried on the shoulders of hardworking and convinced bearers who do the dirty work for machines that are still far from being flashy enough to compete with today's and tomorrow's Hollywood animated fantasies. If you need a driver to take a taxi, you need almost two to keep an eye on a self-driving car making the same journey. That said, they're remotely working.

Lastly, the rhythms imposed by technology. Machine-like rhythms of a primary system; intuitive rhythms for humans at best. Rhythms that set aside the ability to use reasoning, not to mention empathy. Of course, you can't give up these rhythms; not so much because the action or decision to be taken requires it, but because then you're wasting the potential of the machines. Machines´ interests always come first.

Until we understand the complementarity that digital systems represent with respect to human capabilities and the centrality of these, we'll continue to lose the war with more intensity the more effort we put into fighting it.

Just take a look at the global social and political landscape to observe the centripetal trends that the values of the French Revolution are experiencing. We're striving to voluntarily give up our freedom. Generating growing inequalities under the guise of individualization and personalization of content. Entrenching each and every one in a narcissistic culture trapped in the front camera of mobile phones in the opposite direction to fraternity.

Maybe we're about to win the war against our own values.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

In the recent debates surrounding the European elections, immigration has played a prominent role, growing in significance over the past years. However, immigration is not a new issue. It has shaped the continent through successive waves of influx and exodus according to historical circumstances, and its role will be crucial in the demographic, economic, and cultural sustainability of Europe.

Although the complexity and nuances of the matter would require extensive coverage beyond this publication, immigration has gained special prominence with the rise of far-right parties across the continent. These parties have capitalized on the growing anti-immigration sentiment, promising more restrictive policies and greater border protection. It is worthwhile to offer a reflective look from different perspectives to modestly illuminate this complex phenomenon from its history towards the future.

From History

Europe has historically been a source of mass emigration. Its colonial projection worldwide has left a significant mark on the demography and culture of numerous regions. During the 19th century, millions of Irish emigrated to America due to the Great Famine, and in the 20th century, marked by large-scale conflicts, many Europeans emigrated, leaving their ravaged lands behind. Nearly four million Spaniards emigrated in the first half of the 20th century, primarily for economic reasons, although also as refugees, mainly heading to America (particularly Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela) and, to a lesser extent, Europe. Emigration rates were notably high at times.

After World War II, many European countries welcomed immigrants to rebuild their devastated economies. With infrastructure destroyed and a severe labor shortage due to human losses and mass displacement, many European countries turned to immigration for reconstruction, with favorable policies and bilateral agreements to attract foreign workers. Germany, for example, signed agreements with Italy, Turkey, Greece, and other countries to bring in temporary workers, known as "Gastarbeiter" (guest workers), crucial for rebuilding German industry. The UK and France also turned to immigration, mainly from former colonies in the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, to rebuild their infrastructures, factories, health services, and transportation. Italy and the Netherlands also experienced an influx of immigrants in the post-war decades. Spain, with its entry into the European Community and the economic upturn of the early 21st century, reached a historic peak, receiving immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries, surpassing five million inhabitants.

In short, the arrival of immigrants played an essential role in the rapid economic recovery of Europe in the post-war period. These workers not only provided the necessary labor but also contributed to the cultural and economic diversification of European nations. Immigration helped mitigate labor shortages and boost economic growth, laying the foundations for the prosperity many European countries would enjoy in the following decades. However, in recent decades, the scenario has drastically changed.

Recent Turbulences

Since the financial crisis of 2008, Europe has faced a series of economic challenges profoundly affecting its citizens. Economic recession, austerity, and slow growth have created an environment of uncertainty and anxiety. Unemployment, especially among young people, has reached alarming levels in some countries.

Globalization and automation have also transformed the European labor market. Many industrial jobs have disappeared or moved to countries with lower labor costs, while new jobs in the technology and service sectors often require skills that not all workers possess. The specter of technological unemployment resurfaces time and again, as recently seen with the advent of AI. All this has fueled discontent and the perception that immigrants compete for scarce resources and jobs.

Moreover, austerity policies implemented in many European countries to address the financial crisis have eroded public services and social welfare, increasing the precariousness of the most vulnerable sectors. In this context, immigrants are often seen as an additional burden on welfare systems and public services, fueling resentment and negative perceptions. The idea that immigrants receive more social benefits or have priority access to public services is a common but persistent myth, deeply ingrained in many sectors of European society. This sentiment is exacerbated by populist political discourses using immigration as a scapegoat for broader economic problems. Aging Europe finds itself somewhat cornered in the global geopolitical arena, playing a bureaucratic regulatory role that does not offer significant competitive advantages compared to the dynamism of Americans and Chinese.

In the last decade, Europe has faced unique immigration challenges. In 2015, the largest migration crisis since World War II occurred. Conflicts in the Middle East, particularly the Syrian civil war, and in various African regions led to a massive exodus of refugees seeking asylum in Europe. This unfortunate record has been broken again by the migration caused by the war in Ukraine.

The mass arrival of refugees generated mixed reactions in Europe. On one hand, there was a significant humanitarian effort to welcome and assist refugees, especially in countries like Germany and Sweden, and particularly those of Ukrainian nationality. However, the crisis also sparked an increase in anti-immigration sentiment. The perception that refugees could be a burden on welfare systems, compete for jobs, and increase insecurity was exploited by populist and far-right parties, who used the crisis to gain electoral support. The anti-immigration rhetoric, presenting refugees as a threat to national security and identity, resonated with a significant portion of the population. Media also played a crucial role by sensationalizing certain events related to the crisis, contributing to polarization and increasing anti-immigration sentiment.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020, added a new layer of complexity to the immigration situation in Europe. The pandemic exacerbated existing tensions and created new concerns related to immigration. Its devastating impact on European economies intensified the perception of immigrants as competitors for jobs and resources. Additionally, mobility restrictions and lockdown measures fueled isolation and fear of the unknown, exacerbating xenophobia and distrust towards immigrants. Concerns about virus transmission led some to blame immigrants and refugees, considering them vectors of disease.

All this has distorted public perception, which systematically overestimates the volume of immigration compared to reality. This has fueled popular support for more restrictive policies and stricter border controls. This includes the implementation of agreements to return refugees to third countries, endorsing "hot returns," and conducting more rigorous scrutiny of asylum applications.

As expected, the rise of anti-immigration sentiment has contributed to social polarization in Europe. Immigrant communities face increasing discrimination and exclusion, affecting social cohesion. The "us versus them" narrative has fueled deep divisions in European society, hindering integration and mutual understanding.

Human Capital and the Currency of Fraternity

The issue of immigration is undoubtedly complex, and these lines are insufficient to analyze all its nuances. However, two perspectives can at least be sketched to illuminate it, starting by identifying the profile of the migrant population. Europe receives diverse immigration, with different motivations and circumstances. Any sensible approach should not overlook these particularities. But broadly speaking, on one hand, there are economic immigrants, who move in search of better job opportunities and a more prosperous life. These immigrants come from various regions of the world, including Africa, Asia, and Latin America. They are often attracted by the economic stability, job opportunities, and social welfare systems of European countries. Economic immigrants can be both skilled workers, who bring technical and professional skills to needy sectors, and unskilled workers, who take up jobs in industries such as construction, agriculture, and services. Additionally, they include international students seeking higher education in European universities, hoping for better job prospects after graduation.

On the other hand, there are refugees and asylum seekers fleeing armed conflicts, political persecution, human rights violations, and natural disasters in their home countries. These individuals, from regions such as Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Gaza, or South Sudan, seek safety and international protection. Upon arriving in Europe, they apply for asylum under international treaties such as the 1951 Geneva Convention. Their arrival is often desperate and risky, in makeshift boats, as many cross dangerous routes and rely on human traffickers to reach European soil.

Human Capital

The first perspective on immigration rests on considering the role of human capital. European interests cannot ignore that economic growth is linked to its capture, as has been evident since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The concentration of immigrants in the skill premium of qualification levels significantly correlates with economic growth. The development of one of the COVID vaccines, thanks to the work of Turkish immigrants in Germany, is a good example 1 . I will dedicate a publication to the capture of human capital and its relation to the spread of printing, leading to the Industrial Revolution. Today, we must acknowledge that immigrants play a crucial role in the historical geography of knowledge and, therefore, of welfare. We continue to see that the probability of a European region innovating increases with the presence of immigrants with knowledge. This has always been particularly evident in countries like the USA or Australia.

The Currency of Fraternity

The other dimension is moral and political. The roots of philosophical reflection could delve into the meaning of the condition of the migrant and particularly the refugee. Hannah Arendt, in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951), analyzed how stateless people and refugees were stripped of their rights, reduced to "pariahs of the Earth," without a social fabric to support them. She denounced the blatant insufficiency of recognizing human dignity solely by the mere granting of political citizenship. Giorgio Agamben, more recently, has pointed out how the life of the refugee is subjugated by the lack of political and legal recognition, exposing the contradictions of a globalized system that excludes and marginalizes.

Beyond individual beliefs about human dignity and our obligation to respond in solidarity to humanitarian catastrophes 2 , the fact is that from a purely self-interested point of view, the old European continent has an opportunity for legitimation through immigration. It is difficult to deny that Europe is partly responsible for the situation in many of the countries expelling their migrants and refugees. Despite the undeniable civilizing contributions that European countries could make worldwide, the traces of imperialism, decolonization processes, historical exploitation of their resources and people, and the climatic consequences of unbridled industrial growth led by the climatic consequences of unbridled industrial growth led by the West have made our well-being largely rest on a global historical injustice. The weak recognition of Europe both internally and externally is not only the fault of the interested anti-imperialist discourse that other powers use against Europe or the nationalist-tinged indigenous discourses that gain electoral benefit from the notion of Western historical debt. Europe would do well to champion another response that increases its legitimacy, which is not limited to a mere apology that is somewhat unjust and futile.

The crisis of our democracies, after decades without open conflicts that refresh historical memory about democratic virtues, could be mitigated by a differential openness to immigration. Europe, without naivety, could regain part of its credibility and attractiveness as a bastion of democratic rights and duties: beyond liberty—which Americans champion—or equality—which the Chinese preach—Europe could be a beacon of fraternity. And it could leverage this currency if it knew how to manage immigration to build a European identity akin to how the United States forged its identity by welcoming immigrants captivated by the American dream. Because economic fundamentals are essential, but the suggestion capacity of a shared project, as Ortega y Gasset would say, the capacity for persuasion and credibility, is central to human coexistence.

The obsolescence of nation-states and the persistence of national narratives urge this construction. Small European countries, also plagued by the neo-nationalist reactionary wave, face the challenge of amalgamating into a supra-state organization that is affectively more attractive, capable of dealing with the complex global world of transnational companies and the multipolar world in which other major regional superpowers compete. Europe's enemies benefit from a divided and embroiled Europe. Indiscriminately rejecting immigration or blaming it with simplistic views further delegitimizes the European project. However, this does not mean that immigration is perfectly refined raw material for guaranteeing social cohesion. A balance is always necessary.

The Optimal Diversity

Immigration has transformed the social and cultural composition of Europe, generating both opportunities and tensions. Immigrant communities face barriers to integration, while host societies struggle to maintain social cohesion. Second-generation immigrants integrate even less than their parents in countries like France. Like many biological balances, human cultures are open systems that must seek an optimal balance in their diversity, between homogeneity and heterogeneity.

In this context, immigration can be seen as a source of cultural enrichment but also as a challenge to social cohesion. Diversity increases the capacity for adaptation and innovation, but it can also generate conflicts and tensions. An optimal level of diversity is crucial for sustainable economic development, as Oded Galor explores in his work "The Journey of Humanity" on various societies throughout history.

Immigration can bring significant economic benefits, such as introducing new skills and approaches to problem-solving. However, it can also generate tensions due to poor management of social perceptions regarding its impact on delicate issues like job competition or the sustainability of public services. Finding an optimal balance, which is also mobile, is crucial.

Looking Forward

Moreover, immigration will play a decisive role in Europe's future. European countries are among those with the lowest fertility rates worldwide. This demographic decline limits Europe's innovative capacity. On the other hand, the sustainability of pension and health systems urges us to observe that Europe is losing many trains in the global competition for technological innovation and much-needed productivity growth. The simplistic appeal that immigration could replace the children we do not have often ignores that, lacking better qualifications, immigration can provide a short-term labor base to sustain the system but will eventually exacerbate the problem as immigrants also age and deserve the same recognition.

If the discourse continues to stoke public perception, pushing it to believe that immigrants are rapidly changing and degrading the cultural fabric of communities, it will generate even greater fears and resentments. And environmental migrations have only just begun. Properly exploited, these sentiments are worryingly boosting far-right political parties that mobilize their bases and gain electoral support. Their rise is both a cause and a consequence of changes in public perception of immigration. The narrative that immigrants threaten security, cultural identity, and economic well-being of European nations, necessitating the recovery of national sovereignty, has gained traction in public discourse and endangers the European project itself. A balanced, multifactorial, and sensible reflection on the matter is urgent. Our future and that of our children is largely at stake.

2

Hegel characterized philosophy as an owl that always flies at dusk when there is nothing more to be done, justifying the course of history by appealing to the cunning of reason. It is no coincidence that Marx's critique of him led to the famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach: Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kömmt drauf an, sie zu verändern ("The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it"). Beyond analysis, it is probably praxis, practice, that will portray us as humanity. When our grandchildren grow up, they will not ask us about the feelings we had or the reflections the unfortunate lives of migrants knocking on our door led us to, but about what we did when, for example, images like that of little Aylan Kurdi penetrated our retinas.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Repetition is an effective learning tool. Effort is necessary for growth. And one of the most useful exercises for growth is stepping out of one's comfort zone. To achieve a comprehensive, well-contrasted, and consistent vision, it's crucial to avoid falling into confirmation bias and complacency. This involves reading authors who hold different opinions—not necessarily to be persuaded to change our views but to understand other positions, which can reinforce our own, provided they withstand "ideological stress tests."

From some of my recent readings, specifically three books, I've not been swayed to change my opinions, but they have enabled me to understand certain grievances and demands. These readings have strengthened my views but also helped me recognize weaknesses and areas for improvement in some pillars of my ideological identity, enhancing my understanding of those who think and act differently than me.

I'll start with philosopher Byung-Chul Han (Seoul, 1959), a prominent critic of contemporary societal issues. The two books I read, "The Disappearance of Rituals" and "The Burnout Society," leave a residue of pessimism about the negative consequences of the last three decades of economic, social, and technological development, which have led to hyperconsumerism, digital exhibitionism, "communication without community," overwhelming work competition (reaching "self-exploitation"), and conditions like worker burnout, depression, ADHD, etc.

It should be noted that I don't agree with the view that this negative scenario is the central or widespread reality (there's a nostalgic tone sometimes akin to a "grumpy old man" or a "doomsayer Luddite" [1]). However, the arguments and evidence are strong enough to acknowledge that some people suffer from these conditions and are calling for change. Ignoring this is a mistake. Entrenching ourselves in our position without recognizing the need for change or to mitigate negative effects could lead to a break with "the others," potentially leading them to impose their model. This isn't just for selfish reasons (selfish perspective) but also because it's fair to understand and try to help (empathetic and compassionate view).

Returning to the author, Han discusses the shift from "having to do" something to "being able to do" it. "We live with the anxiety of not always doing everything we can," and if we do not succeed, it's seen as our own fault. This aligns with Michael J. Sandel's (USA, 1953) observations in "The Tyranny of Merit" (here's the third "uncomfortable" read, whose video review can be seen here and from here the review by Enrique Titos) and what I call "meritocratic humiliation or depression" (in contrast to Sandel's "meritocratic hubris").

I venture to apply inferential statistics, thus the Type I Error of meritocracy [2] would be attempting to achieve success with all your capacity and effort but failing to do so. In a "world of positivity," as Han describes ("The problem is not that one is not allowed to do something, but that one is able to do everything"), not achieving success is devastating. With frequently encountered slogans like "if you want, you can," "there are no limits," etc., trying your utmost implies that if you fail, it's because you are not valid, and the system expels you. This isn't true because success requires much more than just your talent and effort. In fact, external factors are indispensable, and those who reach the top and succeed often forget this (or at least a few do). They fall into what Sandel calls "meritocratic hubris" [3]. The average voter is increasingly distant from technocracy and meritocratic hubris and reacts by feeling abandoned, opting for populist proposals ("Seen from below, the elite's hubris is mortifying"). The average voter, perhaps especially the American, accepts (or accepted) income differences and a less generous welfare state because they believed in social mobility. Now that they see (or perceive) that mobility is less likely, they no longer agree with the differences or the lack of protection. As belief in social mobility fades, so does acceptance of inequalities. According to Sandel, Trump was the one who best capitalized on this distancing from the defense of meritocracy. This ideal ("if you do well in life it's because you've earned it; if you do poorly it's because you haven't worked hard") was pushed in the 1980s by Reagan and Thatcher, and most U.S. presidents have adopted it, particularly Clinton and Obama ("the meritocratic discourse makes solidarity among citizens difficult").

The Type II Error corresponds to those who achieve success but do not deserve it. They achieve success without effort (or largely thanks to luck or inheritance). Here, mechanisms for redistribution might also be necessary, but it's obviously more debatable than in Type I Error.

If success is reached because there has been effort (upper left quadrant), the challenge is not to fall into meritocratic arrogance, accept that part of the success is due to external factors, and that one is indebted to society. The lower right quadrant refers to those who do not strive and do not achieve success. Seems deserved, doesn't it? Sandel makes no mention of those in this quadrant.

In conclusion, these three books have helped me understand and in many cases comprehend those who think differently than I do. I continue to defend that meritocracy and intense technological development are drivers of global and average economic growth (as are capitalism, democracy, and globalization). They have more advantages than disadvantages. But we must be aware of the collateral damage they generate and the people they harm. We cannot leave them to their fate, even at the risk of being wrong and helping "those who do not deserve it."

But it is also true that those of us who support the current configuration have to listen to those who criticize it because they are surely right in many of their claims, and we can consider them to improve the system's failures. It is much more comfortable to surround ourselves with those who think like us, who do not criticize or make claims. But that's a mistake. Nothing is perfect, and to correct it, you have to know the faults.

Read Byung-Chil Han and Michael J. Sandel, even if they make you uncomfortable, even if sometimes you think "what nonsense he says!" For every X thoughts of this kind, there will be one that is like "Hmm, I hadn't thought of that; maybe they're right." Then you will have grown a little more.

See the example:

"The language of merit has been dominating public discourse for decades without hardly any recognition of its negative elements. Meritocratic elites had become so accustomed to chanting this mantra that they did not realize it was losing its capacity to inspire. Turning a deaf ear to the growing resentment of those not partaking in the abundance generated by globalization, they did not detect how much an attitude of discontent was spreading. The populist reaction took them by surprise. They did not see the implicit affront in the meritocratic society they offered. The elite looks down on others.

The meritocratic ideal is flawed because it ignores the moral arbitrariness of talent and exaggerates the moral significance of effort. Effort is not everything. Success seldom arises from hard work alone. The idea that our fate is in our hands, that you can achieve it if you strive for it, is a double-edged sword: inspiring on one edge but odious on the other. It congratulates the winners but denigrates the losers and even affects how they perceive themselves. For those trapped at the bottom or barely managing to stay afloat, the rhetoric of ascent is more of a mockery than a promise.

The reign of technocratic merit has reconfigured the terms of social recognition in such a way that it has elevated the prestige of professional classes with high labor and academic credentials—those who succeed believe they deserve their success and owe nothing, not feeling they have reasons to be indebted or grateful—and has depreciated the contributions of most workers and, in the process, eroded the social status and esteem that these once enjoyed. Insisting that a university degree is the main gateway to a respectable job and a dignified life breeds a credentialist prejudice that undermines the dignity of work and degrades those who have not attended university. The monothematic emphasis on education had a harmful side effect: the erosion of the social esteem that until then had been deserved by people who had not studied at university. Credentialism is a symptom of meritocratic arrogance. Credentialism stands out as the last of the acceptable prejudices. The well-educated elite is no less prejudiced than the less educated population. They may denounce racism and sexism, but feel no guilt for their negative attitudes towards people with a lower educational level than theirs."

[1] Example: 'One exploits oneself, to the point of collapse. Man has become a laboring animal, both executioner and victim of himself, thrust towards a terrible horizon: failure.' [2] Term coined by Michael Young in his 1958 book: 'The Rise of the Meritocracy.' [3] Thomas Frank warns about the generalization of phrases like 'inequality is not a failure of the system, but your failure.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Tragedy is the guiding thread of Robert D. Kaplan's book "The Tragic Mindset," which might initially seem like an opportunist literary turn to describe the current geopolitical situation, if it weren't for Kaplan's decades-long role as a keen observer of U.S. foreign policy. From positions in the Obama administration with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to reputable international geopolitics think tanks, Kaplan has been deeply involved. For any observer with even minimal information about current world events, it's challenging to envision positive outcomes in today's geopolitical landscape.

Kaplan recalls tragic decisions in U.S. foreign policy such as the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, morally justified to overthrow leaders like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, yet resulting in situations even worse than their predecessors. Kaplan argues that we need leaders with a tragic mindset: acknowledging that something bad can and may happen, but planning diligently for the aftermath. Whether this is easy or even possible at times is another question.

He praises the insights of thinkers like Maurice Bowra or statesmen like Winston Churchill, who, due to their past experiences and creativity, were able to foresee the dangers posed by leaders like Hitler. Hitler, whom then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tried to appease in vain by handing over the Sudetenland, or Stalin, whom Roosevelt massively assisted in overthrowing Hitler.

Therefore, Kaplan urges us to think with a tragic mindset, accepting inevitability, as the sense of immunity and distance from conflicts breeds the worst ingredient for tragedy: complacency. Fear of what might happen is the best deterrent to its occurrence.

Tragedy is already unfolding in Ukraine, in Israel, with high tension in Taiwan, and in conflicts across postcolonial Africa. Western eyes are fixed on the U.S., but as Kaplan points out, America's historical memory is short, and it's crucial to understand that a significant portion of voters doesn't comprehend global affairs. Populists like Trump threaten to retreat from global policing, unless we buy their weaponry and accept the economic sovereignty of their multinational corporations in our markets without restrictions.

Moscow will always be more interested in Ukraine than the U.S., as recently noted by a Kremlin advisor. After all, the U.S. is surrounded by vast oceans to the east and west and is blessed with abundant natural resources and strong economic, strategic, and military autonomy.

But, as Kaplan states at the outset, in geopolitics, maps don't tell everything; it's people with their emotions and decisions who face life's challenges. Hence, this book teaches us to take an interest in Greek and Shakespearean tragedies, noting that tragedy might not be so distant from the West, and that history, in some ways, while not repeating itself exactly, does rhyme.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The year 2024 will be historic for democracy as, for the first time, half of the world's population will vote in 79 countries, celebrating 87 electoral processes. And they will do so under particularly delicate and uncertain circumstances.

In any political regime, information is vital for controlling and orchestrating power; in democracies, it is especially relevant for various reasons. The main reasons delve into the legitimacy upon which the democratic model is sustained, such as facilitating informed political participation, supervising, and controlling power to prevent abuses, ensuring transparency and accountability, and generally fostering public debate and deliberation that feed into decision-making. In all these, information is crucial.

However, the openness of open societies, as Popper called them, is not only perhaps their greatest virtue but also an excellent point of weakness. If illiteracy or the adulteration of media have historically been exploited by propaganda to weaken any political regime, it is now worth considering whether the improvement in our informational capacity and civic education in democracy has developed at the same pace as the technological capacity for propaganda and social manipulation. Because it never before it has been possible to interfere in democratic processes in such a massive and powerful way.

An open society achieves its legitimacy because it is reasonably transparent, because it tolerates a diversity of opinions, and therefore exposes the torrent of information that supports it in broad daylight. But this makes freedom of expression a passport for those who wish to pollute it and subtly undermine our right to truthful information. No medium can be totally immune to this. Notably, some Nazi writers have already put this very platform in a tight spot.

Since we became sedentary about 10,000 years ago, democratic regimes have been an absolute exception that has barely lasted 2% of the time, and almost always partially. Indeed, democracies are related to more efficient economic growth and seem to collect taxes better thanks to the recognition of their legitimacy, which improves tax morale. But precisely because of their open nature, their fragility is high, and they should never be taken for granted, even though many of us were born and have lived our entire lives within them. In fact, in recent years, particularly after the Great Recession of 2008, democracies have shown a regressive trend in the world, as seen in the proposals for a minimal state. In this situation, we vote this year exposed to propaganda powered by generative AI. But is the matter so serious?

Taming the information growth

The accumulation of information has been advantageous when we have been able to purify it to find useful, effective complex structures for better living. The revolutions of language, writing, or printing remind us of this. But if the rate of absorption of this information growth is not enough, information turns into noise, disorder, and entropy. We live in an era where its overflow again strains this balance, entangling us in a cacophony of voices, data, and opinions: today, the effort required to distinguish relevant information from junk information or information pollution, the truth based on facts from the post-truth based on fake news, is especially intense.

The explosive growth of information has pushed us to develop technologies like Big Data, which try to optimize the handling of the huge volume of data and leverage potential uses that were previously forbidden to us. But this has exposed even more some of the most fundamental principles of democracies, such as the non-negotiable inviolability of the individual and the utmost respect for their freedom (to vote, to buy, to undertake, to associate politically...). Winston Churchill said that democracy is probably the worst of all political systems, except for all the others, aware of its shortcomings and potential degenerations towards demagoguery, as many thinkers have questioned throughout history. But its virtue lay in that through information, it could mitigate its own follies and self-correct. But what happens when the manipulation of public opinion is optimized to unsuspected levels?

The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal of the past decade was a particularly noted milestone in this process of optimizing political propaganda and strained democratic regimes in successive elections. Leveraging data-based profiling, microtargeting - the microtargeting of propaganda - allowed to influence a few million users enough so that the campaigns of Trump or the Brexit of 2016 were significantly oriented. Zuckerberg went through committees in the Senate and the European Parliament making excuses, apologizing, and promising amendments, and the classic antitrust measures resonated again. But the States' regulatory capacity to deal with transnational giants is limited.

Democracy, even in Europe, leaves us unprotected. We hand over our data-profiled soul to the tech giants in exchange for a bunch of free services that squeeze us much more than we suspect. We are unable to read and process, and even to reject the extremely long policies of use and conditions that abuse, again, of the infoxication (infobesity, information overload…), to blackmail us with the alternative of not accepting them and being condemned to “digital ostracism.” Just compare how long it would take to read their terms versus some classical works.

From these data

However, in the current context of citizen disaffection towards democracies, it is difficult to believe that most citizens are ready, as an alternative, to hand over to the States the responsibility for improving this asymmetric negotiation between the digital user and the private technological giant. Political supervision of our data does not enjoy higher levels of trust.

On the other hand, if democracy undergoes deliberative processes seeking points of consensus, negotiations, and agreements within diversity, one form that attacks them is the hackneyed polarization in social opinions. And as is well known, this is precisely the effect that technologies that maximize our attention to monetize it are having on social networks, where echo chambers and resonance chambers are created that exacerbate positions. A recent study was published about the growing and worrying political polarization between men and women.

Generative AI: A Disruptive Point?

For some authors, the new ability of generative AI to generate content such as images, music, text, and videos, among others, autonomously and often indistinguishable from human work, is a turning point in this process. Generative AI accelerates the capacity for manipulation and bias in public discourse, creating false or misleading content much more credibly. We are seeing how spam farms are being created to flood, and how AI-generated synthetic faces generate more trust than the irregular real human faces. Recently, we learned of an employee fooled in a fake videoconference who was convinced to steal 25 million euros from the company.

In the hands of political interests, these capabilities can generate incendiary emotional fuel, with the ability to influence public opinion and accelerate the undermining of trust in democratic institutions. Examples of deepfakes in photos and videos about statements or events that have not occurred and that can exacerbate the most excited are chilling. For example, that of a non-existent arrest that incites a coup d'état. Even three years later, the informative polarization continues to persist in justifying or downplaying the coup that the assault on the Capitol meant.

Fake images generated by AI about the arrest of D. Trump

The possibility of customizing content according to individual preferences and strengthening filter bubbles or echo chambers through generative AI will further hinder dialogue and civic engagement. Additionally, generative AI can amplify and entrench existing social biases, incorporating and reaffirming racial or gender prejudices in a clear challenge to the democratic aspiration for equity and justice. Its capacity to produce misinformation will be more widespread, more persuasive, more personalized, and will have a greater reach.

For some, however, an excessive concern about misinformation may be counterproductive and generate even more rebellion and polarization. If the analysis is overly lax in its evaluations of what is or is not misinformation, it will end up projecting an epistemic authority position that is elitist and removed from the public sphere. Talking so much about misinformation will seem snobbish. This can increase distrust and anger among the general public and thus damage universal suffrage democracies. On the other hand, the media's exaggeration with misinformation is undermining its own credibility, shooting itself in the foot. Additionally, politicians can take advantage of this noise about deepfakes to excuse themselves from evidence that incriminates them, in what has been called the liar's dividend, which exploits misinformation about misinformation in a loop.

In reality, we have tended to overestimate real misinformation so far. In fact, half of Americans already believe that the misinformation spread by AI will impact the upcoming presidential elections, although evidence is still lacking. Moreover, in practice, the impact of misinformation is limited: the vast majority of the population consumes few false news on all types of platforms. Additionally, they vote based on irrational convictions that are not as manipulable by propaganda, and few layers of undecideds change their vote based on the informational impacts they receive.

However, although it is possible to correct the missteps of this concern, it cannot be ignored that generative AI will be able to take advantage of the expansion to new layers of the population, such as young people, who share less misinformation than older ones but believe it more. More and more platforms like X/Twitter or Facebook are following the trail of TikTok (controlled from autocratic China) by positioning videos based on algorithmic recommendations instead of social links, which could serve potential geostrategic interests. Various studies show that it is possible to create a “manipulation machine” highly scalable that targets individuals based on their unique vulnerabilities without requiring human intervention.

To address these challenges, it will be essential to continue developing ethical frameworks - under what incentives? - and effective regulations - on what global governance? - that guide the development and responsible use of generative AI, as well as to deepen the research on its real impact on information. It may no longer be sufficient for search providers to combat misinformation by merely using automated systems to de-prioritize sources without evidence or foundation. Democracy could be at stake, so the focus should be on transparency in the algorithms used, the protection of privacy and data security, media literacy, the promotion of diversity and inclusion in the design of AI systems, and public education on the risks and benefits of this technology. But an implementation that does not stifle innovation is far from evident. And the global geopolitical competition to develop it is fierce.

A new optimum in socio-diversity will be essential to preserve the collective intelligence necessary to deal with the future. Because it is possible that complexity - and therefore uncertainty - are growing at an even greater pace than our most advanced technologies. And in that scenario, only this collective intelligence will be able to affirmatively respond to the possibility that democracy will survive Big Data and AI. The crossroads may lie in whether ultimately a few are making decisions controlling increasingly powerful new algorithms to reduce our self-determination (feudalism 2.0) or if we find the opportunity to evolve towards a digital democracy (democracy 2.0) that preserves and develops that democratic collective intelligence. In this year's elections, we could face a significant touchstone in this respect.

However, for the time being, it seems that if manipulated information is harmful, it is not so much at an epistemic level but rather at a demagogic one: we usually do not fall for forgeries, but we like them. They are part of that scandalous politics that thrives on misinformation because it condenses complex thoughts into clarifying and moving images (memes, gifs…). They amplify our opinions rather than making them more complex and profound. Democracy can get mired without the need for AI if politics continues to infantilize and turn into a sport that is won by insulting the opponent in the most entertaining way possible. Verifying manipulated information does not seem to be our most urgent need because the problem is not the truth they hide but the truth they reveal: That democracies suffer from worrying deficiencies, regardless of AI. Let's see where the seams show this year.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

We are all intelligent individually, and collectively as a species due to our relational and social capacity. Numerous researchers have developed various dimensions of the mind, such as general intelligence (Alfred Binet), emotional intelligence (Daniel Goleman), creative intelligence (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Teresa Amabile), spiritual intelligence (Danah Zohar), artificial intelligence (John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky), and social intelligence (Howard L. Gardner).

We can also ask ourselves how we should behave if we want to be excellent in combining individual intelligences, so that the result is greater than the mere addition of the summands, and moreover, individual intelligences feed each other in the process of strengthening intelligence. We enter the realm of collective intelligence, a dimension extensively and rigorously developed in Amalio A. Rey's book.

To understand collaborative collective intelligence, in my opinion, three fundamental parts must be considered:

• Purpose: Why or for what reason do we come together to add our individual intelligences?

• Organization: How does the aggregation of individual intelligences work best? It can be hierarchical (a company), by individuals with equal attribution (an association, a cooperative), by gender, ethnicity, or by geography (inhabitants of a country) or by mass (everyone accessing the internet).

• Processes: In what way and with what rules will people interact to achieve the intended purpose?

If collective intelligence comes from the combined contribution of individuals, I am particularly interested in collaborative collective intelligence (CIC), because it can be intentionally humanistic, benefiting balanced not only the members of a collective but also transcending to the rest of society from a people-centered gestation process. There are many ways to obtain results from collectivity depending on how information is aggregated and with what intention, and not always are there uplifting examples. Thus, this is a vast playing field for large digital companies working with data, offering solutions like Google's search engines or "echo chambers" within social networks like the former Twitter or Facebook (X and Meta).

I am interested in knowing how we can stimulate collaborative collective intelligence. Self-awareness and free will are exclusive attributes of the human social animal, but gregarious behavior also competes against individual thinking. On one side, individual general intelligence, knowledge, and social skills (remember they are not static but can be strengthened), while on the opposite side, groupthink provides warmth and costs less because it generally reassures us to feel part of a stream, and also avoids the cost of informing and educating our own free will.

This does not imply that the individual is good and conformity is bad, but only that the best collaborative collective intelligence is like a beautiful plant, elusive, flourishing from the better mix of soil ingredients and climate.

In a collaborative collective intelligence project, how much better is the result compared to the sum of individual talents? Apparently, there is little general empirical evidence and metrics, but first, we need to clarify the question we are trying to answer. Is a football club a collaborative collective intelligence project? Can a business incubator in Alicante be one? Is a philosophical debate club a collaborative intelligence project? My unequivocal answer is a resounding yes, but everyone must have their conception or measure of what it means to be successful. For the football club, it might be leveraging the sum of individual talents to achieve a better ranking with a lower budget. In the case of the business incubator, success can be measured by the number of companies growing faster than the rest or by the number of employees they hire. In the case of a debate club, I would suggest that member satisfaction is essential, that more people are attracted, and that debates continue and grow.

I do believe that "affective" processes, not just "effective" relationship processes, are key in stimulating collaborative collective intelligence. Feelings of shared purpose, meaningful interaction, belonging, spaces of safety and kindness, even individual growth, stimulate the multiplication of intelligences (Howard Gardner, multiple intelligences).

Collaborative collective intelligence is all the more necessary the greater the social scope of the problem to be solved, and yet, that is when competition, groupthink, and unshared individuality prevail. Issues such as climate change, peaceful coexistence, and the progress of nations are addressed mostly by supranational institutions as long as the rest respects their resolutions. Unfortunately, selfish national interests or unshared beliefs, be it different religions or value systems, increasingly predominate. The immense social capital that is Humanity is dispersed and competes in a Darwinian process of struggle and attrition, where, despite stages of darkness lasting centuries, Humanity has never stopped progressing.

Any attempt to stimulate collaborative collective intelligence to create effects on a large scale needs digital technology. Digital networks must be used as a means for the purpose rather than being the goal. I still remember the great promise message of the collaborative society advocated by books like "The Zero Marginal Cost Society" by Jeremy Rifkin, using the benefits of Moore's Law to increase computing speed, bringing landlords of vacation homes closer to people looking for rentals through platforms like Airbnb. Infinite data and empty virtual affections devoid of content that led to business conglomerates that took advantage, through digital platform models (marketplaces), to meet users' needs more efficiently.

If in a model seeking collaborative collective intelligence, affections must be present, digital technology has not succeeded, nor do I believe it will replace inter-human affections, no matter what sensory experiences in the future metaverse may tell us. It will be a connection of minds in solitude, a kind of virtual dance of our digitized or avatarized selves.

This does not mean that digital technology is incompatible with collaborative collective intelligence but that we must know what can be done with it to "scale affections" and what part remains in purely human interactions (from here, it could be inferred that creating affections in a group is simple, and nothing could be further from reality). The effectiveness of interaction also depends on respecting the rules of participation because, along with affections, they are the group's culture. This, in turn, reinforces the sense of belonging, something like "we act this way."

In my opinion, a distributed network rather than a hierarchy is the most suitable organization to generate collective intelligence (Amalio Rey calls it a decentralized model of collective construction). In this context, artificial intelligence should be an enhancer of human intelligence rather than a substitute. Today, there is great fear that artificial intelligence will replace human jobs, but there is no other solution than to advance human intelligence processes so that artificial intelligence is at our service.

What should be the composition of a human group pursuing a collaborative collective intelligence purpose? This is a central issue and depends on the purpose in question, but not only because of what is more effective but also which mechanism is more affective in winning people's hearts when sacrifices are requested.

For example, in parliamentary democracy, laws passed may sometimes imply a significant change in people's lives as a result of a requirement of an international aid program conditioned on the approval of certain clauses (Amalio Rey draws an interesting parallel with the so-called "Varoufakis case"). It is understandable that referendums or consultative polls are sometimes carried out to inform the population and allow them to express themselves more judiciously. Expert opinion is necessary in more complex processes of collaborative collective intelligence or where there is less personal interaction. I dare say that the richest collaborative collective intelligence exercises come from the effective mix of participants, both experts and people who add richness in terms of origin or experience. But again, the key is what the group's purpose is.

Amalio Rey lists up to 12 challenges to unleash "collective potential," of which I would like to highlight the following as key to fostering collaborative collective intelligence:

• Creativity: stimulates the generation of creative ideas that provide unexpected approaches

• Complexity: manages uncertainty in the search for solutions to wicked problems

• Plural puzzles: combines complementary pieces for better diagnosis and coordination of actions

• Reputation: generates trust indicators or reputation signals where they are needed and absent

• Shared knowledge: improves the management of dispersed knowledge

• Collaborative economy: optimizes the shared use of resources and capacities, avoiding concentration errors on platforms

• Socialization: creates social capital and community culture in areas that enhance well-being

• Legitimacy: agrees on rules for the use of common or public goods that are accepted by all parties

A final question has to do with the design of collaborative collective intelligence processes, which is inseparably linked to the purpose. That is, we talk about how. If we already know the purpose, why not design the entire process and its interactions so that individual intelligences are maximized? Design is a concept that comes from architecture and fashion and has to do with attractiveness and effectiveness (which also has an impact on affection). Without a doubt, a "design mentality" applied can turn collaborative collective intelligence into a more successful experiment.

Some additional questions:

• Is collaborative collective intelligence compatible with the values of any type of group or organization? Undoubtedly, it is much more complicated in large organizations or entities with profit motives, and one must be careful not to pervert the trust principles that underlie an exercise in collaborative collective intelligence.

• How far can one be collaborative in an increasingly competitive world?

• How to scale affection, a key motivation for collaboration, in a world dominated by virtual interactions such as digital networks?

There is a whole world of possibilities for the application of collaborative collective intelligence to improve people's lives.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The Homo sapiens has undergone a differential evolutionary process compared to other species, providing us with competitive advantages. These advantages are not particularly notable physically (we are not especially strong or fast; we cannot fly, our vision is limited, and we can barely defend ourselves in aquatic environments). Our significant difference lies in mental capacity. The brain is our main evolutionary advantage. Within the list of attributes granted to humans by a highly developed brain, we find morality, that is, our ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

Morality has allowed humans to coexist, collaborate, defend, and grow. The first aspect that Pablo Malo makes us reflect on in his book "Los peligros de la moralidad" (The Dangers of Morality), Deusto, 2021, is morality as an evolutionary element that has survived through natural selection, given that it conferred an advantage to those who developed it over others (morality implies cohesion and collaboration). This is a book on evolutionary psychology: "one cannot understand morality without evolution," a conviction that is one of the main themes of this book. Combining anthropology and evolutionary psychology to understand contemporary society and one of its great risks.

As José Antonio Marina says ("El deseo interminable," Ariel, 2022), "evolution has created the prerequisites for morality: the tendency to develop social norms and reinforce them, empathy and sympathy, mutual support, and a sense of justice, mechanisms for conflict resolution, etc."

But the world society has changed significantly in recent years, and it may happen that morality has now become an evolutionary disadvantage. Are we now realizing that morality is a double-edged sword ("human morality has a dark side")? Is hypermoralization a new epidemic that, born in some university in the United States, has spread through social networks, especially Twitter? Social networks as the aerosols of the hypermoralization epidemic. Social networks as moral tribunals where we can exhibit our morality. Excessive morality has led to public lynching, political polarization, and attacks on freedom of expression. Misunderstood morality. Or perhaps, excess of morality. Lao Tse highlighted this some 3,000 years ago: there is no worse tyranny than that of the righteous.

Because being more moral does not necessarily mean being better. Morality is a threat to 21st-century societies. The author warns of this. The epidemic of morality is one of the main causes of the increasing polarization observed in society. In Marina's words: "morals can impose criminal norms." Democracy may be in danger (Martin Wolf also warns of this in "The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism" Penguin, 2023). Hypermoralization contributes to this, further segregating Us and Them, making the barriers thicker. Because actions that we find horrendous if they are done by them, we do not consider as such if we are the ones doing them. Moreover, it seems that it is our obligation to carry them out if we defend our group. "Our moral beliefs are illusions, and we have them not because they are true, but because they are useful for regulating our social life."

Drawing on evolutionary biology, morality could be an "evolutionary hangover" (W. Slingerland, "Drunk" Little, Brown Spark, 2021), that is, an evolutionary advantage that helped us develop years ago (thanks to its group cohesion effect) but that now, with social networks and weapons of mass destruction, may be the seed for our destruction.

Morality is like the ability to speak: all humans have it by natural selection, but Our morality (our language) is different from Theirs. We do not know how to understand it, as happens with other languages. But, and here is the differential and concerning point, just as we can be indifferent to other languages, it seems that we are not indifferent to other morals. Those who think differently are not mistaken but are evil. And we must eliminate them. They are our enemies; we cannot be indifferent. And the one who defends our group from Them is not doing wrong. But our interpretation would be different if it were someone from Them doing the same.

We want to be on the side of good. We feel obliged not only to do good but to decide what doing good is, to spread it, to pursue and denounce those who do not do it, to punish them, and, if necessary, to eliminate them. Killing is bad, unless it is someone from Them, who is a threat to us. Self-defense. It gives humans a special pleasure to see the guilty suffer: Schadenfreude.

The moral atmosphere has become increasingly punitive and stifling. Morality consists of restraining the individual through norms so that the group can function, that is, imposing collectivity above the individual. In animals that are not social, morality does not make sense because they do not conflict with other individuals of the species or with the interests of the group. Morality would be "a pathology of a system that seeks, in this case through wrong paths, to ensure group cohesion and also reward the best." Is our brain an evolutionary disadvantage because it has allowed us to build nuclear weapons without freeing us from morality?

A final comment: "Los peligros de la moralidad" allows us to delve into behavioral psychology since it provides an additional approach when trying to understand how we behave. Should we go beyond the brain's dilemmas between the rational and the emotional and incorporate a third component, morality? Or perhaps give an additional perspective to the emotional part (not only desires for more or less immediate reward, belonging to a group, or a sense of security) and incorporate morality? Morality as another bias in the behavior of Homo sapiens.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

In just two decades, China has become Africa's leading economic partner, gaining significant influence across the continent's 54 countries, projected to be the primary global labor force driver by 2050, with a third of the world's youth. The World Bank estimates that by 2040, Africa's annual demand for infrastructure will reach around $300 billion. This, coupled with the opportunity to challenge China's current dominance, has ignited a competition between the United States and the European Union to reclaim their former domains.

In 1990, U.S. and European companies secured 85% of construction contracts in Africa. By 2020, Chinese firms, which had no presence on the continent three decades earlier, were involved in 31% of all African infrastructure projects, while Western companies barely reached 12%. Beijing-backed enterprises have revolutionized African transportation with numerous airports, ports, trains, roads, and bridges. China's objective is to expedite bilateral trade and ensure a steady supply of needed raw materials.

Although before the pandemic, Beijing had chosen to change its strategy and stop financing megaprojects to concentrate on others that were more sustainable and closer to the needs of the civilian population, such as hospitals, schools and electrification, it has now decided to finance the controversial East African oil pipeline, much criticized by environmentalists. It stretches from Uganda's oil fields to Port Tanga in Tanzania. Additionally, China will upgrade the Tanzania-Zambia railway, originally funded by Mao Zedong's government in the 1970s as a symbol of "China-Africa friendship." The 1,860-kilometer rail from Zambia's copper belt to the port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean represents China's largest overseas project.

Named Tazara, the modernization of this railway is crucial for mining exports from Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with significant coltan reserves. Furthermore, Congo produces over two-thirds of the world's cobalt, and 80% of its output is directed to China, whose companies control 15 of the country's top 19 mines.

In the midst of competition with the West for critical minerals used in electric batteries, solar panels, and high technology, the U.S. and the EU have announced plans to finance another railway line from Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito. If successful, it would be the first significant infrastructure project in Africa that the West takes from China in the race for dominance. The China Railway Construction Corporation took ten years to refurbish the 1,334-kilometer railway from Lobito to Luau, on the Angolan-Congolese border, destroyed during the civil war (1975-2002) following independence from Portugal. When the Chinese giant assumed it would win the concession to operate this train, the Angolan government announced in August 2022 that the bid had been won by Lobito Atlantic Railway, a consortium of three companies from Singapore, Portugal, and Belgium.

Currently, Africa's GDP accounts for 3% of the global total, and its trade represents 2.3% of the global share. However, experts predict that by 2063, it will become the world's third-largest economy. Eager for its vast natural resources and seeking to attract African votes in international institutions, China has committed to fostering Africa's development and influence through its flagship initiative, the Belt and Road. China supports this through symbolic gestures like building and funding the African Union headquarters in Addis Abeba and, more relevant, providing financial and political support. China propelled the AU's entry into the G20, the group of "the most important industrialized and developing economies”, and backed Egypt and Ethiopia, among the six countries—including Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Argentina—that will join the BRICS on January 1, 2024.

China is Africa's largest creditor. The Boston University Global Policy Development Center estimates that since 2000, Beijing has loaned $150 billion to African countries, mainly to Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia. The primary lenders are Eximbank (60%) and the China Development Bank (25%).

The U.S. accuses China of conducting "debt trap diplomacy," involving substantial loans to countries to take control of key assets when they default on payments. However, a 2022 study by Harry Verhoeven of Columbia University and Nicolas Lippolis of Oxford University argues that the debt trap narrative is part of the strategic and ideological rivalry between Washington and Beijing because most African debt is in the hands of private Western holders.

In November, lengthy negotiations for the restructuring of Zambia's debt broke down. China, the main creditor, agreed to restructure $4.1 billion of the total, but, along with the IMF and other creditors—France, the UK, South Africa, Israel, and India—they pushed for the Comparable Treatment principle. This would require private bondholders, holding around $3 billion, to offer similar debt relief. They refused. Their rejection could jeopardize other necessary restructurings, starting with Ethiopia, a key ally of China, which, according to Boston University, owes $13.7 billion in debt contracted between 2000 and 2021. Private holders have more debt bonds from Ethiopia than Zambia.

Beijing took advantage of Africa's neglect after the end of the Cold War, but its momentum and exploitation of the black continent have awakened Western voracity.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

A history of the past

"The Route of Knowledge" (titled originally "The Knowledge Map" in English) is a book by of the British writer and historian Violet Moller. It traces the evolution of scientific knowledge between the 5th and 15th centuries A.D., considered the "Dark Ages" (a term I learned from Catherine Nixey in her book of the same name). It was a period where theocratic religions and their beliefs prevailed over reason and the scientific method, which had already been discovered by the Greeks and further developed in the Roman era, mostly into the Eastern Roman Empire.

The fundamental thesis of the book is that this period was a transitional phase for the preservation of existing scientific knowledge. However, it also witnessed a flourishing of the arts and sciences during the golden age of Islam, which declined more rapidly in the West than in the East due to the dominance and better adaptation of the Christian religion to Renaissance ideas, paving the way for the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and liberal ideas in later centuries. For instance, today's Cordoba is a mere shadow of what it must have been during the Caliphate era.

The book argues, as the author states, that not only do ideas shape the world, but that science and technology, in turn, shape ideas. Today, we know that the apparent conflict between the humanities and science is artificial, even though schools and universities often attempt to compartmentalize students' choices. Ideas do not exist in the abstract void but in people's daily lives, and the applications of scientific and technological knowledge inevitably influence the course of ideas.

Today, we should all be aware that scientific and technological knowledge serves ideas (think, for example, about the ethics of artificial intelligence and what should or shouldn't be done). However, there was a time in history when scientific discoveries emerged from intimate observations of nature by humans. The world of ideas was a realm of myths and supernatural explanations for everything that human reason couldn't comprehend.

The book primarily traces the journey of mathematical works contained in Euclid's "Elements," Ptolemy's "Almagest," and numerous medical writings by Galen. These works originated between the 4th century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. and had a unique journey during those 1,000 years for their survival in cities that were beacons of scientific knowledge in this period of history. Naturally, there are many other cities, but the author selects Alexandria, Baghdad, Cordoba, Toledo, Salerno, Palermo, and Venice.

In these cities, mathematics, astronomical observation, the interpretation of the physical world, and medicine evolved. Interestingly, many Euclidean principles are still alive today (perhaps because mathematics is built on precise premises from which new foundations are constructed based on prior axioms and theorems). However, the understanding of the physical environment and the human body has changed drastically (the Church prohibited the exploration of the human body in dead human bodies for centuries, unlike China, for instance). Observation, reasoning, experimentation, this is trial and error, the name of the game of the scientific method

During this period, books were copied several times by hand (the materials of the time, such as papyrus or animal parchment, deteriorated over time). Additionally, the process of translating works originally written in Greek or Arabic into the dominant language of each era required tremendous efforts to ensure that the works were translated into Latin, the predominant lingua franca by the end of the Middle Ages.

Everything changed in the 15th century with the advent of Renaissance thought (a revival of classical thinking, prioritizing reason, and the renaissance and volution of the scientific method), the invention of the printing press, and the democratization of enlightened thought, accessible to an ever-increasing population with access to reading, reflection, and critical thinking.

This list of cities, transit points of scientific knowledge, stops precisely in Venice, the birthplace of the beginnings of mercantilism, possibly one of the first beacons of the expansion of knowledge and the modern concept of economics and finance as an independent republic. Italy was the seedbed of international trade, banking, and, of course, culture.

Perhaps one of the attractions of the book "The Route of Knowledge," beyond the well-documented historical rigor with which the author narrates this journey, is to specify the attributes of those cities that housed scientific knowledge in antiquity. These attributes include political stability, talented individuals, a regular supply of texts, tolerance, and acceptance of different ethnicities and religions.

Reflections of the present

This point connects this history book to the world today. Where is scientific knowledge today, where is it located, how is it generated, how is it transmitted, or even how is it applied? How does scientific knowledge influence society, economic progress, ideas, happiness, and people?

Scientific knowledge has transitioned from scattered centers and from societies primarily created by the Anglo-Saxon world, starting with the British Empire, to businesses, universities, public or private knowledge centers today located every and anywhere. Research, applied science, and its translation into different technologies that influence society have come together to advance at the fastest pace in history. Interestingly, this occurs mainly in places that meet the conditions specified above.

Today's scientific knowledge and the accumulation of talent have strong positive reinforcements, creating economies of scale, clustering effects and meaning that "knowledge attracts knowledge," and it's not easy to skip steps if the foundations and attractions required for the required talent to flourish are not taken care of (reference to this point is essential, as mentioned by Professors Andrés Pedreño and Luis Moreno in their latest book "Spain in the Cloud," which can be checked here). Therefore, I would add political stability in the sense of an absence of conflicts affecting the peaceful development of the population, the need for effective public policies that promote scientific knowledge and its application.

The regular supply of texts, so important in the scientific knowledge of the past, has given way to the impossible library that is the internet today. However, not everything out there is relevant or even true. Critical thinking is now an essential attribute when it comes to disguise the genuine talent.

Precisely, applied scientific knowledge and its translation into entrepreneurial initiatives have become an indispensable element for the feedback of that knowledge because it doesn't operate in a vacuum but through practical application. Today, the world is not being changed by companies from the last century but by projects that either germinate in a few years and prove to be scalable, or fail.

Applied scientific knowledge, understood as new possible ways of eating, working, moving, producing, or entertaining, influences people's lives because it offers new opportunities and options for people. If technology, understood in this broad sense, is unstoppable, it's better to be with it than against it. The match or clash of ideas and policies, guided by a philosophy of how to use technology, determine one type of society or another.

I return to the questions that allow the flourishing of knowledge in society: Is there political and social stability for knowledge to develop in a world of open ideas, with tolerance for diverse opinions seeking paths until they converge, in a world where information isn't the problem, but the selection of relevant information and processes to keep critical judgment alive? Are we harnessing the contributions of people of different ethnicities, races, or simply different genders?

The answers to these questions determine whether genuine scientific knowledge and its derivatives are being favored or not.

This Jean Monnet Chair on Tech Diplomacy (TechDip) is run under the context of Action ERASMUS-JMO-2022-HEI-TCH-RSCH, co-financed by the EU EACEA under GA Project 101085303. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.