BRICS

The foundation of this digital fortress is built upon the claim of a “moral debt” that the engineering elite owes to the State. In George Orwell’s world of 1984, this represents the ultimate synthesis: the Party and the Corporation becoming indistinguishable. This “affirmative obligation” to participate in national defense is literalized in Palantir’s “strategic partnership” with the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Finalized in early 2024 during a high-stakes visit by co-founders Peter Thiel and Alex Karp to Tel Aviv, this pact seeks to harness advanced data mining for “war-related missions.” The software engineers of Palo Alto have been drafted as the new Inner Party: high priests of a digital armory. Their corporate identity is so entwined with the Zionist project that Palantir held its first board meeting of 2024 in Israel, signaling that their “Technological Republic” transcends borders when it comes to the enforcement of state power.

We are told that the age of “soaring rhetoric” and atomic deterrence is fading, replaced by a “hard power” built entirely on software. Here is the transition from the clumsy violence of the truncheon to the invisible violence of the code. Reports from Gaza suggest that Palantir provides the underlying scaffolding for a system where human intuition is replaced by mathematical certainty. By synthesizing massive datasets – surveillance footage, intercepted communications, and biometric records – the software assists in the production of targeting databases that function as automated “kill lists.”

This creates a dangerous accountability gap, a form of “algorithmic plausible deniability.” When an AI-informed strike levels an apartment complex, the blame is diffused into a “black box.” The developer claims the software only “suggests,” the data scientist claims the inputs were “objective,” and the military commander claims the machine’s logic was “optimal.” Alex Karp recently boasted to shareholders, “We are in the business of building things that scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them,” a chilling affirmation of the firm’s central role in the escalating hostilities against Iran. This admission exposes a brutal reality where algorithmic precision is celebrated as a technical triumph while it systematically masks the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding under the weight of AI-driven targeting.

Within the theater of Operation Epic Fury, Palantir’s software functions as the primary cognitive engine for the US and Israeli military, processing thousands of Iranian targets with a speed that defies traditional human oversight. By compressing the “kill chain” to mere minutes, the firm has transitioned from a mere vendor to a lead protagonist in a conflict where the unblinking eye of the machine determines the survival of entire populations. In this environment, Palantir’s “unflinching commitment” to those in harm’s way becomes a mandate to silence debate regarding the human cost of the occupation.

There is a cunning piece of managed perception Palantir uses to critique the “tyranny of apps,” suggesting that the small glass slabs in our pockets limit our “sense of the possible.” The proposed remedy is a shift from the trivial surveillance of the consumer “app” to the total surveillance of the “infrastructure.” It is the complaint that the telescreen is being used for games when it should be used for the Two Minutes Hate. While the public frets over screen time, Palantir’s infrastructure works behind the scenes to monitor “regressive” elements.

Amnesty International has documented how this “made-by-Palantir” technology poses a surveillance threat to protestors. It is the realization that a society is only “free” so long as its actions are “vital” to the State’s interests. The manifesto of the Technological Republic suggests that the “decadence” of the ruling class will be forgiven so long as they deliver security. This is the ancient bargain of the totalitarian: we will feed you and keep you safe from the current “Enemy,” provided you hand over the keys to your private life and the right to remain unobserved.

The architects of this system boast of an “extraordinarily long peace” made possible by American power and its allies. This is the ultimate slogan: War is Peace. To the billions living under the shadow of proxy wars and AI-driven policing, this “peace” looks remarkably like a spreadsheet of managed casualties. It is a peace of the graveyard, maintained by a “deterrence” built on software that purports to know a subject’s intent before they have even conceived a thought.

Palantir’s call to undo the “postwar neutering” of nations such as Germany and Japan signals a calculated desire to awaken the ghosts of the 20th century. While this vision of renewed strength might appear reasonable on the surface, it functions as a demand that these nations become proper military vassals for American interests. In Asia, this requires Japan to discard its pacifist history to become an American attack dog, compelling the nation to spend at least 2% of its GDP on defense and purchase vast quantities of American weaponry. By transforming Japanese territory into a permanent frontline launchpad against China and urging Germany to serve as a fortified shield against Russia, the “Technological Republic” seeks to manage the logistics of future conflicts through its own software. In this worldview, the atomic age is ending because we have found a more efficient way to threaten one another with extinction through algorithmic deterrence.

The rejection of “hollow pluralism” in favor of a civilizational ranking is not a deviation from history, but rather the latest iteration of a continuous imperial project. While Franz Boas attempted to introduce cultural relativism as a check on Western dominance, his efforts never achieved a true global consensus; instead, the underlying structure of Western imperialism simply evolved its justifications. Where the British Empire once spoke of the “White Man’s Burden” to civilize the “savage,” and the Cold War era spoke of “democratization” to modernize the “underdeveloped,” Palantir now speaks of “technological vitality” to vanquish the “regressive.” This civilizational supremacism is the bedrock of the partnership with the Israeli state, framing a brutal, decades-long occupation as a defense of “progressive values” and “Western civilization.” By reintroducing a hierarchy where “vital” cultures possess the moral authority to dominate “regressive” ones, Palantir provides the digital scaffolding for a new kind of algorithmic empire. It is a world where the software determines who is “civilized” and who is a “target,” ensuring that the legacy of imperialist expansion continues under the guise of technical necessity.

The manifesto poses a pointed, rhetorical question: “Inclusion into what?” The answer, built into the very structure of Palantir’s corporate philosophy, is a mandatory absorption into a singular, totalizing System: a digital panopticon where the Marine’s rifle and the citizen’s intimate data are managed by the same algorithmic entity. This system establishes a stark, neo-feudal class divide; it laments the “ruthless exposure” of the private lives of the elite, seeking to resurrect a protected “priesthood” of public servants who operate within a sanctuary of state-sanctioned forgiveness and anonymity. Meanwhile, the rest of mankind is subjected to the absolute “ruthless exposure” of their own data, stripped of the right to be unquantifiable. Under this regime, transparency is a weapon used downward to discipline the proles, while opacity is a shield used upward to protect the architects of the machine.

Palantir represents a new era of the military-industrial complex, one where data is the primary ammunition and ideology is the primary marketing tool. It seeks to upgrade the Republic into a fortress where the walls are made of code and the “long peace” is maintained by the stoic demeanor of the machine. The company frames its support for Israel as a defense of democratic survival, when in reality it is the chilling realization of high-tech surveillance used to enforce a permanent state of siege. As the international community begins to react – evidenced by the $24-million divestment by Norway’s Storebrand over concerns of “international law” violations – the core question of our age remains: Should the power to decide who is a “terrorist,” who is “regressive,” and who is a “target” to be outsourced to a private company with a political agenda? In the “Technological Republic,” the most rebellious act one can commit is to remain unquantifiable, to exist outside the data-mining net, and to insist that a human life is more than a data point in a war-related mission.

By Constanin von Hoffmeister

The conflict initiated by Israel (and into which it drew the US, as Joe Kent explained when he gave his resignation as director of US counterterrorism) can be seen as a completely irrational religious and eschatological adventure driven by Hebraic mythology. Let’s try to take a look at three of its main pillars.

Amalek

In the Book of Exodus, Amalek is the name of the founder of a nation of the same name, who attacks the Children of Israel after they leave Egypt. Apparently for no specific reason. Consequently, the Amalekites are considered as the staunchest and most persistent enemy of Israel and Jehovah gave a clear order.

Deuteronomy 25:17-19: “Don’t forget what Amalek did to you on the road after you left Egypt, how he attacked you when you were tired, barely able to put one foot in front of another, mercilessly cut off your stragglers, and had no regard for God. When God, your God, gives you rest from all the enemies that surround you in the inheritance-land God, your God, is giving you to possess, you are to wipe the name of Amalek from off the Earth. Don’t forget!”

Samuel 15:3: “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

At this stage, it’s even beyond genocide. One could say that it’s just biblical mythology. But in October 2023 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the Amalek story when the IDF went into Gaza, and once again in March 2026 concerning Iran: “We read in this week’s Torah portion, ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’ We remember – and we act.” Nothing could be clearer.

Esther

Then we have to move on to the Book of Esther.

The thing is, the Israelis did wipe out the Amalekites – except one. And his descendant, Haman, became grand vizier at the court of the Persian Empire (based in the Iranian plateau). Esther is a Jewish orphan adopted by her cousin Mordecai, who also holds a position at the court. She becomes the King’s new Queen. And here we go again, Haman (that is, Amalek) wants to get rid of the Jews. Exterminate all of them. For no other apparent reason than because Mordecai refused to bow down to him. Mordecai urges Esther to convince the King to foil Haman’s plot. The King gets mad at Haman, and eventually the course of events is reversed and the Jewish population is able to exterminate its enemies in the Persian Empire. That’s what Jewish people celebrate annually during the Purim holiday.

One can only think about the level of contemporary Iran infiltration by Israeli secret services. Otherwise, Israel wouldn’t have been able to act so effectively against Tehran.

Gog and Magog

Next, the Book of Ezekiel.

The Prophet Ezekiel had some visions. One of them is that ‘Gog and Magog’ will attack the rebuilt state of Israel but eventually will be destroyed by Jehovah. Consequently, we know the idea, a new temple will be built, the ‘Messiah’ will appear, and Israel will reign supreme. As to what are exactly ‘Gog and Magog’, the pilpul is literally endless. But according to the Book of Revelation, they are supposed to be a coalition of hostile pagan nations going against the Israelites.

Now, if we look at the current conflict, we have on one side Israel backed by Christian Zionists, and on the other side Iran, mainly backed, though quietly, by Russia and China. Russia is a multi-confessional state where Orthodox Christianity is the majority. In China, the primary belief system is Buddhism. Iran is an Islamic Republic, yes, but as it is one of the oldest cradles of civilization, it kept elements of its ancient religion, Zoroastrianism. For example, Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, is a Zoroastrian tradition, and the Strait of Hormuz is named after Hormoz, the Zoroastrian god of wisdom, light, and cosmic order.

We see here the biblical pattern: a coalition of countries with various beliefs in an existential fight against Israel. This is, of course, an extremely simplistic conception: a final battle between Gog and Magog (i.e. Iran, China, and Russia) and Biblical Israel (i.e. Zionist Israelis and Americans). However, the Chinese are highly pragmatic, and a lot of Russian Jews live in Israel, so Beijing and Moscow won’t act against Israel directly. But the Israelis and American Zionists seem to be convinced by this mythological interpretation. Just remember that Pete Hegseth, the incumbent American Secretary of War has been calling every step of the creation of the state of Israel a “miracle.” Or think about Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, who was saying in an interview with Tucker Carlson concerning Israelis and the Middle-East: “It would be fine if they took it all.”

Western mainstream media constantly call Iran a “theocracy” and Israel the “only democracy in the Middle-East.” But as current geopolitical events mirrored by biblical stories show, the US-Israel side is moved by a religious vision with three goals: the foundation of Greater Israel (from the Nile to the Euphrates), the reconstruction of the temple, and the coming of the Messiah. Because, even if a large chunk of the Torah (let alone the Talmud) looks more like a political project than like a religious textbook, Israel is indeed a theocracy in disguise. Therefore, even if Iran should prevail in the current conflict, the Israelis will keep looking at other nations not fully supporting them as Gog and Magog.

By Matthieu Buge

Britain has changed prime minister repeatedly in recent years, and each new arrival has seemed more insubstantial than the last and compared with the major figures of the past, many of today’s leaders look lightweight and strangely unprepared for the seriousness of the offices they hold.

Elsewhere in Western Europe, the picture is no better, such as Emmanuel Macron who looks the part in a well-cut suit, but appearances only go so far. The photographs from his youth, the theatrical poses and the carefully managed presidential image all speak to a politics increasingly dominated by presentation, while even scenes from his marriage, such as the now-famous footage of Brigitte Macron appearing to strike him on a government aircraft, would have been almost unimaginable in the eras of François Mitterrand or Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

In Western Europe’s smaller states, the decline is often more pronounced as political leaders increasingly resemble overexcited adolescents, eager to display their ideological credentials and fashionable causes. Their language is grandiose, their judgement frequently poor, and their sense of responsibility minimal.

Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s contempt for them is therefore understandable given he’s a career diplomat formed in a different political culture, one in which statecraft was supposed to involve discipline and a sense of consequence. Faced with Western Europe’s current political class, he sometimes sounds like a man struggling not to say what he really thinks.

The problem is that these leaders may be transient, but the consequences of their decisions are not and while governments change, the submarines, cruise missiles, armies, tanks and aircraft remain and so do the strategic commitments, sanctions regimes, broken relationships and accumulated risks created by politicians who may be gone within a few years.

So why has the quality of Western Europe’s political leadership declined so sharply? One major reason is economic as over the past three decades, the business world has become far more attractive to ambitious and capable young people than public service. A vice president responsible for government relations at a large corporation can earn €1.5 million a year, often with bonuses, stock options and a generous severance package and politics can’t compete with that.

An English friend once told me that a former schoolmate of his might one day become prime minister and this wasn’t fantasy. The man had attended an elite school, had been politically active from a young age and was moving through the expected stages of a serious political career.

Then business intervened as he was offered a position so lucrative that the uncertain prospect of becoming prime minister no longer seemed especially attractive and, thus, his political career faded, not because he lacked ability, but because the private sector valued that ability more highly.

Henry Kissinger spoke harshly about the decline of Western political leadership when he insisted that modern politicians lacked competence and any real understanding of the tasks before them and he was largely correct.

Yet Kissinger didn’t fully address another part of the problem, which is the American role in selecting and shaping much of Europe’s political class.

A notable number of European leaders have studied in the United States, attended American-funded programs or received support from US-linked foundations early in their careers and these institutions don’t simply identify talented young people, but they help shape their worldview.

This isn’t necessarily a matter of direct recruitment by intelligence services, because that’s a more difficult and unreliable process. The method is subtler, as young politicians are introduced to networks and encouraged to adopt a particular understanding of international affairs.

The result is a loyalty filter and independent-minded people rarely flourish in such systems. Those who advance are often the most adaptable and the most willing to repeat the approved language. In other words, the process doesn’t necessarily select the strongest candidates, but it selects the easiest to shape.

There are occasional mistakes, particularly in Poland where American institutions sometimes underestimate the ability of Polish politicians to imitate the language expected of them while retaining deeply nationalist instincts. Washington is wary of genuine Polish independence, but its candidate pool is limited, so compromises are made.

The American domestic system works differently, where young politicians often enter party networks already equipped with a good education and a carefully managed personal life and if they need money, party-connected business interests help them.

Republicans have traditionally relied on industrial and corporate networks, while Democrats have been supported by finance, arts, law, and media. A promising politician may spend several years in business, earn enough to become financially secure, and then return to public life with a house, and investments, but in Europe, the mechanism is almost the reverse.

Public pressure is constantly applied to reduce politicians’ salaries and privileges as the argument is always that they should cost less and appear more ordinary. Meanwhile, corporations offer increasingly extraordinary rewards to anyone with intelligence and connections so the predictable result is reverse selection.

The most capable people leave, while the ambitious ones move into business, consulting, finance, or lobbying and those who remain are often ideologues, careerists, eccentrics, or mediocrities with nowhere more attractive to go.

This process is now difficult to stop and the prestige of political office has fallen too far, while the rewards available in the corporate world have become too large and too obvious.

Much of Europe is therefore left with leaders who often lack competence and historical perspective and while they occupy powerful offices, many seem unable to understand the scale of the responsibilities they have inherited.

The danger isn’t merely that they look ridiculous, it’s is that they govern states possessing vast economic and military power and when weak people inherit powerful machinery, the consequences can be anything but trivial.

By Nikolai Gastello

He had already served his singular, historic term as South Africa’s first black president and had spent years traversing a rapidly transforming global landscape to reconnect with a world he was forced to miss during his 27 years of incarceration. Crucially, his early diplomatic travels prioritized visits to the very nations that had anchored the anti-apartheid struggle – defying Western pressure by openly embracing allies like Libya as early as 1990 and Cuba in 1991.

By pushing back against Western critics who questioned these alliances, Mandela established a precedent for African sovereignty and non-alignment at the absolute height of the post-Cold War unipolar order.

In a famous June 1990 televised exchange in New York, American journalist Ted Koppel pressed him to justify his friendships with figures like Muammar Gaddafi, Yasir Arafat, and Fidel Castro. Mandela responded with a mesmerizing defense of sovereign autonomy, famously telling his audience that Western critics could not dictate who Africa’s friends should be simply because they disliked them, and reminding the world that these leaders had supported the liberation struggle when the West was still aligned with the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Years later, during a historic 1997 visit to Tripoli that openly defied Western-imposed sanctions, Mandela re-emphasized this stance, telling foreign detractors that those who objected to his relationship with Gaddafi could go “jump in the pool.”

This doctrine of unapologetic sovereignty established a lasting blueprint for African diplomacy that resonates today. By asserting that South Africa’s national interest would not be dictated by Western capitals or geopolitical pressure, Mandela drew a clear line between global integration and diplomatic submission. Decades later, as the Global South increasingly asserts its independence amid renewed great-power competition, Mandela’s historic defiance remains the touchstone for African leaders insisting on their right to navigate a complicated world without being forced to into what they did not like.

Today, this battle for autonomy plays out across multiple fronts where Western influence attempts to condition critical support on strategic compliance. When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa stood firm against US rhetoric over land reform and baseless “white genocide” narratives pushed by the Trump administration, he was operating directly within Mandela’s tradition of rejecting foreign dictates.

A similar pushback is unfolding in economic and global security diplomacy, seen when nations like Zambia, Ghana, and Zimbabwe resisted bilateral US healthcare agreements that sought to tie vital medical assistance to access to critical minerals like copper and cobalt. From the African Union’s early, explicit rejection of Western military intervention in Libya in 2011 to South Africa’s unyielding stance at the International Court of Justice (ICC) on Palestine despite Western pressure, these decisions signal an African continent asserting its right to manage its own resources, defend international law, and forge a truly multipolar foreign policy.

This insistence on strategic autonomy has reshaped Africa’s institutional landscape, driving a transition from defensive non-alignment toward proactive global architecture. The evolution from the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the African Union (AU) reflected Mandela’s core premise: that continental peace-building and conflict resolution must be anchored in African-led frameworks rather than external tutelage.

Today, this institutional legacy finds its most potent expression in the alignment of the Global South, most notably through the expansion of BRICS. By forging alternative trade networks, development finance mechanisms, and diplomatic platforms, African states are translating Mandela’s early defense of sovereign friendships into a structured pursuit of a multipolar world order along with major supporters like Russia.

This modern expression of Mandela’s diplomatic style is illustrated by Africa’s stance on recent global crises, where continental leaders have refused to fall under the geopolitical sway of Washington, Brussels, Paris, or London.

Following the outbreak of the Gaza war, the AU, alongside numerous individual member states, declared solidarity with the Palestinian people against what international legal scholars and human rights organizations described as genocidal war. This culminated in South Africa’s historic December 2023 application to the ICC alleging Israel’s violation of the Genocide Convention, backed by oral pleadings from the AU at The Hague in February 2024.

Similarly, when the UN General Assembly voted on resolutions condemning Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, nearly half of all African member states abstained or declined to vote, refusing to co-sponsor Western-backed sanctions against Moscow.

In both cases, African diplomacy demonstrated that it is no longer bound by former colonial ties or Western consensus, choosing instead an independent path rooted in active non-alignment and sovereign judgment. Furthermore, in direct alignment with Mandela’s legacy of proactive diplomacy, a joint mission of seven African nations led by South Africa stepped into the global arena in June 2023 to mediate the Ukraine conflict – traveling to both Kiev and St. Petersburg to present a diplomatic roadmap, proving that African states now insist on shaping international peace processes rather than inheriting them.

Reclaiming Nelson Mandela’s legacy requires stripping away his sanitized portrait favored by Western commentators, which reduces him to an apolitical saint of quiet reconciliation, and honoring the hard-nosed strategist who prioritised national dignity above superpower approval. Today, as Africa navigates an increasingly fractured global landscape, the true measure of Mandela’s impact is not found in solemn speeches on July 18 or symbolic corporate charity drives. It lives in the resolute insistence of African states charting their own diplomatic destinies. The case of Sahel countries, expelling former colonial power France is a clear example of that.

From the strategic expansion of BRICS to the AU’s insistence on a permanent seat at the UN Security Council, African diplomacy is actively dismantling the outdated assumption that the continent must passively align with distant geopolitical blocs.

When African nations mediate in extra-continental disputes or maintain balanced, interest-driven relations with competing global powers, they are putting into practice the very principles Mandela championed when he defended South Africa’s sovereign right to determine its own friendships.

By rejecting proxy politics and demanding an equitable seat at the global decision-making table, Africa is actively realizing Mandela’s vision. In an age of shifting powers, the continent’s insistence on charting its own course stands as the most enduring monument to his life’s work.

By Mustafa Fetouri

The first group, sometimes called the “golden billion,” began to take shape in the late 20th and early 21st centuries under the Democratic administrations in the United States and their allies in the G7 and NATO. This group gradually solidified its position through exploiting globalization in their favor. In contrast, the latter group, resisting the formation of a unipolar world and advocating for a more equitable multipolar global order, has gained increasing significance on the world stage. This momentum has been fueled not only by the individual efforts of nations like Russia, China, and India but also through the establishment of fundamentally new institutions for multilateral diplomacy such as BRICS, the SCO, and others.

Achieving significant progress in diminishing the hegemony of the collective West, evidenced by the SCO+ summit in Tianjin (August 31 - September 1, 2025) which became the largest in the organization’s history, and the second BRICS summit during Brazil’s presidency this year (September 8, 2025), the nations of the ‘global majority’ have effectively reversed the Pareto principle. Today, these countries not only occupy most of the earth’s land and constitute the majority of the world’s population but they also account for the majority of the world’s GDP. Leveraging their vast reserves of essential resources and consistently demonstrating robust economic growth, these nations have achieved remarkable success by overcoming internal divisions and consolidating power with the support of their populations.

In stark contrast, the countries of the “global minority” are witnessing an opposite trend. As they lose their leading positions in the global economy and access to key natural resources, political fragmentation is becoming prevalent. In many of these nations, an active minority with low trust ratings clings to power.

This has resulted in deepening societal divides in numerous countries – from the US, UK, and France to Poland and Israel – and a clear paralysis of government authority. For instance, in the US, the Democrats, who are rapidly losing ground, are resorting to increasingly radical political tactics.

Following an assassination attempt on Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, supporters of the Democratic Party were implicated in the murder of young Republican Charlie Kirk (September 10, 2025).

This incident, coupled with a worsening illegal immigration crisis, led thousands of protesters to take to the streets of London last weekend under the banner “Unite the Kingdom.” Criticism has not only targeted the ruling Labour Party and its leader Keir Starmer – whose approval ratings are the lowest among post-WWII prime ministers – but also the “shadow government” – the Conservative Party, which has gradually lost power with each new leader from Theresa May and Boris Johnson to Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

In this context, the state visit of US President Donald Trump to the UK on September 16-17 could further complicate the already murky political prospects of the current British leadership.

A significant crisis is also unfolding on the other side of the English Channel. As he nears the end of his second presidential term, French President Emmanuel Macron increasingly resembles a lame duck. Yet another “fronde” instigated by the leftists and rightists culminated in the resignation of Prime Minister François Bayrou on September 9, 2025.

Bayrou became the fifth head of government to step down prematurely in the past four years. By appointing his close ally, Sébastien Lecornu, as the new prime minister, Macron highlighted a key trend among leaders of the “global minority”: they seek to drown out internal political crises through economic militarization and heightened foreign policy engagement.

This explains France’s prominent role in discussions regarding security guarantees for Ukraine, as well as Britain’s “diplomatic mission” to Ukraine that included Prince Harry, who is seeking to reset his relationship with the royal family, the newly appointed Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, and even former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who had undermined peace talks in Ukraine back in April 2022. His call to stop “holding a gun to Ukraine’s head” (the metaphor he used to urge Russia to withdraw its troops from Kiev region) led to Ukraine’s withdrawal from negotiations with Russia and Zelensky’s self-imposed ban on talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ultimately, the strategy of political radicalization can explain why recent events in Poland, Qatar, and Nepal have become symbols of the “artillery bombardment” of the peaceful plans of the Trump administration, Russia, China, and many countries of the ‘global majority’. Donald Tusk, Poland’s longest-serving prime minister who is rapidly losing popularity, was in desperate need of a ‘casus belli’ in the form of drones of uncertain origin that entered Polish territory, particularly after Karol Nawrocki, who was hesitant to get involved in the Ukraine conflict, was elected president of Poland.

On a similar note, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s long-time prime minister whose popularity is plummeting due to failures in the fight against Hamas, found no better solution than to launch a full-scale operation in Gaza, starting with a strike on the group’s headquarters in Doha.

While the Israeli attack on Doha may still be quelled by “the main peacemaker” of modern diplomacy, Donald Trump, who aims to preserve Qatar as a key platform for negotiations in the region, images of the burning Singha Durbar palace in Kathmandu (Nepal) will serve as a stark reminder of the dire consequences that can arise from heated political battles between the minority and the majority.

Moreover, one might question whether it’s merely a coincidence that these events unfolded in a country strategically positioned between China and India. Both Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have opted to resolve their differences not through saber-rattling but rather by relying on diplomacy, which remains our last hope in an increasingly harsh world fraught with asymmetric conflicts.

By Alexander Bobrov