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Energy & Economics
map of Latin America with purple, blue and black colors, artificial intelligence background artificial intelligence robots surrounding with hands the map of Latin America. Futuristic and three-dimensional style This content was generated by an Artificial

The crossroads of AI in the LAC region

by Carlos Arturo Covarrubias Gutiérrez

The shadow of artificial intelligence looms over the world; depending on the region, it takes the shape of a Chinese dragon or of Miss Manifest Destiny. But AI is among us, little by little taking up space, absorbing ideas without asking, constantly feeding itself in an endless cycle that, whether we accept it or not, undoubtedly consumes the Earth’s energy. While it is an ambiguous promise to affirm that the wave of AI will eventually end, the reality is that it is here, not only consuming but also spreading information that, as we know, is mostly the equivalent of junk content and misinformation — though at a scale greater than anyone would have foreseen. At the same time, it is managing to change the globalizing culture of the internet, transforming the feelings, tastes, and aversions of future generations. It is therefore imperative in these current times to think about what steps the LAC region (Latin America and the Caribbean) should or should not take in the face of the unbridled advance of AI. It is on the basis of this vital point for the future and destiny of LAC that the present reflection is made. It is crucial to delve into some of the opportunities that currently exist in the region for the development, implementation, and transformation of artificial intelligence in Latin America and the Caribbean. As we know, the region is home to enormous wealth, opportunities, and human capital — both labor and intellectual — that, if necessary, it can provide both momentum and renewal to the idea of artificial intelligence from the so-called peripheral countries, in this case, Latin America and the Caribbean. As an example, we can point to Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile (the lithium triangle) (Obaya, 2021), countries in which key raw materials such as lithium and copper give them a crucial role in the future goals of the countries where the main AI companies and corporations originate. This can bring both opportunities and future technological, economic, and social dependencies. That is why the region must learn to manage its resources to its advantage through active regional networks, with ethical and participatory governance, as well as a strong and structured digital diplomacy with a collective voice. But above all, with technological ethics combined with a rationality-based regulatory framework prepared to address humanitarian, social, environmental, and business needs in a harmonious way — also encouraging sociocultural communities to participate actively, considering the natural life cycle of the norms which could, as a likely outcome, eventually form part of a new international regulatory framework. This would be especially necessary given the shortcomings of the international community in addressing issues of constant innovation and impact. In the framework of AI’s evolution and development, this may not be too complicated due to the inherent characteristics of this technology — a technology that will end up being so embedded in daily human life that it will be difficult not to be part of it without being left behind, especially considering the undeniable commercial, social, planetary, and geopolitical relevance represented by dominance over the AI market. And this is without even mentioning the possible arrival of generative AI, which would raise even more issues and concerns. It is also significantly important to understand some of the advances and initiatives being planned or deployed in the LAC region, such as Mexico’s collaboration with Nvidia to develop a Mexican AI language (Mota, 2025). Another example is AI4D, an initiative of Canada’s IDRC, along with other foreign strategic partners (Artificial Intelligence for Development, n.d.). This initiative promotes inclusive, ethical, and human-centered AI, aiming to include itself in different regions of the Global South. Among some of the cases that demonstrate the enormous potential of this initiative are the CENIA in Chile (Centro Nacional de Investigación en Inteligencia Artificial, CENIA, n.d.) and BID Lab in LAC (BID Lab, n.d.), both of which foster comprehensive technological development in the region. While all of the above sounds like a real opportunity to foster the development of a region historically lagging in many social, economic, and technological matters, we must also document our pessimism. That is, we must keep in mind some of the key challenges that, depending on where we put the pin on the map, reveal a diversity of problems that could alter the course of many of these opportunities and initiatives. Among some of the relevant issues are corruption, political instability, technical and economic gaps in LAC—as in other regions of the Global South—criminal networks that in some cases are categorized as terrorist, and others. It is also very important to consider the potential future use of artificial intelligence as automated and systematic instruments of repression by authoritarian governments; its implementation within the criminal organizations of the region; the use of LAWS (Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems) (Perrin, 2025); or the creation of new easily producible drugs that could cause regional destabilization. In this last regard, the events in Nepal cast a shadowy expectation of the collusion of digital platforms and the use of AI for strategic and recolonizing purposes in service of capital and platforms — without the need for the pretext of drugs or terrorism. In addition, it is important to consider the historical scars of exploitation, abuse, and oppression in the LAC region by foreign forces. Therefore, it is not only important but imperative for the interests of the region to work within a framework of equality and not subordination to the current and future interests of the companies and nations that will focus on the region, which undoubtedly possesses geostrategic strength. Thus, the international rhetoric of the nations forming part of LAC must change or transform in order to put the interests of the region first, to make the most of the wave of artificial intelligence with strategy and geopolitical thought. This is not to mention some of the challenges that as a region we will have to face, such as the fragmentation of regional institutions in LAC, the lack of coordination, and the absence of a unified regional agenda outlining the steps to be taken as a region toward AI implementation, innovation, education, and ethical use — as well as the influence of global powerbrokers, namely digital platforms, in their capacity to remove and install governments in the Global South. The challenge, as can be seen, is enormous. However, the context of the new tripolar world order fuels positive expectations for LAC’s integration in a position of strength to act with national and regional aims that benefit the majority. References Artificial Intelligence for Development. (s.f.). Ai4D.ai. Recuperado el 17 de septiembre de 2025, de https://www.ai4d.aiBID Lab. (s.f.). BID Lab. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. Recuperado el 17 de febrero de 2025, de https://bidlab.org/esCentro Nacional de Investigación en Inteligencia Artificial – CENIA. (s.f.). Investigación UC. Recuperado el 17 de febrero de 2025, de https://investigacion.uc.cl/centros-de-excelencia/centro-nacional-de-investigacion-en-inteligencia-artificial-ceniaMota, C. (2025, julio 31). La estrategia de Nvidia en México. El Heraldo de México. https://heraldodemexico.com.mx/opinion/2025/7/31/la-estrategia-de-nvidia-en-mexico-719056.htmlObaya, M. (2021). Una mirada estratégica sobre el triángulo del litio. Buenos Aires: Fundar.Perrin, B. (2025, enero 24). Lethal autonomous weapons systems & international law: Growing momentum towards a new international treaty. ASIL Insights, 29(1). https://www.asil.org/insights/volume/29/issue/1

Defense & Security
Bricked wall with stop terrorism sign

Causes of women involement in terrorism

by Eraj Farooqui

AbstractThis paper explores the complex factors that contribute to women's participation in terrorism, a subject that has attracted more scholarly interest, particularly in the wake of 9/11. The discipline is nonetheless politicised and divided despite a great deal of study, which is frequently made worse by a lack of primary data. Women, who are typically thought of as quiet and non-violent, have taken on important roles in terrorist groups, especially during the 1990s, where they have participated in high-profile attacks and leadership roles. The study identifies the main factors: political, religious, personal, and gender equality—that motivate women's participation. Examples show how different organisations differ in that some encourage women to participate actively, while others limit their positions. The study also examines how terrorism has changed over time, with a particular emphasis on its gendered aspects, and assesses how contemporary organisations such as the Islamic State have reshaped the roles of women in terrorist networks. Finally, by illuminating the ideological, cultural, and societal factors that lead to women's radicalisation and involvement, this research offers an in-depth examination of the relationship between gender and terrorism.Keywords:  Terrorism , Women , Political , Religion , Personal , Gender-equality Introduction The reasons behind female terrorism have been extensively studied and debated by numerous academics. Even though there is a wealth of study, a substantial portion of it is contradictory or incomplete. Frequently, the highly politicised word of terrorism has led to contradictory claims in the research. To understand why individuals resort to women terrorism, scholars highlight political, religious, social, and personal causes. In our culture, women were seen as housewives and peaceful members of society, and terrorist groups were controlled by men. Research on women and terrorism can be done on a variety of subjects; however, this paper will mostly focus on the causes of why women participate in terrorism. After 9/11 the academic research on scholarly papers on terrorism have increased by 300% since 9/11.[1] The connection between terrorism and gender is often overlooked due to governments' reluctance to reveal the primary causes and the reluctance to provide reliable data. Researchers often avoid original sources for security reasons. A 2009 review by Karen Jacques and Paul J. Taylor found a reluctance to describe events, excessive narrative analysis, and reliance on secondary sources. [2] The word "terror" comes from the Latin verb "terrere" which means to frighten. It was originally used by the Romans in 105 B.C. to characterise the terror that engulfed Rome during the attack by the Cibri tribe. During the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, Maximilien Robespierre incited fear among the people.[3]The word "terrorist" was used by Edmund Burkey in the Regicide Peace letter. With the end of Reign of Terror, the word ‘terrorism’ gained popularity.[4] Terrorism, a deliberate use of force or intimidation, is a significant issue in the 21st century, often driven by ideological, religious, or political factors. However, the term "terrorism" has no widely recognised definition. There are four distinct stages of modern terrorism. The first wave of terrorism began in Russia and spread to Western Europe and the United States, using revolutionary and anarchist beliefs.[5]  The final wave is founded on religious beliefs that the world is currently dealing with. This wave started in 1979 when Iran underwent an Islamic revolution. Because of gender norms, terrorists are frequently perceived as masculine attackers. Women are perceived as powerless, passive, and victims during times of conflict, but it is important to remember that if they participate in terrorism, they may pose a greater threat than men.[6]And since 1990, women have gained prominence in terrorist organisations, assuming leadership positions and taking part in more brutal assaults. More media attention is given to female attackers, and people are more curious about the motivations behind their actions. Additionally, terrorist organisations are recruiting more women as a result of this. Although they have historically been involved in terrorist organisations, women's numbers have been small. As an example, the number of female suicide attackers has surged from eight in the 1980s to well over 100 since 2000, indicating a growth in the involvement of women in terrorist actions.[7]  On the other hand as per Bloom’s report over 257 suicide attacks were carried out by female bombers between 1985 and 2010, accounting for 25% of all terrorist incidents. Since 2002, the proportion of female bombers in several nations has surpassed 50%.[8]The first known incidence of female political violence happened in 1878, when Zasulich shot Fedor Trepov, the governor of Saint Petersburg. David Rapoport identified this as one of the four waves of modern terrorism.[9] Weinberg and Eubank claim that women have primarily assumed leadership positions in left-wing revolutionary bands while being assigned to inferior positions in right-wing organisations. They mostly perform supporting and auxiliary functions for numerous religious institutions. [10]Gender, Palestinian Women, and Terrorism: Women's Liberation or Oppression? was written by Anat Berko and Edna Erez. stated that during his questioning, he discovered that many Palestinian men did not approve of women participating in suicide bombings because they saw them as inferior to men.[11] After doing study with a local terrorist organisation, Jacques and Taylor chose 30 male and female suicide bombers. He finished by studying the fact that males prefer to join terrorist organisations for religious and nationalistic reasons, but female suicide terrorists are motivated by personal ones. Mia Bloom’s book the Bombshell: Women and Terrorism examines the motivations of women who participate in terrorism,[12] with an emphasis on relationships, respect, revenge, and redemption. According to Vetter and Perlstein, one of the reasons why women join terrorist organisations is because of gender equality. However, Jacques and Taylor disagree with this notion.[13]The main reason women join the LTTE is to fight for gender equality; they participate in every aspect of the group and do so to avoid being discriminated against and repressed by the male-dominated society.  The following studies will provide an academic perspective on the causes of women's involvement in terrorism. The main focus will be on four causes: political, religious, personal, and gender equality, as well as a list of important terror occurrences conducted by female terrorists as a result of some key ideological beliefs. Religious Cause: Religious convictions have been the foundation of many terrorist organisations throughout history. The Crusaders can be categorised as a terrorist group. Although the Crusaders' main objective was to propagate Christianity, they also committed heinous acts of terrorism. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was the fourth wave of contemporary terrorism, and David Rapport claims that it was the first instance of religious terrorism in the modern era. Religious terrorism's core principle is the promotion of violence in the name of furthering religious beliefs. For example, Al-Qaeda and ISIS promote an Islamic caliphate globally.[14] However, attempting to do so by using cruel and aggressive methods. Islam and terrorism have become more associated since 9/11, as terrorist organisations have posed a serious threat to Western ideologies and societal influences.[15] Gonzalez-Perez notes that suicide bombers frequently use the idea of martyrdom and benefits in the afterlife to lure people into justifying their acts.[16] Women are also part of religious terrorist organisations but there are two argument over women involvement in jihadi group. As explaind by Muhammad Khayr Haykal in his book Al-Jihad wa al-qital fi al-siyasah al-shar'iyyah. 1. Women were seen as having a responsibility in raising money for Jihadis, caring for children, and providing medical treatment.[17] 2.    The Islamic state should set up training facilities for women to learn how to wield weapons and combat techniques, according to Islamic legal expert Muhammad Khayr Haykal. According to him, all Muslims should be held accountable for jihad if it turns into fard ‘ayn, and women must be prepared for this possibility in order to perform their duty. This strategy permits the practice of female jihadism in martyrdom missions and on the battlefield.[18] Role of women in Al-Qaeda According to Robet Pape in his book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.[19]Highlights that male terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda oppose women's participation in terrorism. However the Tamil Tigers used twenty-three female attackers, the Palestinians used six, the Lebanese used six, the Chechens used fourteen, and the PKK used ten. Consequently, he concluded that Islamic fundamentalists oppose female fighters.[20] However, after the rise of the Islamic state, which encourages women to join their organisation and accept arms, the Pape argument is no longer regarded as legitimate. For example, some 200 women joined the Islamic State in Syria in 2014 after migrating from Western nations. Additionally, they more than doubled their numbers in 2015, reaching over 550 women.[21] This suggests that the Islamic State may assign women a direct role, such as suicide bombing, in a way that is different from that of many other jihadist organisations, such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  In Al-Qaeda the women played a secondary role for.e.g: Al Qaeda also benefited strategically from the assistance that women provided. For instance, the female terrorists of Al Qaeda were strongly using the internet to try to convince men to join the worldwide Jihad. Some males are inclined to join these groups because they feel ashamed of their masculinity as a result of these communication strategies.[22]Women's roles in jihadist organisations are valued in that they bear children and raise them to be potential recruits for terrorist organisations. Usama Bin Laden thanked women by saying: "You have inspired and encouraged [men] to join jihad, and you have raised all the men who fought in Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Chechnya, and you are the ones who produced the squadron of heroic men who carried out the raids in New York and Washington."[23] On the other hand Ayman al-Zawahiri's wife, Umayma al-Zawahiri, also urged her "Muslim sisters" to raise their kids on the love of jihad in God's way and "to induce their brothers, husbands, and sons to protect Muslims' lands and properties. To support (male) jihadists with prayers and financial support. [24] Al Khansa'a was one of the authors of the online magazine that inspired Muslim sisters with her articles; while she did not advocate for women to fight in combat, she did counsel them to stay in shape and exercise so they would be prepared for jihad.[25] Al-Qaeda Iraq's founder and Al-Qaeda member Abu Musab al Zarqawi urged Iraqi women to join the military. In Talafa, Iraq, a US military recruiting centre was the target of the first female suicide bomber. According to the announcement made by al Qaeda in Iraq on its website, "A blessed sister carried out a brave strike defending her beliefs. May God include our sister among the group of martyrs.’’[26]According to Mia Bloom the attack was carried out under the alias "ghost group" because it was still forbidden for Al Qaeda Central to collaborate with women on suicide bombings.[27] The identities of male suicide bombers are mentioned by AQI members, but the names of female suicide bombers are never mentioned. As a result, it is challenging to determine the purpose or driving force for their membership in terrorist organisations. Despite the lack of data regarding female suicide bombers, certain enquiries and interviews provide us with comparable reasons why they chose to join AQI as female terrorists. After losing a loved one, women join terrorist organisations in order to kill the offender and get revenge for the deaths of their husbands and brothers. Furthermore, AQI members urged young females to die as martyrs, claiming that they would immediately enter heaven and be the prophet Muhammad's neighbours.[28] Al-Qaeda is therefore mostly a male organisation that discourages women from engaging in violent activities. Women's roles are limited to becoming teachers, fund-raisers, social media advocates, and moms of potential jihadists. Role of women in Islamic State(IS) Islamic State was founded in 1999. The Islamic State had the greatest number of foreign terrorist fighters in history, making it a unique terrorist organisation. About 41,490 foreign nationals from 8 nations joined the Islamic State with the goal of restoring the caliphate. Of the foreign terrorist fighters, about 4761 (13%) were female. Following Eastern Europe (44%), Western Europe (42%), the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand (36%), and other regions, Eastern Asia had the greatest percentage (70%) of women connected with the Islamic State.[29] The biggest motivation for joining an Islamic terrorist organisation is religion. Women typically played a supporting role in Islamic terrorist organisations prior to the rise of the Islamic State. However, the role of women in these organisations has grown stronger after the fall of Al-Qaeda and the rise of Islamic State in the Middle East. Muriel Dagauque, a Muslim woman who converted to Islam and was married to a Muslim man, was one of the Islamic State suicide bombers. She moved to Iraq with her spouse from Europe in order to become a martyr, and on November 9, 2005, she bombed herself.[30] Many jihadist suicide bombers are comforted by the assurance that they will be sitting next to God (Allah), experiencing only joy and no agony, before the first drop of their blood ever hits the earth.[31]Women joined the Islamic State mostly for religious reasons. Umm Layth, also known as Aqsa Mahmood, was a 21 year old Scottish university student who travelled to Syria to take part in Islamic State terrorist activities. Mahmood expressed her opinions on jihad with the following sentences.: "If not you, then your grandkids or their grandchildren. But do not worry, our cubs will eventually shed your blood. This Islamic dominion will become well-known and dreaded all over the world. Choose a side; this is a fight against Islam. You may either support them or support us.''[32] Role of women Chechnya Terrorism: Islam is the predominant religion in Chechnya, and Wahhabist terror ideology is linked to Chechen terrorism, particularly suicide terrorism.[33]The Wahhabi sect appears to have spread to the Chechen territories through other terror cells in the Middle East, such as al Qaeda.[34] This ideology which glorifies martyrdom and promotes jihad in order to establish a worldwide Muslim caliphate is a rationale for carrying out acts of retaliation and acting on behalf of a national separatist movement.[35] Chechen women, due to their Islamic influence, often wear black and traditional Muslim clothing, such as a head scarf or jilbab, which allows them to conceal weapons and bombs, as seen in the Dulbrov theatre incident.[36] Religion is one factor that contributes to women joining terrorist organisations, but it is not the only one; other factors also play a role. Political Cause According to Gus Martin, terrorism can occur under a variety of circumstances when there is political repression. First, the group is resentful of the injustices they perceive in society. The group also believes that their social dissent is insignificant. Last but not least, the group believes that there are problems with the system that can be fixed, which leads them to confront the conflict.[37] Despite the widespread belief that women do not participate in political violence, women have been planning attacks and taking part in political violence since 1800.[38] Violence is a tactic used by women who are dissatisfied with the government, have their opinions ignored, and are under-represented in organisational structures With anarchist and revolutionary beliefs, anarchism was the beginning point of the first wave of contemporary terrorism, which swept from Western Europe to America. Nonetheless, women's political motive persisted until the second wave of terrorism, when nationalism emerged as the primary driver of women's participation in terrorism.[39] However, they were only allowed to serve as scouts and messengers during the second wave of terrorism. David Rapoport claims that because women once again assumed leadership roles, there are some similarities between the first and second waves.[40] Vera Zasulich shot the governor of St. Petersburg; she said that she had a political purpose for doing so because the governor was well-known for his Polish insurrection and had ordered to execute political prisoner Arkhip Bogolyubov. This infuriated the revolutionary forces, and six people made the decision to kill the governor, but Zasulich was the first to take the initiative. This was the beginning of the first wave of terrorism. Despite the fact that women participated in political violence, her case is notable as the first instance of female political violence in the modern era or the first to be acknowledged. [41] Russian university students founded the group, which specifically targeted political figures. Vera Figner and Gesia Gelfman, Sofia Perovskaya, and three ladies from Narodnaya Volya had a key role in the March 13, 1881, assassination of Russian Emperor Alexander II in St. Petersburg.[42] The reason behind this act was that Tsar Alexander II released his renowned Emancipation Manifesto in 1861 after the Russian intellectuals struggled to achieve their demands. This was intended to end the peasantry's enslavement and, if feasible, bring about a new, more liberal era. Perovskaya and other disappointed reformers decided to accelerate change as it became evident that this new age was a false dawn. As a result, hundreds of revolutionaries left St Petersburg in 1874 to tour the Russian countryside and read pamphlets to the peasants about socialism, nihilism, and anarchism in an attempt to educate them for the day when they would destroy the Tsar.[43] In 1954 the Algerian muslim formed a group called National Liberation Front. Their major goal was to achieve independence from the colonial power France. FLN rose to prominence thanks to its female members, Zohra Drif, Dajmila Bouhard, and Samia Lakhdar. They were able to cross the French checkpoint and leave bombs in various locations, and as a result, three people died in an explosion on September 3, 1956, and several others were injured.[44]This movement occurred at the time of second wave of contemporary terrorism which was based on the idea of nationalism and anticolonialism. As per reports between 1970 and 1984, 451 Italian women joined terrorist organisations and then engaged in political violence. The bulk of these women had degrees and performed identical duties to those of male terrorists, they found, with 35% of them being students, 23% being clerks, secretaries, nurses, technicians, and 20% being instructors. A paramilitary group called Red Brigade was established in 1970 and was engaged in terrorist activities around the nation. Because it supported Italy's withdrawal from NATO and dominated the Marixist-Leninist worldview. Known for its kidnapping and murderous activities, Red Brigades also killed former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro and abducted James L. Dozier, a senior US officer at NATO. Barbara Balzerian had murdered him. Many female members of the Red Brigades participated in the group's violent assaults, and Margherita Cagol (Mara), one of the Red Brigade's co-founders and one of the first victim in an armed conflict with the police, became a symbol of the left-wing movement.[45]The most violent communist organisation throughout the 1970s and 1980s was the Red Army Faction which engaged in ideologically motivated terrorism in West Germany. Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin, co-founders, protested consumerism by burning a department store in Frankfurt in 1968.[46] A major problem is the Chechen people's desire for independence from Russia, which is driven by their nationalist and separatist beliefs. In the lengthy history of the Chechen Republic, Russians, have been the target of several violent attacks. Since June 7, 2000, Khava Barayeva and Luisa Magomadova stormed the temporary headquarters of an elite OMON (Russian Special Forces) squad in Alkhan Yurt, Chechnya, sparking the start of Chechnya's "Black Widows" movement. With two fatalities and five injuries, the incident brought attention to the group's notorious actions.[47]According to the report, women were responsible for 47% of all terrorist incidents and 81% of suicide attacks in the Chechen region between 2000 and 2005.[48] For more than 30 years, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) battled the Sri Lankan central government, mostly because of the Tamil minority's ethnic oppression. Their goal was to establish their own nation in Sri Lanka's north and east.[49] The use of female suicide bombers and the LTTE's high proportion of female members were well-known. The proportion of female LTTE members varied between 20 and 30 percent, with some estimates reaching as high as 50 percent in certain years.[50]According to LTTE theorist Anton Balasingham's wife, Adele Ann, a Tamil woman's decision to join the group was a sign to society that she was dissatisfied with the status quo and had the ability to rebel against authority.[51]To sum up, female revolutionaries have contested the idea that they are less capable of committing acts of terrorism or have less political clout, and. Additionally, nationalism and revolution are the main goals of the majority of terrorist organisations that are focused on women. Personal reason Personal causes, such as revenge, family instability, rape, personal tragedy, and revenge, are important motivations for the individual to join terrorism. Women are more likely to cite these as their original motivation in joining terrorist organizations than men. Mia Bloom, Jaques and Taylor, and Robert Pape have all proposed that the reasons behind female terrorists are different from those of male terrorists. According to them, the emotions of female terrorists such as family problems, discontent, and the desire to commit suicide are what motivate them. These motivations are further divided by Bloom into four categories: respect, relationship, revenge, and redemption. [52] 1. Women who experience sexual assault, including rape, may retaliate violently; some may even choose suicide bombing as a last resort. After women were raped in Iraq, Samira Ahmad Jassim, dubbed the "mother" of suicide bombers, was accused of encouraging rape victims to commit honour suicide and conducting 28 suicide attacks, according to the Die Welt article..[53] 2. During the Chechen War, Russian soldiers sexually assaulted many Chechen women. According to estimates from Doctors Without Borders, 85 percent of Chechen women experienced sexual assault at the hands of law enforcement and military during the Chechen War. Journalist Svetlana Makunina claims that after being drugged and raped, Chechen women were left with no choice but to commit suicide bombing.On the evening of May 21, 1991, LTTE suicide bomber Dhanu killed former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at an election rally in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. She clarified that she took this action after being gang-raped by Indian peacekeeping troops. 3. Another crucial element that encourages women to join terrorist groups is relationships. Family members and relatives, who are important in the recruitment process, could function as a conduit between the terror group and women. Sidney Jones claims that while some women freely choose to wed male terrorists, others are coerced by their relatives.[54] Many women join ISIS for a variety of reasons, including a desire to contribute to the caliphate, a desire for friendship with like-minded individuals, or direct pressure by family members and acquaintances.[55] For e.g., Shamima Begum was influenced by her friend Sharmena to join IS. Barbara Victor, Army of Roses: Inside the World of Palestinian Women Suicide Bombers stated that instead of acting on their own initiative, female Palestinian suicide bombers are “at the mercy of, or in love with, their handlers.”[56] (women join terrorist organisations because they are forced by male) 4. Guillermo Galdos, and “Eliana Gonzales,” points out that male influence is not an essential prerequisite for recruiting women into violent organizations. In order to join revolutionary movements, women have reported willingly leaving their boyfriends, husbands, and kids. The oldest woman in Columbia's Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Eliana Gonzales Acosta, for instance, abandoned her husband, sister, and daughter to join the group.[57] 5. Many people who have been directly impacted by the acts of another group resort to terrorism. The revenge theory is the name given to this. An individual is more inclined to engage in terrorism if they have lost a friend or loved one to a terrorist organisation or the military.[58] Additionally, according to Jacques and Taylor, revenge influences people's decision to join terrorist groups.[59] In literature and art, the stereotype that women are more revengeful than males is mirrored. According to William Cosgrove's The Mourning Bride, "Heaven is furious, like love turned to hate, and Hell is furious, like a woman scorned.”[60]Russian negotiator suggests the difference between men and women is that “[Chechen women] are ‘zombified’ by their own sorrow and grief.[61] The Russian and international press called Chechen women bombers "Black Widows" as it was revealed that many were acting in retribution for the deaths of their husbands, kids, and brothers.[62]Since the takeover of the Dubrovka Theatre in October 2002, nineteen female bombers have appeared in black mourning garments with bombs attached to their bodies. They held 850 people hostage for two and a half days. Until Russian forces imposed persecution on the people and executed the terrorist. While these motivations were not limited to revenge or family difficulties, they were also gender specific. There are more men killed in these battles, resulting in an imbalance of women battling for retribution. Furthermore, women constitute the majority of rape victims in these communities, which motivates them to join. Gender Equality: According to Vetter and Perlstein, one of the reasons why women join terrorist organisations is because of gender equality. However, Jacques and Taylor disagree with this notion.[63]FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, was established to combat societal inequality and provide women with opportunities for advancement. Despite being predominantly dominated by women, the organization offers women's rights, sexual freedom, and opportunities for advancement in a patriarchal society.[64] FARC recruits in rural areas, where women often have fewer opportunities, highlighting the organization's societal focus on women's rights.[65]A woman who had spent many years of her life in the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People's Army) was interviewed by Anne Phillips in 2012.[66]For the numerous reasons mentioned above, this woman, code-named "Athena," joined the FARC before turning thirteen. She explains why she joined this group  as it provides gender equality. She had economic reasons because she was from a rural area and lacked access to economic and educational opportunities. Women in Colombia's rural communities face a lack of opportunities, which leads to prostitution. Many women turn to the FARC as a viable alternative to prostitution. The FARC gives women a stable income. Women turn to the FARC because they are guaranteed food and other requirements. They are given the same opportunities as males and are able to support themselves. Also, by women joining terrorist organizations they are challenging gender stereotypes in their societies. O’Rourke says that women dislike these gender norms and rise out against them in opposition of the stereotyped female in their culture.[67]The LTTE gives women the same incentive to advance gender equality. According to LTTE women, they felt liberated and empowered within the organisation. By establishing sexual limitations and providing equal training chances, the LTTE established an environment that was equal for men and women. Women held leadership roles inside the LTTE and believed they were on par with the men themselves. Often, women join these groups to either learn about or escape gender inequality. CONCLUSION: The primary goal of this article was to examine the primary motivator for women to join terrorist organisations. For more than a century, women have been participating in terrorist activities, but only in recent decades have studies of terrorism examined female terrorists. Political, religious, personal, and gender equality are some of the motivations for women to join terrorist groups and participate in liberation movements. Since the 19th century, women have joined a variety of terrorist organisations; some conduct these horrible deeds to defend their beliefs or territory. Religion is another reason these women wish to sacrifice themselves in the name of Islam. They act in this way because they believe that, despite their crimes, they will be admitted to heaven if they commit murder for Islam. Women's terrorist operations might occasionally be motivated by personal issues. Although forced marriage, family issues, rape, the death of a loved one, and defiance of the patriarchal society are some of the main causes, other traumas could also influence their choices. However, each of the four factors has a major impact on women's decision to participate in terrorism. Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, for example, are heavily influenced by religion. The Tamil Tigers and FARC, on the other hand, are primarily driven by personal motives and gender equality. Furthermore, the political cause of Red Brigade and the National Liberation Front has been their main source of motivation. "Personal, political, and religious motivations are the main cause behind women's involvement in terrorism," claim Cunningham and Bloom. In order to curb terrorists' actions in the modern world, it is critical to comprehend their objectives and the reason behind their organisation. Furthermore, since many highly educated women have joined terrorist organisations, we cannot claim that education may have a major influence. There is extremely little research on gender and terrorism, particularly on women's participation in terrorist actions. To determine the primary reason women, participate in terrorism, we must conduct additional research in this field. Due to the fact that the information offered is highly generalised. What steps should the government take to prevent women from joining terrorist organisations? What other variables might encourage women to join terrorist organisations? Researchers from all social science fields should conduct some research on these pressing concerns as political scientists alone are unable to provide these answers. Bibliography[1] Jessica Shepherd, “The Rise and Rise of Terrorism Studies,” last modified July 3, 2007, accessed December 10, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/jul/03/highereducation.research.[2] Jessica Shepherd, “The Rise and Rise of Terrorism Studies,” last modified July 3, 2007, accessed December 10, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/jul/03/highereducation.research.[3] Ariel Merari, Driven to Death: Psychological and Social Aspects of Suicide Terrorism, 1st ed. (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 2010).[4]Zeynep Bayar, “The Role of Women in Terrorism,” City University of New York (CUNY) , accessed December 15, 2024, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4346&context=gc_etds.[5] David Rapoport, The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), 46–73.[6] “Women and Terrorist Radicalization Final Report,” Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, January 1, 2013), last modified January 1, 2013, accessed December 13, 2024, https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/4/a/99919.pdf.[7] LindseyA O’Rourke, “What’s Special about Female Suicide Terrorism?,” Security Studies 18, no. 4 (December 2, 2009): 682.[8] Mia Bloom, “What’s Special about Female Suicide Terrorism,” Gender Studies 28, no. 1–2 (June 1, 2011): 682.[9] David Rapopart, The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism (Washington DC: Georgetown University, 2004).[10] Leonard Weinberg and William L Eubank, “Women’s Involvement in Terrorism,” Gender Studies 28, no. 2 (June 2011): 22–49.[11] Anat Berko, “Gender Palestinian Women, and Terrorism: Women’s Liberation or Oppression?,” ed. Edna Erez, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30, no. 6 (April 27, 2007): 493–519.[12] Mia Bloom, Bombshell: Women and Terrorism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).[13] Karen Jacques and Paul J. Taylor, “Male and Female Suicide Bombers: Different Sexes, Different Reasons?,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31, no. 4 (April 10, 2008).[14] Rosemarie Skaine , Female Suicide Bombers (United Kingdom: McFarland, 2006).[15] Graham Bird, Brock Blomberg, and Gregory Hess, “International Terrorism: Causes, Consequences and Cures,” World Economy 31 (2008): 259.[16] Rosemarie Skaine , Female Suicide Bombers (United Kingdom: McFarland, 2006), 12.[17] Ibn al Bukhari, Sahih Al- Bukhari. Trans Muhammad Muhsin Khan (United States: Islamic University, 1979).[18] Muhammad Khayr Haykal, Jihad and Fighting according to the Shar‘ia Policy (Beirut: Dar al-Barayiq, 1993).[19] Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terror (NewYork: Random House Books, 2005).[20] Rosemarie Skaine , Female Suicide Bombers (United Kingdom: McFarland, 2006).[21] Erin Marie Saltman and Melanie Smith, Till Martyrdom Do Us Part’: Gender and the ISIS Phenomenon (Institute for Strategic Dialogue, May 22, 2015).[22] Zeynep Bayar, “The Role of Women in Terrorism,” City University of New York (CUNY) , accessed December 15, 2024, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4346&context=gc_etds.[23] Nelly Lahoud, “The Neglected Sex: The Jihadis’ Exclusion of Women from Jihad,” Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 5 (February 20, 2014).[24] Nelly Lahoud, “Umayma Al-Zawahiri on Women’s Role in Jihad,” Jihadica, last modified February 26, 2010, https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1422&context=honors201019.[25] Mia Bloom, “What’s Special about Female Suicide Terrorism,” Gender Studies 28, no. 1–2 (June 1, 2011).[26] “Woman Suicide Bomber Strikes Iraq,” BB, last modified September 28, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4289168.stm. [27]Ibid[28] Aqeel Hussein and Damien McElroy, “Mother of All Suicide Bombers’ Warns of Rise in Attacks,” The Telegraph, last modified November 15, 2008, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/3464411/Mother-of-all-suicide-bombers-warns-of-rise-in-attacks.html.[29] Joana Cook and Gina Vale, From Daesh to “Diaspora”: Tracing the Women and Minors of Islamic State (International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, 2018).[30] Zeynep Bayar, “The Role of Women in Terrorism,” City University of New York (CUNY) , accessed December 15, 2024, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4346&context=gc_etds.[31] Mia Bloom, Bombshell: Women and Terrorism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).[32] Susan Swarbrick, “Scots ‘Jihadi Bride’ Talks of ‘Revenge’ in Hate-Filled Blog,” The Herald, last modified July 6, 2015, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13415875.scots-jihadi-bride-talks-of-revenge-in-hate-filled-blog/.[33] W. Andy Knight and Tanya Narozhna, “Social Contagion and the Female Face of Terror: New Trends in the Culture of Political Violence,” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 12, no. 1 (March 14, 2011).[34] Ibid.,33[35] Ibid.,33[36] LindseyA O’Rourke, “What’s Special about Female Suicide Terrorism?,” Security Studies 18, no. 4 (December 2, 2009): 690.[37] Gus Martin , Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues , 8th ed. (SAGE Publications, Inc, 2024), 60.[38] Maha Butt, “Feminist IR Theory and Terrorism,” International Affairs Forum, accessed December 16, 2024, https://www.ia-forum.org/Content/ViewInternal_Document.cfm?contenttype_id=0&ContentID=9152#:~:text=Analyzing%20terrorism%20from%20a%20feminist's,female%20terrorists%20as%20'women%20terrorists..[39] David Rapoport, The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2004), 46–73.[40] Elena Gapova, “Gender Equality vs. Difference and What Post-Socialism Can Teach Us,” Womens Studies International Forum 59 (November 1, 2016).[41] “Vera Zasulich,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Zasulich#cite_note-5.[42]Elena Gapova, “Gender Equality vs. Difference and What Post-Socialism Can Teach Us,” Womens Studies International Forum 59 (November 1, 2016).[43] James Crossland, “The Women Who Ended an Emperor,” History Workshop, last modified April 21, 2021, https://www.mybib.com/#/projects/39m8D0/citations/new/webpage.[44] Zeynep Bayar, “The Role of Women in Terrorism,” City University of New York (CUNY) , accessed December 15, 2024, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4346&context=gc_etds.[45] Ruth Glynn , Approaching Women, Terror, and Trauma in Cultural Perspective, 2013.[46] “Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof,” Encyclopedia.com, accessed January 2, 2025, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/andreas-baader-and-ulrike-meinhof.[47] Anne Speckhard and Khapta Akhmedova, “Black Widows: The Chechen Female Suicide Terrorists,” The Institute for National Security Studies, last modified August 2006, https://www.inss.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Female-Suicide-Bombers-63-80.pdf.[48] Anne Speckhard and Khapta Ahkmedova, “The Making of a Martyr: Chechen Suicide Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29, no. 5 (September 22, 2006).[49]Peng Wang, “Women in the LTTE: Birds of Freedom or Cogs in the Wheel?,” Journal of Politics and Law 4, no. 1 (2011).[50] Karla J. Cunningham, “Cross-Regional Trends in Female Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 26, no. 3 (May 2003).[51]“Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),” South Asia Terrorism Portal, https://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/srilanka/terroristoutfits/ltte.htm.[52] Karen Jacques and Paul J. Taylor, “Male and Female Suicide Bombers: Different Sexes, Different Reasons?,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31, no. 4 (2008).[53]Mia Bloom, “What’s Special about Female Suicide Terrorism,” Gender Studies 28, no. 1–2 (June 1, 2011).[54] Sidney Jones, “Inherited Jihadism: Like Father, like Son,” International Crisis Group, last modified July 4, 2007, https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/inherited-jihadism-father-son.[55] Daniel Milton and Brian Dodwell, “Jihadi Brides? Examining a Female Guesthouse Registry from the Islamic State’s Caliphate,” Combating Terrorism Center 11, no. 5 (May 2018).[56]Edward E. Azar, “Protracted International Conflicts: Ten Propositions,” International Interaction 12, no. 1 (January 9, 2008).[57]“GENDER and TERRORISM: MOTIVATIONS of FEMALE TERRORISTS ,” DNI.gov, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/DF-2023-00139-Gender_and_Terrorism_Thesis.pdf.[58]LindseyA O’Rourke, “What’s Special about Female Suicide Terrorism?,” Security Studies 18, no. 4 (December 2, 2009): 710.[59]Karen Jacques and Paul J. Taylor, “Male and Female Suicide Bombers: Different Sexes, Different Reasons?,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31, no. 4 (2008): 322[60] “GENDER and TERRORISM: MOTIVATIONS of FEMALE TERRORISTS ,” DNI.gov, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/FOIA/DF-2023-00139-Gender_and_Terrorism_Thesis.pdf.[61]Ibid.,63[62] Anne Speckhard and Khapta Ahkmedova, “The Making of a Martyr: Chechen Suicide Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29, no. 5 (September 22, 2006).[63]Karen Jacques and Paul J. Taylor, “Male and Female Suicide Bombers: Different Sexes, Different Reasons?,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31, no. 4 (2008).[64]Natalia Herrera and Douglas Porch, “‘Like Going to a Fiesta’ – the Role of Female Fighters in Colombia’s FARC-EP,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 19, no. 4 (January 26, 2009).[65]Mia Kazman, “Women of the FARC,” William J.Perry Center, accessed December 23, 2024, https://wjpcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Women-of-the-FARC.pdf[66]Christine Balling, “Why Women Turn to the FARC -- and How the FARC Turns on Them,” Foreign Affairs, last modified June 1, 2012, accessed December 23, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/colombia/2012-06-01/fighting-mad.[67]LindseyA O’Rourke, “What’s Special about Female Suicide Terrorism?,” Security Studies 18, no. 4 (December 2, 2009): 702

Diplomacy
NEW YORK, USA - JUNE 21 2013 - United Nations security council hall headquartered in New York City, in a complex designed by architect Niemeyer open to public.

The UN in crisis: Justice without power, power without justice

by Francisco Edinson Bolvaran Dalleto

Abstract The United Nations (UN), eighty years after its creation, faces a structural crisis that reveals the tension between justice and power. This essay examines how the design of the Security Council, with its veto power, perpetuates an unequal order inherited from 1945 and limits the effectiveness of the collective security system. Through theoretical perspectives — Morgenthau, Schmitt, Habermas, Falk, and Strange — it is shown that international law remains subordinated to power interests, that proclaimed universality masks hegemonies, and that global economic dynamics lie beyond institutional reach. Cases such as Kosovo, Libya, Gaza, and Myanmar illustrate the paralysis and delegitimization of the Responsibility to Protect. Considering this scenario, two paths emerge: reforming multilateralism with limits on the veto and greater representativeness or resigning to a fragmented order. The conclusion is clear: without adaptation, the UN will become a symbolic forum, making chronic its inability to respond to current challenges. Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the UN, warned: “The United Nations was not created to take us to heaven, but to save us from hell.” [1] Eighty years after its founding, that promise seems to falter in the face of multiple wars, such as those in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, or Myanmar, among many others, with a sense of ineffectiveness, loss of prestige, and collective impotence being perceived: does the UN no longer fulfill the role it once assumed? At first glance, blame falls solely on the nature of the institution itself. But the root of the problem seems to lie not only in New York, but also in the main capitals of the world. The UN is nothing more than what States allow it to be. Its effectiveness depends on the will of those who comprise it; and the uncomfortable truth is that the great powers prefer to limit its scope rather than cede parcels of sovereignty. As John Rawls pointed out, a just international system requires that peoples accept common principles of justice. [2] Today, by contrast, it is a constant that collective interest systematically gives way to particular interest. The Security Council is the most evident symbol of this contradiction. It remains anchored in post-war logic, with five permanent members clinging to the privilege of the veto. That power, already met with skepticism in San Francisco in 1945, turned into a tool of paralysis. As Canada denounced in 2022, the veto is “as anachronistic as it is undemocratic” and has prevented responses to atrocities. [3] Aristotle said that “justice is equality, but only for equals.” [4] In the UN, the Assembly proclaims sovereign equality, while the Council denies it in practice: some States remain “more equal” than others. The UN Charter articulates its backbone in a few luminous rules: the prohibition of the use of force (Art. 2.4), non-intervention in internal affairs (Art. 2.7), and, as a counterbalance, the collective security system of Chapter VII (Arts. 39–42), which grants the Security Council the authority to determine threats to peace and authorize coercive measures. In parallel, Art. 51 preserves the right of self-defense against an “armed attack.” [5] This normative triangle — prohibition, collective security, defense — is the promise of a world governed by law and not by force, but it must be put into practice. In the 1990s, a dilemma arose: what to do when a State massacres its own population or is unable to prevent it? The political-legal response was the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), affirmed at the 2005 World Summit (paras. 138–139). [6] Its architecture is sequential: (I) each State has the primary responsibility to protect its population against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity; (II) the international community must help States fulfill that responsibility; and (III) if a State manifestly fails, the international community, through the Security Council, may adopt collective measures — preferably peaceful ones; as a last resort, coercive — case by case and in accordance with the Charter. Properly understood, R2P is not a license to intervene; it is a duty to protect framed within International Law. The historical record shows both its necessity and its perverse effects. Kosovo (1999) inaugurated, without authorization from the Council, the narrative of “humanitarian intervention,” based on a supposed “legitimate illegality.” [7] The precedent left a dangerous standard: humanitarian purposes invoked to circumvent the hard core of the Charter. Libya (2011) seemed to be the “ideal case” of R2P: the Council authorized “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. [8] However, the shift toward regime change eroded the trust of Russia and China, which since then have blocked robust resolutions on Syria, hollowing out the effectiveness of R2P. [9] The lesson is bitter: when protection is perceived as a vehicle of hegemony, the norm is delegitimized, and the veto becomes reflexive. Gaza and Myanmar display the other face of paralysis. In Gaza, the Council’s inability to impose sustainable ceasefires — despite patterns of hostilities that massively impact the civilian population — has shifted the debate to the General Assembly and the International Court of Justice through interstate actions and provisional measures. [10] In Myanmar, the genocide of the Rohingya mobilized condemnations, sanctions, and proceedings before the International Court of Justice (hereinafter, ICJ), [11] but did not trigger a coercive response from the Council. R2P exists on paper; its implementation is captive to the veto. Thus, the “right to have rights” that Arendt spoke of still depends on geopolitics. [12] History teaches that international law has always been strained by force. Rousseau warned that the strong seek to transform their power into law. [13] That is what the winners of 1945 did by crystallizing their hegemony in the Charter. And so, what Kant dreamed of as perpetual peace remains chained to an unequal order. [14] The UN, more than a republic of law, still seems a field of power. That fragility has opened space for alternatives. The BRICS, for example, have emerged as a heterogeneous bloc that combines the cohesion of historically homogeneous powers such as China and Russia with the diversity of India, Brazil, and South Africa. Paradoxically, their strength lies in articulating that heterogeneity against a common enemy: the concentration of power in the Security Council. [15] In a multipolar world, heterogeneity ceases to be a weakness and becomes a driver of plurality and resistance. The UN crisis is not only about security; it is also economic and distributive. The universalist promise of the Charter (Arts. 1.3 and 55–56, on cooperation for development) coexists with a global financial architecture whose heart beats outside the UN: the IMF and World Bank, designed in Bretton Woods, project a structural power — in Susan Strange’s terms — that conditions public policies, access to liquidity, and investment capacity. [16] The sovereign equality proclaimed in New York becomes blurred when the asymmetry of weighted voting in financial institutions (and the conditionality of credit) makes some States more “equal” than others. This is not a recent claim. Since the 1960s, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and, later, the Declaration on a New International Economic Order (1974), sought to correct structural problems such as the deterioration of terms of trade and the dependence between “center” and “periphery” countries, as Prebisch had pointed out. [17] However, the results were limited: ECOSOC lacks teeth, UNDP mobilizes cooperation but fails to change the rules of the system, and the 2030 Agenda sets important goals but without mandatory enforcement mechanisms. [18] The pandemic and the climate crisis have further worsened these inequalities, highlighting problems such as over-indebtedness, the insufficiency in the reallocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), and climate financing that often arrives late and under unsuitable conditions. In this scenario, the New Development Bank of the BRICS emerges, seeking to open a path toward greater financial autonomy for developing countries. [19] International economic justice is the reverse side of collective security. Without fiscal space or technological transfer, the Global South remains trapped between development promises and adjustment demands. The UN has political legitimacy to outline a Global Economic Council (as proposed by the Stiglitz Commission in 2009) [20] to coordinate debt, international taxation, and global public goods, but it currently lacks normative muscle. The result is fragmentation: fiscal minilateralism, climate clubs, and value chains that distribute risks to the South and rents to the North. The solution does not lie simply in “more aid,” but in prudent rules such as: (I) a multilateral debt restructuring mechanism under UN auspices; [21] (II) effective international taxation on intangibles and the digital economy; [22] (III) binding compliance with the loss and damage fund in climate matters; [23] and (IV) a reform of quotas in IFIs that reflects the real weight of emerging economies. [24] Without constitutionalizing — even gradually — this economic agenda, sovereign equality will remain an empty liturgy and the discontent of the Global South a political fuel that erodes the UN from within. The truth is that the United Nations of 1945 no longer responds to the challenges of 2025. As the president of Brazil recently said: “The UN of 1945 is worth nothing in 2023.” [25] If States do not recover the founding spirit — placing collective interest above particular ones — the organization will remain prisoner of the veto and the will of a few. The question, then, is not whether the UN works, but whether States really want it to work. Taking the above into account, this essay will analyze the UN crisis from three complementary dimensions. First, the theoretical and philosophical framework that allows us to understand the tension between power and law will be addressed, showing how different authors highlight the structural roots of this contradiction. Second, historical episodes and current examples will be reviewed to illustrate the paralysis and democratic deficit of the organization. Finally, possible scenarios for the future will be projected, engaging in the exercise of evaluating the minimum reforms that could revitalize multilateralism in contrast to the alternative of critical global fragmentation. Considering all together, the argument is that the UN finds itself trapped between justice without power and power without justice, and that its survival depends on its ability to adapt to an international order radically different from that of 1945. I. The contradiction between power and law: Hans Morgenthau and political realism To understand the paralysis of the UN, it is useful to turn to Hans Morgenthau, a pioneer of realism in international relations. In his work “Politics Among Nations” (1948), he warned that the international order is always mediated by the balance of power and that legal norms only survive to the extent that they coincide with the interests of powerful States. [26] His idea is provocative: international law is not an autonomous order, but a language that powers use so long as it does not contradict their strategic objectives. Applied to the UN, this analysis is clear: the institution reflects less universal ethical commitment and more correlation of historical forces. The Security Council is not a neutral body, but the mirror of the hegemony of 1945, crystallized in Article 27 of the Charter, which enshrines the right of veto. The supposed universality of the UN is subordinated to a mechanism designed precisely to ensure that no action contrary to the superpowers could be imposed. Contemporary critiques confirm Morgenthau’s intuition. When Russia vetoes resolutions on Ukraine, [27] or the United States does the same regarding Gaza, [28] it becomes evident that international justice is suspended in the name of geopolitics. The legal is subordinated to the political. In this sense, the UN crisis is not an accident, but the logical consequence of its design, and what Morgenthau pointed out seventy years ago remains valid: as long as there is no coincidence between law and power, international norms will remain fragile. Political realism helps explain why the UN fails when it is most needed. States continue to act according to their national interests, even when this contradicts the international norms they themselves have subscribed to. The Security Council has become a space where powers project their strategies of influence, blocking collective actions whenever these affect their geopolitical priorities. The war in Ukraine, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the inaction in the face of the Rwandan genocide show that international law is applied selectively, reinforcing the idea that rules are valid only when they do not interfere with the power of the strongest. This pattern evidently erodes the legitimacy of the UN in the eyes of societies, because it generates the perception that the organization is incapable of representing the collective interest and, instead, merely reflects the correlation of forces of each historical moment. II. Carl Schmitt and the Myth of Universal Order Another voice that resonates is that of Carl Schmitt, who in “The Nomos of the Earth” (1950) argued that every international legal order arises from a founding political decision, that is, an act of power. [29] For Schmitt, there is no “universal law” that imposes itself; what is presented as universal is, in reality, the crystallization of a particular domain. The UN perfectly embodies this diagnosis. The founding discourse of San Francisco in 1945 spoke of “we the peoples of the United Nations,” [30] but in reality the Charter was written under the predominance of the winners of the Second World War. What was presented as a universal order of peace and security was, in fact, the codification of the Allied hegemony. Schmitt helps explain why the UN has never escaped that original logic. Although the General Assembly proclaims sovereign equality in Article 2 of the Charter, the structure of the Council reproduces the privilege of a few. [31] The international law of the UN appears, in Schmittian terms, as a “nomos” imposed by the winners, not as a true universal community. The consequence is a legitimate deficit that has persisted until today and explains much of the perception of ineffectiveness. The original structure of the UN perpetuates an unequal design that remains in force. The veto privilege is not only a defensive mechanism for the winners of the Second World War, but it has also functioned as a lock — one without keys — that prevents any real evolution of the system. Over eight decades, demands for reform have clashed with the resistance of those who benefit from keeping the rules intact. The contradiction is evident: developing States, which today represent the majority in the General Assembly, lack effective power in the most important decisions on international security. The gap between the universalist discourse of sovereign equality and the hierarchical practice of the Council undermines the credibility of the multilateral order. As long as this tension persists, the UN will hardly be able to become the space of global governance that the world requires more urgently than ever in the 21st century. III. Habermas and the Need for a Deliberative Community In contrast to this pessimism, Jürgen Habermas offers a different perspective. In “The Inclusion of the Other” (1996) and in later essays, he proposed moving toward a “constitutionalization of international law,” understood as the creation of a global normative space in which decisions are not based on force, but on rational deliberation. [32] From this perspective, the UN would be an imperfect embryo of a community of world citizens. The impact of this idea is enormous: it suggests that, beyond current deadlocks, the UN embodies the possibility of transforming power relations into processes of public deliberation. Article 1 of the Charter, which speaks of “maintaining international peace and security” and of “promoting friendly relations among nations,” can be read not only as a political mandate but also as a normative ideal of cosmopolitan coexistence. [33] Criticism of Habermas is evident: his proposal errs on the side of idealism in a world where national security interests remain paramount. However, his contribution is valuable because it allows us to think of the UN not only as a paralyzed body but also as a field of normative struggle. The problem is not only the strength of the vetoes but also the lack of will to transform that space into a true deliberative forum. [34] Thinking of the UN as a deliberative community requires recognizing that its current procedures do not guarantee authentic dialogue. Debate in the General Assembly is often reduced to formal statements, while crucial decisions, as everyone knows, are taken in restricted circles. The lack of effective mechanisms for the participation of non-state actors, such as regional organizations or civil society, further limits the inclusive character of the institution. Genuine deliberation should open spaces where multiple voices can influence decision-making processes, not only through speeches but by building binding consensus. However, the most powerful States fear losing control over the international agenda, which generates a vicious circle: an elitist governance system is maintained that protects privileges, but at the cost of sacrificing legitimacy and effectiveness. Thus, the promise of a deliberative order is reduced to a normative horizon that has not yet been realized. IV. Richard Falk and the Global Democratic Deficit A more recent contribution comes from Richard Falk, jurist and former UN rapporteur, who has insisted on the “democratic deficit” of the international order. In his view, the UN suffers from a structural contradiction: while the Charter proclaims the sovereignty of peoples, in practice it concentrates power in a small club of States. [35] This not only limits its effectiveness but also erodes its legitimacy in the eyes of the peoples of the world. The case of Palestine is emblematic. The General Assembly has repeatedly recognized the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, but the veto in the Council blocks any effective measure. [36] Falk interprets this as evidence that the UN operates under a “democracy of States” but not under a “democracy of peoples.” The impact is devastating: millions of people perceive the organization not as a guarantor of rights, but as an accomplice to inequality. This leads us to a brief analysis of the International Criminal Court (ICC), born from the Rome Statute (1998), which promised a civilizational breakthrough: that the most serious crimes (“which affect the international community as a whole”) would not go unpunished. [37] Its design is cautious: complementarity (it acts only if the State is unwilling or unable), restricted jurisdiction (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and — with limits — aggression), and jurisdiction based on territory, nationality, or referral by the Security Council. The two major milestones of the Council — referrals of Darfur (2005) and Libya (2011) —demonstrated both the potential and the limits. There were procedural advances and arrest warrants, but also contested operative clauses and very little cooperation for arrests. [38] The implicit message to the Global South was ambiguous: justice is universal, but its activation depends on the map of alliances in the Council. At the same time, key powers are not parties to the Statute (United States, China, Russia) and yet influence when the Court acts. The result fuels the argument of “winners’ justice” that several African foreign ministries have raised. The Court has tried to rebalance its map: investigations in Afghanistan, Palestine, and Ukraine, as well as arrest warrants against high-ranking authorities in cases of aggression or serious international crimes, have partly disproved the idea of a one-sided persecution. But the Achilles’ heel persists: without State cooperation, there are no executions of warrants; without the Council, there is no activation in key contexts; with the Council, there is a veto. In addition, Article 16 of the Statute allows the Council to suspend investigations for 12 renewable months, a political valve that subordinates the judicial to the geopolitical. [39] Integrating Falk’s critique into this essay makes it possible to highlight that the UN crisis is not only institutional but also democratic. Article 1.2 of the Charter proclaims respect for the principle of equal rights and the self-determination of peoples, but this ideal becomes empty when the veto power systematically contradicts it. [40] The democratic deficit of the UN is not limited to the Security Council but runs through the entirety of its institutional architecture. Developing countries have little influence on global economic governance, despite being the most affected by decisions on debt, trade, or climate financing. Unequal representation in bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, together with dependence on international cooperation, reproduces relations of subordination that contradict the principles of equality and self-determination. Moreover, world citizenship lacks a real channel of influence: peoples see their demands diluted in state structures that do not always — or almost never — reflect their needs. This divorce between peoples and States turns the UN into an incomplete democracy, where the most vulnerable collective subjects fail to make their voices heard. Overcoming this limitation is essential to restoring the legitimacy of multilateralism. V. Susan Strange and the Geopolitics of the Economy Finally, Susan Strange adds another dimension: the economic one. In “The Retreat of the State” (1996), she argued that power in the contemporary world does not reside only in States, but also in transnational forces — financial markets, corporations, technologies — that escape institutional control. [41] The UN, designed in 1945 under the logic of sovereign States, lacks instruments to govern this new scenario. The impact is evident. While the Security Council is paralyzed in debates over traditional wars, global crises such as climate change, pandemics, or the regulation of artificial intelligence show that real power has shifted toward non-state actors. [42] Strange warns that if international institutions do not adapt to this reality, they risk becoming irrelevant. In this sense, the UN faces not only a problem of veto or representativeness, but also a historical mismatch: it was designed for a world of States and conventional wars, but today we live in a world of transnational interdependencies. The Charter, in its Article 2.7, continues to emphasize non-interference in the internal affairs of States, but this clause seems insufficient to govern global threats that transcend borders. [43] And it is vitally important to note that the global threats of the 21st century do not fit the traditional paradigm of interstate wars that has been preconceived. Challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and technological revolutions pose risks that no State can face alone. However, the UN lacks effective mechanisms to coordinate global responses in these areas. The fragmentation of climate governance, competition for vaccines during the pandemic, and the absence of clear rules to regulate large digital corporations illustrate the magnitude of the challenge. In this context, state sovereignty proves insufficient, and the principle of non-interference becomes obsolete. If the UN does not develop innovative instruments that integrate transnational actors and strengthen multilateral cooperation, it risks becoming a merely declarative forum, incapable of offering concrete solutions to the problems that most affect contemporary humanity — and it is important that these critiques be heard before it is too late. VI. Current Scenarios All the above opens up a momentous dilemma of our time: either we reform multilateralism so that law contains “force,” or we normalize “exception” forever. [44]Scenario A: A minimal but sufficient cosmopolitan reform. A critical group of States —supported by civil society and epistemic communities — agrees to self-limit the veto in situations of mass atrocities (ACT-type codes of conduct), promotes the expansion of the Council with some permanent presence of the Global South (India, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and one African seat, probably South Africa), and strengthens “Uniting for Peace” mechanisms to circumvent blockages. [45] The ICJ gains centrality with advisory opinions politically bound by prior compliance commitments, the ICC ensures interstate cooperation through regional agreements, and the UN creates a rapid civil deployment capacity for the protection of civilians, minimal cybersecurity, and climate response. [46] In the economic sphere, a Global Economic Council emerges within the orbit of the UN to coordinate debt, climate, and international taxation with common standards. [47] Scenario B: Ordered fragmentation of anarchy. Blockages become chronic. Security shifts to ad hoc coalitions and minilateralisms (NATO Plus, QUAD, expanded BRICS), economic governance is decided in restricted membership forums, and the UN remains a symbolic forum without decision-making capacity. [48] Exception becomes the rule: “preventive interventions,” widespread unilateral sanctions, proliferation of private military companies, opaque cyber-operations, and a data ecology controlled by a few platforms. [49] International law endures as a language, but its social force dissipates; incentives push toward strategic autonomy and legal security by blocs. In other words, the future of the UN will depend on its ability to balance justice and force in an international environment marked by multipolarity. I insist that one possible path is to advance toward gradual reforms that strengthen transparency, broaden the representativeness of the Council, and grant greater autonomy to the General Assembly and judicial bodies. Another, far more radical, is the consolidation of parallel mechanisms that de facto replace the role of the UN through regional alliances, ad hoc coalitions, and alternative economic forums. Both paths involve risks: reform may stagnate in the lowest common denominator, while fragmentation may deepen inequalities and conflicts. However, what seems clear is that maintaining the status quo will only prolong paralysis and further weaken the legitimacy of the multilateral system. The choice between reform or irrelevance will, ultimately, be the decisive dilemma of the 21st century. I believe that three milestones will indicate where we are headed: (1) effective adoption of commitments to abstain from vetoes in the face of mass atrocities; (2) funded and operational implementation of the climate loss and damage mechanism; (3) cooperation with the ICC in politically sensitive cases, without ad hoc exceptions. [50] VII. Conclusion: Between Disillusionment and Hope The UN marks eighty years caught in Pascal’s dilemma: “force without justice is tyranny, justice without force is mockery.” [51] The diagnosis is clear: the Security Council has turned justice into a mockery, while the great powers have exercised force without legitimacy. [52] The result is a weakened organization, incapable of responding to the most urgent tragedies of our time. However, it would be a mistake to fall into absolute cynicism. Despite its evident limitations and alongside all that has been mentioned, the UN remains the only forum where 193 States engage in dialogue, the only space where there exists even a minimal notion of common international law. [53] Its crisis should not lead us to abandon it, but rather to radically rethink it. Perhaps the path lies in what Habermas calls a “constitutionalization of international law,” as previously proposed, or in a profound reform of the Security Council that democratizes the use of force. [54] History teaches that institutions survive if they manage to adapt. [55] If the UN does not, it will be relegated to the status of a giant that humanity needs but that is paralyzed, a symbol of a past that no longer responds to the challenges of the present. [56] But if States recover something of the founding spirit of 1945, perhaps it can still save us from hell, even if it never takes us to heaven. [57] VIII. References [1] Dag Hammarskjöld. Hammarskjöld. Citado en Brian Urquhart. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.[2] John Rawls. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.[3] Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations. Statement on the Veto. UN General Assembly, 26 April 2022.[4] Aristóteles. Política. Traducido por Antonio Gómez Robledo. México: UNAM, 2000.[5] Naciones Unidas. Carta de las Naciones Unidas. San Francisco: Naciones Unidas, 26 de junio de 1945.[6] Naciones Unidas. World Summit Outcome Document. A/RES/60/1, 24 October 2005.[7] Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract. New York: Penguin, 1968.[8] Immanuel Kant. Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. 1795; repr., Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003.[9] Oliver Stuenkel. The BRICS and the Future of Global Order. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.[10] Susan Strange. States and Markets. London: Pinter, 1988. 11. Hedley Bull. The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.[12] Kenneth Waltz. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979.[13] Martha Finnemore. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.[14] Alexander Wendt. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.[15] Francis Fukuyama. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press, 1992.[16] Samuel Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.[17] Joseph Nye. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs, 2004.[18] Joseph Nye. The Future of Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2011.[19] Robert Keohane y Joseph Nye. Power and Interdependence. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977.[20] Robert Keohane. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.[21] Stephen Krasner. Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.[22] Robert Cox. “Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 10, no. 2 (1981): 126–55.[23] Robert Cox. Production, Power, and World Order: Social Forces in the Making of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.[24] Charles Kindleberger. The World in Depression, 1929–1939. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.[25] John Ikenberry. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.[26] John Ikenberry. Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.[27] Paul Kennedy. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Random House, 1987.[28] Michael Doyle. Ways of War and Peace: Realism, Liberalism, and Socialism. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.[29] Charles Beitz. Political Theory and International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.[30] Andrew Moravcsik. “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics.” International Organization 51, no. 4 (1997): 513–53[31] Peter Katzenstein, ed. The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.[32] Friedrich Kratochwil. Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.[33] Nicholas Onuf. World of Our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989.[34] Christian Reus-Smit. The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.[35] Martha Finnemore y Kathryn Sikkink. “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 887–917.[36] Michael Barnett y Martha Finnemore. Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.[37] Ian Hurd. After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.[38] Allen Buchanan y Robert Keohane. “The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions.” Ethics & International Affairs 20, no. 4 (2006): 405–37.[39] Thomas Franck. The Power of Legitimacy among Nations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.[40] David Held. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.[41] Ian Hurd. After Anarchy: Legitimacy and Power in the United Nations Security Council. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.[42] Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations. Statement on the Veto. UN General Assembly, 26 April 2022.[43] Oliver Stuenkel. The BRICS and the Future of Global Order. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.[44] Naciones Unidas. World Summit Outcome Document. A/RES/60/1, 24 October 2005.[45] Corte Internacional de Justicia. Advisory Opinions. La Haya: CIJ, varios años.[46] Naciones Unidas. Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. A/59/565, 2 December 2004.[47] Samuel Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.[48] Robert Keohane. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.[49] Thomas Franck. The Power of Legitimacy among Nations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.[50] Joseph Nye. The Future of Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2011.[51] Blaise Pascal. Pensées. París: Éditions Garnier, 1976.[52] Brian Urquhart. Hammarskjöld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.[53] Naciones Unidas. Charter of the United Nations. San Francisco: Naciones Unidas, 1945.[54] Jürgen Habermas. The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.[55] John Ikenberry. Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.[56] Paul Kennedy. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Random House, 1987.[57] David Held. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Defense & Security
Crisis in Venezuela

Venezuela: the attack shaking the hemisphere

by Sahasranshu Dash

The U.S. naval strike on Venezuela reveals the return of unilateral military coercion, exposing the decline of the liberal international order. On the 3rd of September, the United States launched a naval strike off the coast of Venezuela, killing eleven individuals whom Washington had identified as drug traffickers. Concurrently, President Donald Trump also announced a $50 million bounty on President Nicolás Maduro and ordered an additional naval surge in the region, presenting the move as part of an anti-narcotics campaign. But this framing conceals a much deeper reality: this is the most dramatic demonstration yet of Washington’s return to unilateral military coercion—occurring at a time when the liberal international order lies in disarray. This attack is not an isolated episode. It represents the culmination of overlapping trends: Venezuela’s internal collapse, the erosion of multilateral constraints on U.S. power, and the resurgence of a worldview that equates might with right. Indeed, it signals that the norms that shaped international politics after 1945 now hang by a thread. A Crisis of Venezuela’s Own Making To be sure, Venezuela’s situation is largely self-inflicted. Once a showcase of Latin American prosperity, the country fell victim to its own overdependence on hydrocarbons. When oil prices plummeted during the 2010s and production faltered under severe mismanagement, economic fundamentals collapsed. Hyperinflation reached astronomical levels, and essential goods vanished. The humanitarian consequences have been catastrophic. More than seven million Venezuelans have fled since 2015, and today, Venezuela remains in a twilight zone. Neither a failed state nor a functional one, it is a petrostate in freefall, caught between great power rivalries and criminal networks. Why Force Remains a Mirage In this context, Trump’s resort to military action may seem decisive, but history warns otherwise. Regime change by force has proven to be a dangerous illusion. From Iraq in 2003 to Libya in 2011, interventions launched with promises of quick success ended in state collapse and prolonged chaos. The lesson is unequivocal: dismantling regimes is far easier than rebuilding nation-states. Venezuela is no exception. Its dense forests, rugged terrain, and porous borders provide ideal ground for guerrilla warfare. Armed groups—from remnants of Colombia’s civil war to regime-aligned militias—would thrive in an insurgency, evoking the Vietnam analogy: a technologically superior power mired in the swamps of asymmetric conflict. Beyond battlefield risks lies a structural vacuum. Venezuela’s bureaucracy has been decimated. Technocrats and civil servants have fled. The opposition, fragmented and discredited, lacks both credibility and institutional capacity. Removing Maduro without a credible plan for postwar governance would ignite civil war, deepen anarchy and require prolonged foreign occupation—likely funded by Venezuela’s oil reserves—perpetuating the resource curse under a new guise. This is precisely the nightmare outlined by analysts such as Sean Burges and Fabrício Bastos, who warned back in 2018 that intervention would “waste valuable time” while worsening institutional fragility. They emphasized that Maduro’s survival rests on elite-military pacts—disrupting these could plunge Venezuela into even deeper violence. And even if regime change were to succeed, the absence of institutions implies that reconstruction would necessitate decades of sustained external control. The Sovereignty Taboo and Regional Backlash Moreover, Latin America’s diplomatic DNA is steeped in the principle of non-intervention. This is not an abstract ideal—it reflects a collective historical memory of U.S. occupations, from early 20th-century interventions in the Caribbean to covert operations throughout the Cold War. The Organization of American States (OAS) has repeatedly rejected endorsing regime change driven from abroad, to avoid setting a precedent that could justify interference elsewhere. Even if Washington sought to project a façade of regional leadership, the reality is clear—no Latin American state possesses the logistical depth or strategic expertise to spearhead a mission of that scale. The United States would retain operational control and bear responsibility for the inevitable quagmire. The Putin Parallel and Trump’s Contradictions Talk of military intervention also lays bare a glaring hypocrisy. Washington condemned Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a violation of national sovereignty, yet now replicates the same logic. The rhetorical parallels are inescapable—Trump frames Venezuela as an existential “narcoterrorist” threat—chillingly similar to Putin’s February 2022 speech describing Ukraine as an artificial entity and a danger to Russian security. Both narratives dress raw power and neo-imperialism in the garb of necessity. The irony deepens with Trump and Putin’s recent meeting in Alaska. Far from signaling firmness against authoritarian revanchism, the summit leaned towards a position of accommodation toward Moscow internationally. This, as Washington resorts to aggression in its own hemisphere. Trump’s flirtation with Putin in his first term—along with his attacks on NATO and delays in supplying military aid—cruelly undermined Ukraine. Today he risks imposing a Kremlin-dictated peace on Kyiv while violently intervening in Venezuela—and possibly soon, as he has ominously hinted at in recent months, in Panama. The Great Dismantling The belligerent strikes of the 3rd of September merely exemplify Trump’s systematic dismantling of liberal internationalism. Over two terms, multilateral partnerships have been destroyed, human rights offices shuttered and governance turned into a blunt instrument of coercion. Diplomacy has given way to arbitrary deals and tariffs. Persuasion, to open force. What emerges is a world unmoored from the normative anchors of the post-1945 order—a world where sovereignty is negotiable, law is malleable, and might is right. In this sense, Venezuela may now stand as the gravestone of that old order—an era in which the United States, once its chief architect, embraces the ethos of revisionism it once claimed to oppose. The future is not anarchic but hierarchical—a system of spheres of influence ruled by brute force, transactional bargains, and fading ideals of human rights and collective security. The art of the deal? No—an age of impunity.

Energy & Economics
Glass world bank building. Financial concept. Golden inscription bank. Banking. 3D render.

Closing the global financing gap in social protection: A World Bank perspective

by Iffath Sharif

Universal social protection coverage is off-track Time and time again we see the importance of universal social protection. It is a first line of defense to avoid deepening poverty in crises and helps overcome systemic poverty by empowering people to become economically self-reliant and invest in themselves and their children. Still over 3.4 billion people live without social protection coverage (International Labour Organization (ILO), 2021)1 and most of them live in low-income countries (LICs) and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). Social protection spending relative to gross domestic product (GDP) is 4.5 times lower in LICs than in high-income countries, with little change from a decade ago. Moreover, globally, only about 25% of financing goes for the poorest 20% of the population (Tesliuc et al., 2025). Low coverage and stagnant financing stand in stark contrast to increasing risks that disproportionately affect people living in poverty, including from climate change and growing conflict and fragility. For uncovered households, the impact of any single shock can mean having to skip meals, sell off valuable assets, and pull children out of school, all with lifelong impacts. To accelerate progress against these challenges, the World Bank has set an ambitious new target to extend social protection coverage to an additional half a billion extremely poor and vulnerable people by 2030. Achieving this goal will require collective action to address the global fiscal deficit in social protection spending. Financing reform to double down on our social protection coverage Reaching half a billion people with social protection will entail continuing to work with over 70 governments, leveraging our knowledge and learning through building new evidence, facilitating cross-country peer-to-peer exchange, and close collaboration with development partners. There will also be a need to make meaningful use of the World Bank’s existing social protection financing of US$29 billion to continue investments in digital delivery systems to make spending in social protection more efficient. Such foundational investments can help to leverage labor market and fiscal reforms and complementary financing to reach our goal. Five specific actions could increase social protection financing to reach more people. Improve effectiveness of current social protection spending A top priority is to ensure that existing social protection budget resources are spent effectively. We must redouble efforts to ensure that resources reach those who need them most, and investing in delivery systems that improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of services. There is strong potential for existing social protection funding to make substantial gains against poverty. For emerging and developing economies (EDEs) with extreme poverty headcount below 10%, improved pro-poor targeting of existing social assistance budgets could virtually eliminate extreme poverty in these countries. And even in LICs and LMICs with extreme poverty rates from 20% to 80%, existing budgets could significantly decrease the total income shortfalls of the poorest 20% of the population. As of 2022, the income shortfall of the extreme poor in EDEs was estimated at US$163 billion (in USD 2017 purchasing power parity [PPP]). Improving the efficiency of existing social assistance spending to technically and politically feasible levels could reduce this shortfall to US$120 billion (Tesliuc et al., 2025). With increasing fiscal constraints, prioritizing high return investment is more important now than ever. Government-led Economic Inclusion (EI) programs are one such option, with long-run benefits that significantly outweigh initial costs. Niger’s EI program demonstrated a benefit-cost ratio of 127% 18 months after implementation, while in Zambia, the program costs break even with their returns in just 12 months. Assuming sustained impacts, both Niger and Zambia show positive returns on investment, at 73% and 36%, respectively (Bossuroy et al., 2022; Botea et al., 2023). How benefits reach people matters too. Digitalization of delivery systems, for example, can improve the efficiency of existing spending. In Liberia, the cash transfer program struggled with physical cash payments that took around 17 days on average and cost nearly US$8 per transfer. Now, the introduction of mobile payment has reduced delivery costs to US$2.5 per transfer and reduced the timeframe for delivery of missed payments substantially (Tesliuc et al., 2025). Prioritize progressive spending, and realize climate benefits in the process Globally, generalized subsidies on fossil fuels, agriculture, and fisheries exceed US$7 trillion (roughly 8% of global GDP); they are regressive, inefficient, expensive, and environmentally unsound (Arze del Granado et al., 2012; Damania et al., 2023). In the Middle East and North Africa, those subsidies are over five times higher than spending on cash transfers and twice as high as social assistance (Ridao-Cano et al., 2023). Redirecting inefficient fuel subsidies to social protection using dynamic and digital social registries could lead to more effective and better-targeted benefits. This also has the advantage of discouraging fossil fuel usage, thereby contributing to national and global climate goals. Egypt showcases the potential impacts of successful subsidy reform. One year after beginning to phase out fuel subsidies, the government used the resources saved to double the health budget, increase education spending by 30%, and launch a new national cash transfer program. The cash transfer program, Takaful and Karama, now reaches almost 20% of the population with targeted and effective assistance (El Enbaby et al., 2022). Continued investment in digital systems by Egypt helped to scale up this support, ensuring that those in need receive resources and services directly while minimizing wasteful expenditure on fuel subsidies. Increase the domestic tax base for social protection spending When efficiency gains and reallocation are insufficient, countries can enact appropriate tax reforms to increase domestic revenues toward adequate social protection coverage. Policy recommendations include broadening the tax base through appropriate tax reforms including a thorough fiscal incidence analysis, enhancing the progressiveness and effectiveness of the tax system, and supporting domestic revenue mobilization (World Bank, 2022). Bolivia, Botswana, Mongolia, and Zambia increased their revenue base with new taxes on natural resources that were earmarked for social protection and Brazil did likewise with a tax on financial transactions (Bierbaum and Schmitt, 2022). Efforts to increase domestic resources to broaden social protection coverage also require ringfencing progressive public spending. Social protection programs often face fierce competition across different government priorities for limited resources. Fiscal reforms therefore must come with the political will to prioritize social protection budget allocations. Citizen engagement can help: with support from United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and ILO, Mozambique adopted Social Action Budget Briefs to monitor social protection budget allocations against national strategic objectives (Bierbaum and Schmitt, 2022). Demonstrate impact to leverage climate financing Already the World Bank has investments of almost US$21 billion across 91 social protection programs with activities that help poor people respond better to the risks of climate change. We must continue to demonstrate how social protection supports poor and vulnerable people in adapting to climate change. In Ethiopia, the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) public works activities have reduced surface run-off, increased water infiltration, raised groundwater levels, enhanced spring yields, and increased stream base flows and vegetation coverage. Furthermore, by leveraging economic inclusion activities, the PSNP program has led to positive environmental impacts and promoted livelihood diversification and enhanced productivity, thereby decreasing people’s vulnerability to climate change. And we must continue to build the evidence that pre-emptive social protection investments and strengthening social protection systems are the best response to future shocks and crises – improving outcomes for people and the effectiveness of financing. In Pakistan, the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), the country’s largest government-led cash transfer program, was scaled-up to provide 2.8 million families with roughly US$100 within a week of the 2022 floods. Rapid action was possible by leveraging information from the disaster risk management authorities linked to the geocoded data in the national social registry. Leverage partnerships for more effective collective action For LICs and fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV)-affected countries in particular, international support will continue to play an important role to complement efficiency gains and domestic spending. High fragmentation in donor financing calls for increased coordination in aid delivery (Watkins et al., 2024). By 2030, an estimated 59% of poor people worldwide will be concentrated in FCV-affected countries (World Bank, 2024) and humanitarian interventions play a critical role in saving lives in these settings. However, the lack of predictability and sustainability often misses opportunities to build resilience, human capital, and productivity effectively. Somalia, Ethiopia, and Yemen, among others, offer encouraging examples of collaboration in supporting and working through existing country systems (Al-Ahmadi and De Silva, 2018). In Somalia, humanitarian financing dwarfs development aid: US$1.1 billion and US$869 million, respectively, in 2018. The Somalia Baxnaano Program aims to align humanitarian and development efforts by supporting national social protection systems. Through partnership with the government, the British Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Bank, the program reached 181,000 households with cash transfers in 2021 and provided 100,000 households with emergency transfers in response to concurrent shocks in 2020 (Al-Ahmadi and Zampaglione, 2022). Countries at all income levels will benefit from promoting a larger role for the private and financial sectors to increase available financing. One option we are exploring in that context is the potential of innovative financing mechanisms, such as impact bonds, sovereign wealth funds, debt swaps, and Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) (Watkins et al., 2024). Coordination on the knowledge agenda will be crucial to make the most effective use of available resources. We must leverage, share, and coordinate analysis, evidence, data, technical assistance, and implementation support across national stakeholders and international partners. It is critical that we work together to build the evidence base for effective social protection at the global, national, regional, and local levels, scaling up what works, and reforming what does not. Financing reform for shared prosperity There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the massive social protection financing challenge. We need to carefully analyze how to make the best use of scarce social protection resources, whether at the global, national, or local level. We also need to leverage more resources – both domestically and through partners and the private sector – to invest in social protection responses to the permacrises that we face, with climate and fragility high among these challenges. Partnerships, knowledge sharing, and collaboration are key to learning, scaling up and expanding what works and improving what does not. Overall, strengthening and expanding social protection systems are critical as we work together to end extreme poverty on a livable planet. FootnotesDisclaimer The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its executive directors, or the governments they represent.1. The estimated population of the 144 World Bank client countries is 6.8 billion.ReferencesAl-Ahmadi AA, De Silva S (2018) Delivering social protection in the midst of conflict and crisis: The case of Yemen. Social protection and jobs discussion paper, no. 1801. Washington, DC: World Bank. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10986/30608License:CCBY3.0IGOAl-Ahmadi AA, Zampaglione G (2022) From protracted humanitarian relief to state-led social safety net system: Somalia Baxnaano Program. Social protection and jobs discussion paper, no. 2201. Washington, DC: World Bank. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36864License:CCBY3.0IGOArze del Granado FJ, Coady D, Gillingham R (2012) The unequal benefits of fuel subsidies: A review of evidence for developing countries. World Development 40(11): 2234–2248.Bierbaum M, Schmitt V (2022) Investing more in universal social protection. Filling the financing gap through domestic resource mobilization and international support and coordination. Working paper no. 44. International Labour Organization (ILO). Available at: https://www.ilo.org/publications/investing-more-universal-social-protection-filling-financing-gap-throughBossuroy T, Goldstein M, Karimou B, et al. (2022) Tackling psychosocial and capital constraints to alleviate poverty. Nature 605: 291–297. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04647-8Botea I, Brudevold-Newman A, Goldstein M, et al. (2023) Supporting women’s livelihoods at scale: Evidence from a nationwide multi-faceted program. SSRN scholarly paper. Rochester NY. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=4560552Damania R, Balseca VE, De Fontaubert C, et al. (2023) Detox Development: Repurposing Environmentally Harmful Subsidies (English). Washington, DC: World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099061523102097591/P1753450ec9e820830aba2067262dab24bfEl Enbaby H, Elsabbagh D, Gilligan D, et al. (2022) Impact evaluation report: Egypt’s Takaful cash transfer program. IFPRI ENA regional working paper no. 40. Available at: https://ebrary.ifpri.org/utils/getfile/collection/p15738coll2/id/136395/filename/136607.pdfInternational Labour Organization (ILO) (2021) World Social Protection Report 2020-22. Available at: https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/more-4-billion-people-still-lack-any-social-protection-ilo-report-findsRidao-Cano C, Moosa D, Pallares-Miralles M, et al. (2023) Built to Include: Reimagining Social Protection in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, DC: World Bank. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40227Tesliuc ED, Rodriguez A, Claudia P, Rigolini J (2025) State of Social Protection Report 2025: The 2-Billion-Person Challenge. Washington D.C.: World Bank Group.Watkins K, Nwajiaku-Dahou K, Kovach H (2024) Financing the fight against poverty and hunger – Mobilising resources for a Sustainable Development Goal reset. ODI report, ODI, London, 24 July.World Bank (2022) Charting a Course Towards Universal Social Protection: Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity for All. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10986/38031World Bank (2024) The Great Reversal: Prospects, Risks, and Policies in International Development Association (IDA) Countries. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

Diplomacy
Nayib Bukele's 2025 Address to the Nation

Bukele and indefinite reelection: a point of no return

by Charli McMackin

Bukele's indefinite reelection marks a dangerous turning point for El Salvador, masked by popularity and a fleeting sense of security. In 2021, when Nayib Bukele updated his bio on X to read “The coolest dictator in the world,” he was flirting with a reality that had yet to fully unfold. But on July 31, 2025, the prophecy he once made on social media came true: with 57 votes in favor and just three against, the Legislative Assembly approved a constitutional amendment allowing Bukele to govern indefinitely. Among both supporters and critics, this latest assault on democracy comes as little surprise. Bukele’s presidency has long borne the hallmarks of an aspiring despot: subordination of the judiciary to the executive, a shrinking and reconfigured legislature, and more recently, forcing journalists and dissidents into exile under the Foreign Agents Law. Still, few doubt that last Thursday’s vote marks the darkest chapter yet in El Salvador’s accelerating descent into authoritarian rule. For now, the Salvadoran president appears untouchable. His radical security policy—despite serious human rights violations against both alleged and actual gang members—has transformed the former homicide capital of the world into one of the safest countries in the Western Hemisphere, winning him overwhelming support at home and abroad. He’s also been bolstered by a weak opposition, close ties to Trump and the so-called “new right,” and the conspicuous silence of Western leaders. Yet, according to a survey by LPG Datos, only 1.4% of Salvadorans find it troubling that power is concentrated in a single person’s hands. Still, Bukele will face future hurdles in holding on to power. What happens when Bukele’s brand of “peace” becomes normalized? Or when the country is hit by an economic, social, or environmental crisis? It seems unlikely that the self-proclaimed dictator would willingly cede power or allow a new government to take over following an electoral defeat. Democratic erosion Last week’s constitutional reform, which removed term limits for the presidency, also extended the presidential term from five to six years, eliminated run-off elections, and brought forward the 2028 presidential election to 2027 to align it with legislative and municipal elections—an attempt to capitalize on Bukele’s electoral momentum. These are merely the latest blows to El Salvador’s already fragile democracy. Just a year after his first presidential win in 2019, Bukele evoked memories of the civil war that plagued the 1980s. Flanked by heavily armed soldiers, he stormed into Congress to demand a $109 million loan for his “war” against gangs. In 2021, he went after the judiciary, purging the courts and replacing independent judges with loyalists from his party, Nuevas Ideas. But it was in 2022 that his presidency entered its defining phase with the declaration of a “state of exception,” which the Legislative Assembly has since renewed 41 times. For decades, El Salvador was caught in the crossfire between the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and Barrio 18 gangs (both Sureños and Revolucionarios), which controlled nearly every aspect of daily life. Attacks on businesses were common, and brutal killings occurred frequently and with impunity. Many families stopped sending their children to school, as the journey often meant crossing gang-controlled territories. Nearly every aspect of social life was confined to one’s neighborhood or home. Because Salvadoran gangs were not major players in international drug trafficking—unlike Mexican and Colombian cartels—violent extortion became their main source of income. In 2014, the Central Bank calculated that the cost of extortion in El Salvador equaled more than 3% of GDP; that same year, public spending on education was 3.8% of GDP. Every administration before Bukele promised to take on the gangs, but all failed to end the bloodshed. Clearly, their “tough” approach wasn’t tough enough. These broken promises, made over and over by the two dominant parties—right-wing ARENA and leftist FMLN—only deepened public disillusionment and a sense of chaos. Opposition missteps Despite his rising popularity as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán under the FMLN—where he began his political career in 2012—Bukele’s relationship with his former party deteriorated. In October 2017, the FMLN finally expelled him for “defamatory actions,” following an incident in which he allegedly threw an apple at a party colleague. But the decision backfired: during the next year’s legislative and municipal elections, which Bukele had been poised to win, the FMLN suffered crushing defeats. In part, this was because a bitter Bukele had urged voters to spoil their ballots or stay home. With the FMLN stripped of its historic majority in the legislature, ARENA and the broader right were poised to take control. The FMLN’s hostility toward Bukele has hurt it ever since he became president in 2019. His critics—both inside and outside the party—have largely focused their attacks on his security policies, a strategy that has failed for several reasons. First, mass incarceration of gang members is the bedrock of Bukele’s popularity. Attempts to discredit him over human rights abuses tied to the Territorial Control Plan don’t resonate with voters whose own rights were routinely violated by the same gangs that the opposition now appears to defend. Second—and more importantly—security is just the visible tip of the “Bukelismo” iceberg. While his blatant disregard for the rights and freedoms of detainees (many imprisoned without trial in megaprison CECOT) deserves condemnation, the broader democratic backsliding—total institutional control, indefinite reelection, and an unprecedented concentration of power—is the more enduring threat to the future of this Central American nation. A fleeting calm? No one should be surprised by the popularity of a figure like Bukele in a country like El Salvador. After all, living without fear is a basic human right that Salvadorans were denied for far too long. Bukele’s ability to provide security where all his predecessors failed spectacularly explains not only his staggering popularity, but also the Salvadoran people’s willingness to discard their own democracy. But the region is full of cautionary tales about what comes next. Although Bukele has gained support faster and more decisively than others, it’s worth remembering that there was a time when Ortega enjoyed broad support in Nicaragua—just as Chávez did in Venezuela. Like Bukele, those leaders promised to cure ailments long deemed incurable. But when their people no longer wanted the medicine, it was already too late. For now, Bukele’s indefinite reelection is cloaked in his immense popularity. It lends him a veneer of democratic legitimacy, in the narrowest sense of the word. But someday—perhaps sooner than expected—the Salvadoran people may find themselves suffocated by the iron hand that once gave them “breath.” *Machine translation, proofread by Ricardo Aceves.

Diplomacy
24.01.2023 - Foto oficial da VII Cúpula da CELAC (52647149569)

Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Nations as a strategy for integration with Asia and Africa

by Isaac Elías González Matute

Abstract This article analyzes the challenges and threats to global peace and stability, derived from the unipolar geopolitical vision of the United States and the application of the so-called “Donroe Doctrine”, promoted during the Trump administration and characterized by the “Maximum Pressure” strategy promoted by the America First Policy Institute. Through a methodology of documentary review of primary and secondary sources, together with a prospective analysis of risk trends, the strategic and leading role of CELAC in the defense of the interests of Latin America and the Caribbean is dimensioned, highlighting how this organization opens opportunities to strengthen trade relations with Asia and Africa, contributing to the construction of a multipolar world order by promoting initiatives such as China's Belt and Road as an alternative mechanism to the global economic war of the United States and its “US-CUM” project, framed in its foreign policy based on national security interests. Introduction 21st-century geopolitics has undoubtedly been characterized by strong pragmatism in the exercise of states’ foreign policy, balancing between two visions — specifically between the Unipolar Geopolitical Vision and the Multipolar Geopolitical Vision — which have categorized the praxis of international relations of the so-called Global North and Global South, respectively; a context that clearly shows a fervent struggle for political control of resources and for hegemony, where the United States competes for global supremacy with emerging poles of power such as Russia and China. Given the current international scenario, it becomes increasingly imperative to identify and understand both the needs and the challenges for the planet’s sustainable development, from a global perspective in all areas (economic, political, social, geographic, cultural, environmental, and military). In this regard, the present research prospectively analyzes the administration of President Donald Trump as part of the multidimensional threats that the U.S. represents not only for Latin America and the Caribbean but also for Africa and Asia, considering the impact of current U.S. foreign policy both on the American continent and for Africa and Asia. All of this is with a view to highlighting, through debate, the importance of rethinking CELAC as an international organization that systematically advances in a transition process from “Community” to “Confederation,” as an intergovernmental entity with the capacity to confront the threats of a unipolar geopolitical vision foreign policy, and in line with the goals established as development projects under the so-called “CELAC 360 Vision” [1], aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda, adopted by the United Nations (UN). Regarding the referred geopolitical transition, it is worth noting, as Guendel (2024) states: “The rising multipolarity will provoke, starting from this first decade of the 21st century, the emergence of historical events that mark the reaction to the expansion of Western geopolitical power to those old regions that were under another geopolitical influence. Among the most notable events, we must consider the processes of de-dollarization of the world economy, the war in Ukraine, the tension in the Taiwan Strait, and, of course, the war in Palestine. Under this reference, it is possible to characterize the current international geopolitical scenario as a moment of transition between the previous form of unipolar power and the new multipolar relations (123) [2]. Building on the above, the current geopolitical transition is a systemic process sustained by the multipolarity of international relations, driven by the struggle for power and the quest for economic dominance in both domestic and international markets. This has given rise to a growing trend in states’ foreign policy toward the construction of a multipolar world, where territorial governance over strategic resources forms part of the necessary geopolitical counterweight in regional dialogue, cooperation, and integration to face the challenges of the present century. The changes in the world order require Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia to promote an idea of continental unity, framed within an anti-imperialist mindset, allowing progress toward Latin American, African, and Asian continentalism, compatible with the multipolar geopolitical vision, under the sustainable development approach put forward through the BRICS. Regarding this last international actor, Guendel (2024) notes: “In the development of a new phase of the globalization process after the end of the Cold War — what was geopolitically a new scenario for consolidating unipolar power relations — new lateral actors emerged, the so-called BRICS, which, by proposing alternative ways of thinking and economic relations favorable to Third World countries, would foster the emergence of a new global geopolitical scenario of multipolar relations (123). According to this scenario, the trend toward multipolarity in international relations —strengthened by globalization and technological advancements — will allow for the consolidation of a multipolar world, though not without first becoming a causal factor of various conflicts and challenges on a global scale, specifically in all spheres of power (economic, political, social, geographic, cultural, environmental, and military). Hence the importance of formulating a strategy for regional integration of Latin America, Asia, and Africa that aligns with global sustainable development plans — such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative — which, combined with the BRICS, constitute two fundamental pillars in strengthening the multipolar world. However, this will also accentuate the differences in geopolitical interests between the strategic agenda of the Global North (led by the U.S. through the G7) and that of the Global South (BRICS countries) regarding the projected economic growth of each. Having this in mind, the present research aims to analyze the challenges and threats to global peace and stability as a consequence of the U.S. unipolar geopolitical vision and the application of the so-called “Donroe Doctrine,” promoted by President Donald Trump and the policies advanced by his main think tank, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), characterized by the “Maximum Pressure.” Development U.S.: Foreign policy oriented toward a new global fundamentalism The new White House administration, under the presidency of Donald Trump, challenges the so-called conservative Establishment [3] in the U.S., and according to Myriam Corte (2018), in her article on “Analysis of the U.S. ‘Establishment’” [4], the following statement is mentioned: “The residence of the current president is the site that houses political power, but at the same time reflects migratory power, since it is a construction built in the 18th century by African slaves, based on Irish architecture. As for the cabinet, it is made up of wealthy white men, who are responsible for administering power, but in the current administration some members have been accused of domestic abuse and misogynistic practices; therefore, it is important to identify whether Trump represents that old, conservative, and rigid establishment, or if there is any change” (1). According to what has been stated, there is undoubtedly a perception of a different stance associated with the “Deep State” Establishment in the U.S., with relevant structural changes that have a strong impact on both domestic and foreign policy. An example of this, according to Myriam Corte (2018), is represented in the very fact that: “Another variant is the Bible study group that was formed in the White House, as well as the group of fellows made up of 147 young people between the ages of 21 and 29, with a characteristic profile: all are wealthy individuals, among them the son of the president of the World Bank, who represent the new generation that will inherit power…” (1). In this context, the U.S.’s status as a major power revolves around a scenario of geopolitical conflict, even prioritizing its national interests over those of its main strategic allies, as a consequence of the systemic deterioration of its hegemony vis-à-vis Russia and China. This has generated hostile political actions as strategies to justify its territorial ambitions, in an attempt to counter the exponential growth of the BRIC and the crisis this represents for the global dollar system. A clear example of some hostile political actions is reflected in what happened with its European (NATO) partners recently, as well as with Canada, Mexico, and Greenland, becoming part of the geopolitical pragmatism promoted by the Donald Trump administration. Now, in direct relation to the unipolar geopolitical vision that characterizes U.S. foreign policy, it oscillates between defending the interests of the conservative Establishment and the postulates and ideals promoted by the AFPI [5], which maintain a clear influence in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, acting as a think tank. Regarding this matter related to the influence of AFPI in the Donald Trump administration, it is worth mentioning some aspects associated with the practice of U.S. foreign policy for a better understanding of its current dynamics, which revolve around a new global fundamentalism with a marked unipolar geopolitical vision. Among them, we have the following: New global fundamentalism against the conservative national security establishment The AFPI serves as the main think tank for the Trump administration, according to Seibt (2024), who in his article “The America First Policy Institute, a discreet ‘combat’ machine for Donald Trump” [6], states the following: “America First” is often associated solely with Donald Trump’s isolationism. But behind the scenes, it is also linked to an ultra-conservative think tank with growing influence, the America First Policy Institute (AFPI)” (1); a fact that justifies the appointments made before and after Donald Trump’s swearing-in as President of the U.S., as he has been using an increasingly influential group in high-level decisions, subtly and systematically modifying changes in strategic agendas from the so-called “Deep State,” starting from what Seibt (2024) also refers to: “…the election of Brooke Rollins marks the consecration of AFPI’s influence, of which she is president, and which has been described by the New York Times as ‘a group as influential as it is little known’ in the orbit of Trumpism… Brooke Rollins is not the only person from AFPI that Donald Trump has chosen for his future government. Linda McMahon, chosen to be Secretary of Education, is the director of this think tank. And let us not forget Pam Bondi, who has been called to replace the too-controversial Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, and who oversees all the legal matters of the America First Policy Institute” (para. 5). In this context, there is clear evidence of AFPI’s influence within the Trump administration; therefore, to understand where the unipolar geopolitical vision recently adopted by the U.S. is headed — together with its prospective analysis — it is necessary to understand, from the very foundations of AFPI, how this organization envisions the path of what it calls, from a supremacist perspective, “America First.” To this end, it is enough to review the main AFPI website [7], where both its vision and analysis of what the U.S. should be, as well as how it should approach the exercise of foreign policy, are broken down and organized — with a curious detail that sets it apart: placing the interests of the American people above the interests of the conservative National Security establishment, stimulating the need to create a nation different from what they consider a “theoretical United States.” As AFPI (2025) states and describes: The Center for American Security at the America First Policy Institute defends Americans rather than a “theoretical United States” imagined by Washington’s national security establishment. The exercise of American power requires a clear justification, and an “America First” approach ensures that such power is used for the benefit of Americans. To promote this objective, the Center seeks to ensure the rigorous advancement of policies that constitute an authentically American alternative to the increasingly obsolete orthodoxy of Washington’s foreign and defense policy… (para. 2). As outlined, AFPI both promotes and warns about the exercise of power, prioritizing U.S. interests, as long as these remain distant from what it considers the “obsolete orthodoxy of foreign policy” that has characterized the U.S. for decades and centuries. In this sense, the likelihood increases of perceiving the presence or formation of a different establishment in the U.S., one that rivals the Anglo-Saxon conservatism rooted since the nation’s very founding. Domestically, the perception of a new global fundamentalism in U.S. foreign policy grows — one with an even more marked unipolar geopolitical vision of an imperialist nature — based on what AFPI (2025) doctrinally dictates in terms of foreign policy: The phrase “America First” refers to an approach rooted in the awareness of the United States’ unique role in the world and its unparalleled ability to do the most for others when its people are strong, secure, and prosperous. It means that any commitment of American lives or dollars abroad must bring concrete benefits to the American people. Every investment of U.S. resources must generate a substantial security benefit (para. 3). From this, it is possible to infer the direction of the U.S. strategic agenda under the current administration and doctrinally supported by AFPI as its main think tank. However, the deep changes that are occurring — both inside and outside the U.S. — and how the global economic and financial situation fluctuates because of these changes, in a certain way, compel major economies to reconsider new mechanisms for economic and financial coordination and cooperation. This includes strengthening regional integration frameworks that allow them to navigate the ongoing process of reconfiguring the current world order, laying the groundwork for the construction of a multipolar world. Proxy Control of Global Territorial Governance, Backed by the “Donroe Doctrine” The exercise of current U.S. foreign policy, characterized by a unipolar geopolitical vision under the new Trump administration, is the result of the application of a doctrine carefully designed and reformulated from its dogmas, supported by a strong religious fundamentalism and associated with racial supremacism; wherein the U.S. seeks to perpetuate its global hegemony by returning to its original imperialist character. All of this turns the exercise of U.S. power toward National Security, but with a practical approach different from the so-called “obsolete orthodoxy of conservative foreign policy.” As AFPI (2021) has emphasized since its founding: Religious freedom is a fundamental human right guaranteed not only in the Constitution of the United States but also in Article 18 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a natural right inherent to all of humanity (para. 3). With the above, at first glance, AFPI appears to delineate its religious fundamentalism, oriented toward the promotion of a new global fundamentalism through the exercise of foreign policy that justifies its actions in favor of U.S. supremacist interests, in line with what AFPI (2021) reiterates as its mission on its platform: AFPI exists to promote policies that prioritize the American people. Our guiding principles are freedom, free enterprise, national greatness, U.S. military superiority, foreign policy engagement in the interest of the United States, and the primacy of American workers, families, and communities in all we do (para. 1). To this, we must add the disposition — regarding national security — of driving U.S. supremacism through the application of Hard Power [8], economic warfare, and the increased implementation of Unilateral Coercive Measures (UCMs) against any country that contravenes U.S. interests, by perpetuating interventionist policy in all spheres of power (economic, political, social, geographic, cultural, environmental, and military). An example of the above is referred to by AFPI (2025) on its website [9], as follows: The American victories in World War II and the Cold War established our country as “the last best hope for man on Earth.” The cause of freedom everywhere in the world depends on a strong United States. With our country secure, we can, with greater confidence, promote American security abroad. U.S. security is exemplified by a strong military, fair trade agreements, alliances that are equitable, aggressors who are isolated, and those who harm us, destroyed. The AFPI views American security abroad as a prerequisite for peace at home: always putting American interests first. This includes moving away from endless and unnecessary wars to rebuild the homeland, while also understanding our indispensable role in maintaining a peaceful world… (para. 4). With a brief reading of the above, it is possible to see at first glance the practical description of current U.S. foreign policy, starting from the fact of recent attempts to end the Ukrainian conflict; however, skepticism when addressing both the geopolitical feasibility and the reliability of the proposals made by the Trump administration reveals a hidden objective, particularly associated with proxy control of global territorial governance through hostile policies and the use of the government itself as a weapon. An example of this is the stimulation of a trade war by the U.S. against Canada, Mexico, and the European Union (NATO allies), all with the aim of establishing as a rule the use of Hard Power for political persuasion over strategic resources — an example of this being the recent (and forcibly) signed rare earths agreement by Ukraine — in favor of the United States. U.S.-CUM, a New Nation-State and Persuasive Technology: Utopia or Global Geopolitical Threat? Geopolitical changes in the 21st century are advancing in parallel with technology, the economy, and global energy interdependence. For this reason, the use of Persuasive Technologies [10], through various media and information channels, plays a fundamental role in creating opinion frameworks and the mass manipulation of perceptions on a global scale. In other words, in the Era of Disinformation, technology is the primary tool, stemming from the communication needs of modern society. In this regard, Tusa et al. (2019) state the following: “…fake news has always existed. What is happening now is a greater emergence on open and free access platforms, which causes this type of information to grow exponentially in a matter of seconds. Therefore, fake news creates a wave of disinformation, a fact that motivates academia and civil society to counter it, to achieve the return of good journalism and truthful information” (20). [11] In this context, current disinformation processes respond to pre-established objectives by power poles linked to fluctuating geoeconomic interests in the world order, in which the Global North with a unipolar geopolitical vision and the Global South with a multipolar geopolitical vision are in open confrontation. In relation to this, Valton (2022) points out: “…economic globalization, finance, and the development of new technologies have opened spaces for the new geoeconomy. Thus, geoeconomy as part of the process of change plays an essential role that affects international relations, with an impact on international trade, global markets, and conflicts in the quest for capital accumulation. Geopolitical interests are closely linked to the economic gains of major capitalist powers and transnational corporations in their eagerness to increase their revenues, maintain and expand their area of influence in other regions, at the expense of the indiscriminate exploitation of the natural resources of underdeveloped countries, with high poverty rates and environmental damage” (2). [12] Now, considering the unipolar geopolitical vision of U.S. foreign policy and the doctrinal influence of the AFPI in the new Trump administration, there is a curious growing communication campaign on different digital platforms, specifically associated with persuasive technologies, that fosters the perception of the creation of a new State called U.S.-CUM. While this corresponds to a very subtle disinformation campaign and somewhat utopian in nature, it is nonetheless surprising that, in the facts and actions of the new White House administration, they have not stopped flirting with certain ideas related to the mentioned State in question.   To be more specific, the U.S.-CUM is a utopian idea of a territorial expansion of the current United States, adding the territorial spaces of Canada and Mexico with the goal of increasing the economic, political, financial, and military capacities of the U.S., to counter emerging powers and prevent the consolidation of a multipolar world. An example of this can be found in some posts made on the Reddit platform, a social network popular among the U.S. population, similar to Instagram, X, TikTok, and Facebook, among others. The U.S.-CUM utopia has now moved from a mere concept to a possible threat to global geopolitics, the moment the foreign policy of the Trump administration suggests the possibility of territorially adding Canada, turning it into the 51st state of the United States. Colvin (2025), in his AP article titled “Trump says he is serious about making Canada the 51st U.S. state,” refers to the following: President Donald Trump said he was serious about wanting Canada to become the 51st state of the United States in an interview aired Sunday during the Super Bowl pregame show… The United States is not subsidizing Canada. Americans purchase products from the resource-rich nation, including raw materials such as oil. Although the goods trade deficit has grown in recent years to $72 billion in 2023, it largely reflects U.S. imports of Canadian energy… (paras. 1-4). [13] In relation to the same policy undertaken with Canada, the Trump administration began a very dangerous strategy against its territorial neighbors, with the following actions: declaring Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups (knowing how the U.S. has manipulated the concept of terrorism to justify military interventions), implementing migrant deportation policies, waging a fight against fentanyl, and additionally launching a tariff war with both Mexico and Canada. It has also reiterated its intention to annex Greenland, accompanied by threats of tariffs and a trade war against Denmark and other EU countries, including undermining the existence of NATO. All the above is carried out under the close advice and influence of the AFPI, clearly reflected in its supremacist doctrinal positions and aspirations to create a large imperialist nation. An example of these ambitions has been openly published by various international media outlets, including the news channel FRANCE24. In this outlet, Blandón (2025) refers to the following: During a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated that control of Greenland is necessary to improve international security, while once again confirming his interest in annexing this territory… Outgoing Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede responded on the social network Facebook: “The U.S. president has once again raised the idea of annexing us. Enough is enough!”, and added that he will call on the leaders of all parties to convince them to prevent it… (paras. 1, 2).   In other words, it is appropriate to infer that the direction and intentionality of the foreign policy of the new Trump administration is aimed at territorial expansionism and the promotion of proxy control of global territorial governance, supported by the “Donroe Doctrine” and enhanced through the use and development of Persuasive Technology, aligned with a global strategic agenda (influenced by the AFPI), which seeks to counter the strengthening of a multipolar world and perpetuate U.S. imperialist hegemony under a global supremacy fundamentalism. CELAC as a Geopolitical Counterweight to the Real Threat of the U.S. and Its New Imperialist Format for Hegemonic Survival The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), as an intergovernmental organization, currently acquires strategic value for the entire continent and its sustainable development, within the framework of creating new mechanisms for coordination, cooperation, and regional integration with Africa and Asia — especially China — through the Belt and Road Initiative, considering the entire current geopolitical context where markets play a predominant role in defining internal policies and in directly influencing the strategic agendas of each nation's foreign policy, according to constantly changing global challenges, heightened by the stance adopted by the Global North, led by the U.S., against the Global South, led by BRICS countries. Once the real threat posed by the U.S. has been identified — based on the unipolar geopolitical vision that has characterized the exercise of its foreign policy — this is compounded by the supremacist trend in implementing Unilateral Coercive Measures (UCMs) [14] against free and independent nations that, upholding the principle of self-determination, do not submit to or share the interests of the Anglo-Saxon establishment, promoted by the new U.S. administration. Now then, conducting a prospective analysis of how and on what grounds the U.S. sustains and describes its current hegemonic behavior, it is possible to predict, with certain elements and data, what its courses of action will be — courses that Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Africa and Asia (especially China), should consider. Among these, the following stand out: Territorial Expansion of the U.S. Trade War The current trade war declared between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico — initially through the reciprocal imposition of tariffs — considering the influence of the AFPI as a U.S. Think Tank, is clearly perceived as territorial expansion, in search of proxy control over territorial governance previously mentioned, of all strategic resources in Latin America and the Caribbean. This comes because of the fiscal, economic, and financial weakening the U.S. is experiencing through the increase of public debt, which is practically unsustainable. In this sense, the actions taken by the Trump administration in appointing certain cabinet positions can be understood to some extent. However, it is curious and at the same time causal that many appointments obey and are related — directly and indirectly — to the training of officials associated with and linked to the AFPI, as part of its strategic objective. An example of this are the words of Colonel Robert Wilkie, co-chair of the Center for American Security, member of the AFPI, quoted by King (2025) in his press article titled “AFPI Welcomes President Trump’s Renewal of the American Dream”, where the following was stated, making direct reference to peace through strength: President Trump proclaimed that America is back, which means our Armed Forces are back: the greatest force for peace in the history of the world. He has restored the highest combat standards so that our soldiers fight, win, and return home to their loved ones as soon as possible. President Trump has restored the place of honor our warriors hold in the hearts and minds of the American people. He has restored America’s deterrent power and told the world that the most powerful words in the language are: “I am an American citizen.” Our borders are stronger, our seas safer, and every wrongdoer knows that the eagle is watching them. (para. 6) The above statement does not set aside its imperialist and supremacist character, denoting the philosophical and doctrinal thinking deeply rooted in the officials who hold government functions at all decision-making levels, promoting pro-U.S. policies that disrespect international law and encourage the establishment of a rules-based world order, with full disregard for the international rule of law. This is, in fact, a very complex and dangerous geopolitical situation, which threatens not only the self-determination of peoples, but also the ability to advance in areas of coordination, cooperation, and integration to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in the United Nations 2030 Agenda, to which CELAC countries adhere through the implementation of development plans seeking mutual benefit. Now then, the world order is in permanent change, with a tendency toward the consolidation of a multipolar world because of the crisis of capitalism and the Anglo-Saxon economic model represented in the Bretton Woods System. This situation favors the opening of new mechanisms supported by the multipolarity of international relations, depending on the behavior of the world economy, as a result of the policies of both the U.S. and emerging powers—especially the BRICS countries. However, it is precisely the economic pulse that will redefine the hostile actions of the U.S. in defense of its global hegemonic power, equally and in parallel influenced by the energy capacities of the world powers in conflict — an element that is preponderant in geopolitical influence. An example in this chapter is Russia’s advantage in gas and oil during the Ukrainian conflict. The exponential economic growth of the BRICS compared to the G7 is the clearest expression of the multilateral influence trend of member countries, in line with the multipolarity of international relations, where the geopolitical positioning of both the Global North (G7) and the Global South (BRICS) can be clearly observed. This economic and financial disparity accelerates the weakening of the Bretton Woods System and, consequently, the collapse of the dollar system within the Anglo-Saxon economic model, leading to the loss of hegemonic influence of the Global North countries — especially the U.S. as its main exponent. Other data are relevant when conducting a prospective analysis, with the aim of identifying growth and sustainable development opportunities, as well as understanding the challenges to achieving strategic objectives for comprehensive development by nations. Among the data to consider in the prospective analysis, we have the following chart, associated with excessive global consumption in the 21st century compared to the 20th century:   According to the chart on excessive global consumption, in only six years of progress into the 21st century, modern society has exceeded more than half of what it consumed in the 20th century, with a 75% increase above the average recorded over the last 100 years — a truly alarming percentage with a tendency to increase, as a consequence of economic activity, technological advancement, and the increase of armed conflicts worldwide. Within this context, the U.S. will increasingly seek to influence countries that significantly represent an economic interest in terms of territory, population density, manufacturing and industrial capacity, and geographic position. Through proxy control of territorial governance, it will aim to increase its hegemonic capacity in the economic and financial spheres against its main geopolitical rivals in the struggle for global supremacy — namely Russia and China — whose multipolar geopolitical vision entirely rivals the unipolar geopolitical vision of U.S. foreign policy. Given this scenario, CELAC presents a fundamental characteristic that allows it to move forward as a geopolitical counterweight to the U.S., broken down as follows:Territorial extension: all member countries together cover an enormous territorial space rich in strategic resources, with common areas of influence and mutual interest for sustainable development. Shared future, based on history, language, customs, and other cultural expressions that strengthen Latin American and Caribbean identity, which can be leveraged in the processes of regional consultation, cooperation, and integration with Africa and Asia. The increase in the hostile trend of U.S. foreign policy worldwide will require greater effort from CELAC to advance in consolidating full regional integration. However, the current progress of the intergovernmental organization has been limited to certain and specific areas, namely the economic, cultural, social, and political spheres of its members. Transition toward the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean States as a strategy for geopolitical counterbalance and sustainable development For CELAC to consolidate itself as a geopolitical counterweight to U.S. hegemonic ambitions in the region, it must be grounded in the exercise of a foreign policy with a multipolar geopolitical vision, compatible with the mutual sustainable development interests of the Global South. In this regard, Palacio de Oteyza (2004), in his essay "The Imperial Image of the New International Order: Is This Political Realism?" states the following: “The second realistic image of the international order, partially compatible with the geoeconomic image, consists of a return to a traditional multipolar system of balance of power, but with a decisive weight given to the military factor. The multipolar system is characterized by the absence of a hegemon and a flexibility of alliances among the great powers, aimed at restraining any potential challenger” [13]. In this context, the geopolitical counterweight that CELAC needs to confront the U.S.’s hegemonic ambitions in the region — and even globally — is regional integration in other areas not currently contemplated by the Community of Nations due to its nature. That is, increasing integration in the military, geographic, and social spheres through the transition toward a confederation of nations would enhance international relations capabilities, contributing to the adoption of deterrent measures for the prevention of armed conflicts and even facilitating its integration into other centers of power with a multipolar geopolitical vision, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to further strengthen relations with both Russia and China and their respective sustainable development plans. Economic opening and new formulas for regional integration with Africa and Asia An economic opening is the result of the globalization process, the advancement of new technologies, and the effects of the exercise of states’ foreign policies in accordance with their interests and the geopolitical vision they adopt, for geopolitical analysis that enables the identification of risks, threats, and opportunities in the international arena. That said, within the framework of regional integration, CELAC must also prioritize investment sectors for the establishment of common development interests among CELAC, Africa, and Asia. One of the most notable current realities is the fact that the Global South’s economy began systematically, setting challenges and then experiencing growth in less time compared to the growth of the G20, led by the U.S., with China taking the lead according to the percentage value recorded in 2024. In this scenario, CELAC, by reconsidering its transition toward a Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean States, would allow for greater autonomy in its integration into the global architecture implied by the strengthening and consolidation of the BRICS at the global level as an alternative system to the Bretton Woods System. In doing so, advances toward strengthening regional integration — embedded within a new multipolar world, with the combined capabilities of the Global South — can become, more than a reality, a necessity to confront the real threats posed by the U.S., serving as a geopolitical counterweight and a tool for insertion into the multipolar world through continental alliances between Latin America and the Caribbean, with Africa and Asia. Conclusions It was possible to assess the leading role of CELAC and its strategic nature in defending the regional interests of Latin America and the Caribbean, opening a world of opportunities in trade relations with Asia and Africa for the construction of a multipolar world through the promotion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative as an alternative mechanism to confront the U.S. economic war on a global scale and its project to create the so-called “U.S.-CUM”, as part of its foreign policy based on its national security interests. In this regard, in an environment of geopolitical changes and international crisis, as part of the transition process toward the consolidation of a multipolar world, CELAC can promote or drive significant advances aimed at the creation of a Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Nations (CONLAC) as part of a strategy for integration with Asia and Africa, considering the multipolar geopolitical vision shared by the Global South, where the concept of shared development represents a key point for international dialogue and cooperation — specifically in the economic, social, political, geographic, cultural, environmental, and military spheres. All of this would serve to act as a geopolitical counterweight to the threats and global challenges promoted by the U.S., in the exercise of its unipolar geopolitical vision in foreign policy, of an imperialist, hegemonic, and supremacist nature. Notes [1] Fuente: https://celacinternational.org/projects/[2] Revista Comunicación. Año 45, vol. 33, núm. 1, enero-junio 2024 (pp. 120-133). Fuente: https:// www.scielo.sa.cr/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1659-38202024000100120[3] Conjunto de personas, instituciones y entidades influyentes en la sociedad o en un campo determinado, que procuran mantener y controlar el orden establecido. Fuente: https://dpej.rae. es/lema/establishment[4] https://gaceta.politicas.unam.mx/index.php/poder-estadounidense/[5] https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/security/national-security-defense[6] https://www.france24.com/es/ee-uu-y-canad%C3%A1/20241126-el-america-first-policy-institute-una-discreta-m%C3%A1quina-de-combate-de-donald-trump[7] https://americafirstpolicy.com/centers/center-for-american-security[8] El poder duro se da cuando un país utiliza medios militares y económicos para influir en el comportamiento o los intereses de otras entidades políticas. Es una forma de poder político a menudo agresiva, es decir, que utiliza la coerción. Su eficacia es máxima cuando una entidad política la impone a otra de menor poder militar o económico. Fuente: https://www. jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/what-isthe-difference-between-hard-power-and-softpower-1608095574-1[9] https://americafirstpolicy.com/centers/center-for-american-security[10] La tecnología persuasiva está concebida para permitir que los usuarios voluntariamente cambien sus actitudes o comportamientos por medio de la persuasión y la influencia social. Al igual que la tecnología de control, utiliza actuadores y un algoritmo de influencia para ofrecerle información eficaz al usuario. Fuente: https://osha.europa.eu/es/tools-and-resources/eu-osha-thesaurus/term/70213i#:~:text=Context:,ofrecerle%20informaci%C3%B3n%20eficaz%20al%20usuario[11] https://revistas.usfq.edu.ec/index.php/perdebate/article/view/1550/2661[12] Fuente: https://www.cipi.cu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/1-elaynevalton.pdf[13] https://apnews.com/article/trump-canadagolfo-america-super-bowl-bret-baier-musk-cc8848639493d44770e60e4d125e5a62[14] Medidas Coercitivas Unilaterales.[15] Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, núm. 64, p. 7-28 References Colvin, J. (2025, 9 de febrero). Trump dice que habla en serio al afirmar que Canadá sea el estado 51 de EEUU. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/trump-canada-golfo-america-super-bowl-bret-baier-musk-cc8848639493d44770e60e4d125e5a62Corte, M. (2018, 7 de mayo). Análisis del ‘establishment’ estadounidense. Gaceta UNAM. https://gaceta.politicas.unam.mx/index.php/poder-estadounidense/Guendel Angulo, H. (2024). Escenarios de transición: De la geopolítica mundial unipolar a la multipolar. Revista Comunicación On-line. https://www.scielo.sa.cr/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1659-38202024000100120Palacio de Oteyza, V. (2003). La imagen imperial del nuevo orden internacional: ¿es esto realismo político? Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, (64), 7-28. https://www.cidob.org/publicaciones/la-imagen-imperial-del-nuevo-orden-internacional-es-esto-realismo-politicoSeibt, S. (2024, 26 de noviembre). El America First Policy Institute, una discreta máquina de "combate" de Donald Trump. France24. https://www.france24.com/es/ee-uu-y-canad%C3%A1/20241126-el-america-first-policy-institute-una-discreta-m%C3%A1quina-de-combate-de-donald-trumpTusa, F., & Durán, M. B. (2019). La era de la desinformación y de las noticias falsas en el ambiente político ecuatoriano de transición. Perdebate. https://revistas.usfq.edu.ec/index.php/perdebate/article/view/1550/2661Valton Legrá, E. (2022). La geopolítica de la tecnología: una visión sistémica. CIPI. https://www.cipi.cu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/1-elaynevalton.pdfZelada Castedo, A. (2005). Perspectiva histórica del proceso de integración latinoamericana. Revista Ciencia y Cultura, (17), 113-120. Universidad Católica Boliviana San Pablo, La Paz, Bolivia.

Energy & Economics
Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Thursday, August 27, 2020 - Photo of early edition book, Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations

The Relationship Between Energy and Capital: Insights from The Wealth of Nations

by Simon Mair

Abstract To deliver low-carbon transitions, we must understand the dynamics of capital. To this end, I develop a theory of energy-capital relations by reading Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations from an energy-analysis perspective. I argue that, for Smith, capital is any resource used to support production with the intention of generating profits through market exchange. In The Wealth of Nations, capital enables access to new sources of energy and increases energy efficiency. This theory of energy-capital relations explains trends seen in historical energy data: because it is profit driven, capital does not save energy, it redirects it to new uses. This suggests that low-carbon investment can only enable a low-carbon transition if coupled to a systematic challenge to the profit drive.JEL Classification: B12, O44, P18, Q43, Q57Keywordseconomic growth, low-carbon transitions, Adam Smith, history of economic thought, capital, energy, capitalism 1. Introduction: Energy, Capital and Low-Carbon Transitions Under Capitalism To date, the green rhetoric of states and companies has not led to meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. In absolute terms, annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels increased from ~6 gigatons of carbon per year in 1990 to ~10 gigatons of carbon per year in 2022 (Friedlingstein et al. 2023). Carbon emissions are largely driven by the energy system that supports the capitalist economy, and there is no evidence that this is decarbonizing at the global scale. In 2020, fossil fuels accounted for around 80 percent of total world energy supply, the same figure as in 1990 (IEA 2022). In 2022 carbon emissions from fossil fuels accounted for around 90 percent of total global carbon emissions, up from 80 percent in 1990 (Friedlingstein et al. 2023). Carbon emissions from energy and industrial processes hit an all-time high in 2023 (IEA 2024). To change this increasingly dire picture, it is essential that we understand the economic drivers of emissions, and what economic changes are needed to reverse current trends. There is disagreement over the extent and nature of economic change needed to facilitate a low-carbon energy transition. Radical economists agree that the global reliance on fossil fuels will require going beyond market-based solutions (Li 2011; Pianta and Lucchese 2020; Pollin 2019). But this still leaves us with a broad spectrum of options (Chester 2014). Can a low-carbon transition be implemented within a broadly capitalist framework if it is guided by an interventionist industrial strategy (Pollin 2015)? Or does it require changes to fundamental capitalist dynamics (Davis 2019; Riley 2023)? To cast new light on these debates, I take a step back from the immediate issues and take a history of economic thought approach. To this end, I explore the relationship between capital and energy in Adam Smith’s (1975) The Wealth of Nations. I use the resulting view of energy-capital relations to put forward an explanation of how energy use has developed under capitalism, and to explain why a low-carbon transition is unlikely without addressing core capitalist dynamics. The decision to develop the analysis of energy-capital relations from The Wealth of Nations is grounded in the more general epistemological claim that returning to older works of economic theory is a useful way to conduct economic analysis. Blaug (1990) reminds us that all current economic theory is built from seldom read historical texts, and historians of economic thought have argued that revisiting these texts offers the opportunity to uncover new ways of interpreting key ideas, providing theoretical context that may have been forgotten (Bögenhold 2021; Schumpeter 1954). Additionally, actively engaging with historical thought presents the possibility for moments of creativity as old and new ideas are brought together. For example, Mair, Druckman, and Jackson (2020) use an analysis of economic ideas in utopian texts from the twelfth to nineteenth centuries to develop a vision of work in a post-growth future, and Stratford (2020, 2023) develops a theory of rents and resource extraction grounded in an analysis of the historical evolution of the concept of rent. The general approach of critical engagement with history of thought is perhaps best developed in the Marxist literature, where a substantive body of work draws on Marx’s writings to critically explore environment-economy relationships (e.g., Malm 2016; Moore 2017; Pirgmaier 2021; Saitō 2022). On the other hand, relatively little attention has been paid to Adam Smith in the context of ecological or environmental economic analysis. Most recent interest in Smith’s environmental thought has come from environmental historians (see Steeds 2024 for a review). However, Steeds (2024), building on Jonsson (2014), has made the case for reading Smith as an ecological economist, arguing that Smith shares core ontological precepts of the discipline—notably that it is the environment that underpins all economic activity. Smith (1975) is particularly relevant to debates about low-carbon transitions because The Wealth of Nations is the starting point for an interpretation of capital theory that has become widely used in energy-economy analyses. Capital theory itself has a long and storied history, with analysts giving it a variety of characteristics (Cannan 1921; Kurz 1990; Mair 2022). Contemporary economic analyses of energy generally use a physical concept of capital. A common position for economists who focus on energy is that energy is important because energy use and capital are “quantity complements”: all else equal, when capital increases the energy used in production increases (Elkomy, Mair, and Jackson 2020; Finn 2000; Sakai et al. 2019). Conceived of as “representative machinery,” capital is seen as the physical stuff that channels energy use into production (Keen, Ayres, and Standish 2019: 41). Or as Daly (1968: 397) puts it, “physical capital is essentially matter that is capable of trapping energy and channeling it to human purposes.” This physical conception has its roots in the dominant interpretation of capital from The Wealth of Nations. Prior to The Wealth of Nations, capital was a predominantly monetary construct, but historians of economic thought argue that after The Wealth of Nations, capital is taken to be predominantly physical (Hodgson 2014; Schumpeter 1954). However, I argue that Smith’s view of capital is actually a long way from the almost purely physical views seen in much energy-economy work. Rather, Smith’s view of capital is proto-Marxist. As Evensky (2005: 141) puts it, “Whether or not it was from Smith that Marx developed his notion of capital as self-expanding value, the outlines of that conception were certainly available to him in Smith.” From Smith’s perspective, capital is defined primarily as a socio-physical construct (Blaug 1990; Evensky 2005; Meek 1954). Capital sometimes has physical forms, which enables it to interact with flows of energy, but these are always conditioned by the social dynamics of profit and exchange. Making a direct connection to energy requires reading Smith from the contemporary perspective of energy-economy analysis as developed by the subdisciplines of ecological, biophysical, and exergy economics (Brockway et al. 2019; Jackson 1996; Keen, Ayres, and Standish 2019; Smil 2017a). This is because, as a construct, “capital” pre-dates “energy,” and Smith was writing before the first recorded use of the term energy as we would understand it today (by physicist Thomas Young in 1807, see: Frontali 2014). So although work into energy—particularly among ecological economists and their forerunners in energy systems analysis (Cleveland et al. 1984; Odum 1973; Sakai et al. 2019)—uses a concept of capital that has its roots in an interpretation of Smith’s capital theory, explicit links are missing in Smith’s text. Despite this, Steeds (2024) argues that Smith’s analysis of agriculture shows an understanding of what contemporary analysts would call energy, a theme I develop here focusing on Smith’s conceptualization of capital. The rest of this article is structured as follows. In section 2, I set out an interpretation of Smith’s capital theory from The Wealth of Nations that emphasizes the way it sees physical elements of capital as defined by social forces. In section 3, I outline the ways that energy fits into Smith’s theory of capital. This is the first contribution of the article, as I make novel links between Smith’s capital theory and contemporary energy-economy analysis. In section 4, I apply this interpretation of energy-capital relations to the historical evolution of energy use under capitalism, and the question of low-carbon transitions. This is the second contribution of the article, as I argue that Smith’s capital theory highlights the importance of the social context of energy systems. Specifically, it provides compelling explanations for the phenomenon of “energy additions”—where past “transitions” under capitalism have been associated with the overall growth of energy use (York and Bell 2019). This implies that the challenge of a low-carbon transition is not only investment in low-carbon energy systems but in challenging the logic of capitalism such that low-carbon energy can replace, rather than add to, the use of high-carbon energy. 2. Capital as a Socio-physical Construct in The Wealth of Nations Interpretations of Smith’s capital theory generally emphasize its physical aspects (e.g., Cannan 1921; Hodgson 2014; Schumpeter 1954). These readings focus on Smith’s initial description of capital as a subset of the accumulation of the physical outputs of production (in Smith’s terminology “stock” [cf. Smith 1975: 279]), and the skills and abilities of workers (Smith 1975: 282). The focus on physical aspects of Smith’s capital theory makes sense from a history of ideas perspective. The physical aspects of Smith’s capital stand in contrast with earlier definitions that were primarily monetary (Hodgson 2014). There is also an intellectual lineage that can be traced in Smith’s views on capital, principally through Smith’s relationship with the French Physiocratic school whose own economic analysis emphasized physical flows (Meek 1954; Schumpeter 1954). However, the fact that Smith introduced a new role for physical goods within a broader concept of capital does not imply that Smith’s theory of capital was purely physical (Robinson 1962). Rather, Smith views capital as the accumulated monetary and physical resources that are brought into production to generate a profit. To see this, let us look first at Smith’s view of circulating capital. Smith splits capital into two forms, circulating and fixed, and he is explicit that circulating capital has both monetary and physical forms. For Smith, circulating capital is defined by the fact that to turn a profit from it, its owner must give it up in exchange for something else. Consequently, circulating capital takes multiple forms: it is the money that will be used to pay wages to a worker, the product produced by that worker, the money realized at the point of sale of the product, and the commodities purchased using the money realized. As Smith (1975: 279) puts it, circulating capital is continually going from the capitalist “in one shape, and returning to him in another. . . it is only by means of such circulation. . . that it can yield him any profit.” Circulating capital is a process of purchasing and selling resources, often with a monetary form, in order to make more money (Evensky 2005). Circulating capital has different forms (some physical, some not) at different points in its circulation, but it is consistently capital. Even when capital takes on its physical form, for Smith it is the underlying social dynamics of exchange and profit that define it as capital. In his opening to book 2, Smith argues that capital is an emergent property of exchange-based economies (Smith 1975: 276). In a society with no division of labor, he argues, people are self-sufficient, and there is very little exchange. But once you have a division of labor, you get exchange because each worker uses their labor to produce a subset of the goods needed to live. Other workers use their labor to produce a different subset of goods. The two then trade with one another to ensure all their needs are met. Drawing on the work of the Physiocrats, Smith then observes that production takes time (Schumpeter 1954). Consequently, in a market system, the purchasing of goods from other people “cannot be made till such time as the produce of his own labor has not only been completed, but sold” (Smith 1975: 276). This means that in either a monetary or barter economy, there has to be a stock of physical goods previously accumulated in order to enable work to happen before the products of that work have been sold (or are available for barter). For Smith, these goods are a form of capital. In this sense, capital can be physical commodities—but physical commodities accumulated in order to support exchange. For Smith, profits are also an essential part of the definition of capital (Meek 1954). Whether fixed or circulating, physical or monetary, what makes something capital is the desire of the capitalist to earn money from it (e.g., Smith 1975: 281, 332). Smith’s theory of profit is scattered through The Wealth of Nations and is not entirely comprehensive (Blaug 1990; Christensen 1979). However, Smith does identify a construct called profits with some core tendencies that are sufficient to group him in the classical approach to profit as surplus and deduction (Hirsch 2021; Kurz 1990; Meek 1977). For Smith, surplus is primarily derived from the value that labor adds to raw materials. This value then goes to pay the wages of the worker and other costs of production, one of which is “the profits of their employer” (Smith 1975: 66). So, Smith’s theory of profit is deductive. Profit is the money capitalists attempt to gain back from production after all costs—including wages—have been accounted for (Meek 1977). An important addition here is that the profit drive for Smith is speculative: capitalists bring capital to support production because they “expect” to generate more money (Smith 1975: 279, 332)—it is not guaranteed. The attempt to gain profit is because capitalists use this as their income (cf. Smith 1975: 69, 279). This attempt is central to the dynamics of capital because profit is the “sole motive” that a capitalist has for bringing their resources into the exchange cycle of the economy (Smith 1975: 374). To summarize, for Smith, capital is the accumulated resources (whether physical or monetary) brought to bear in support of exchange-based production, the ultimate aim of which is to provide the owner of capital with an income (profits). Consequently, it is not correct to view Smith’s capital theory as purely or even predominantly physical. Rather Smith’s capital is a socio-physical construct. This interpretation is not a refutation of other readings that emphasize the physical aspect of Smith’s theory. The physical elements are present, are important, and are relevant to our discussion of energy. However, the underlying premise is always that these physical elements are defined by social relations of profits and exchange. This analysis fits with readings of Smith that see his capital theory as proto-Marxist because of the way it frames capital in terms of social relations (Hodgson 2014; Pack 2013; Tsoulfidis and Paitaridis 2012). But it strongly cautions away from discussions of capital that abstract from these social relations in ways that leave capital as purely physical things. As with Marx (2013), when Smith talks about capital as physical things, his focus is on the way the physical interacts with social relations. 3. How Does Energy Fit into Smith’s Capital Theory? Having sketched an interpretation of Smith’s capital theory focusing on the interplay of profit, exchange dynamics, and monetary and physical resources, we can turn to the question of how energy fits into Smith’s capital theory. In this section, I draw on energy-economy analysis to suggest two key ways in which energy might fit into Smith’s capital theory: 1. Capital is used to bring new energy sources into production.2. Capital is used to make existing energy flows more efficient. 3.1. Accessing new energy sources For Smith, one of the key ways that capitalists aim to generate profits from capital is by using it to increase labor productivity (in Smith’s terms “abridging” labor, see: Smith 1975: 17, 282). Here we have a link to energy-economy analysis, where labor productivity is often described in terms of substituting human labor for other forms of energy—since the industrial revolution this has typically happened through some form of fossil fuel–powered machinery (Smil 2017a). Smith discusses machinery in a number of places across The Wealth of Nations. Indeed, Kurz (2010: 1188) writes that one of Smith’s key growth mechanisms is the replacement of “labor power by machine power.” In chapter 11 of book 1 of The Wealth of Nations (Smith 1975: 263), Smith discusses how cloth production in Italy was made more productive than in England by employing wind and water mills in the former, while the latter treaded it by foot. This is the same example pointed to by energy scientist Vaclav Smil (2017a), who argues that the introduction of waterwheels into industrial production were a source of substantive labor productivity growth. Energy-analysis allows us to say why the wind and water is more productive than the treading. Energy provides a variety of functions, known as “energy services,” which are essential for production processes (Grubler et al. 2012). These are intuitive when put in the context of everyday experiences: achieving a comfortable temperature in an office or workplace requires thermal energy. Transporting goods or people requires kinetic energy. In the case of cloth production, the fulling process requires kinetic energy to manipulate the fibers of the cloth. To deliver energy services, energy sources go through a series of transformations, known as the conversion chain (Brockway et al. 2019; Grubler et al. 2012). Energy is accessible to us through different carriers—known as primary energy sources (such as food, oil, or gas). In most use cases primary energy sources are then converted into other forms before delivering their service (Smil 2017b). This conversion is done by “conversion technologies.” Muscles are a “technology” that can be used to convert the chemical energy in food into mechanical energy. Oil or solar energy may be converted into electricity. Different economic processes may use multiple forms of energy with energy from multiple carriers requiring transformation multiple times. From the perspective of increasing labor productivity, what is important is having energy available to do “useful” work (meaning provide the specific energy services that serve the interests of the system) (Brockway et al. 2019). The more energy available to do useful work, the more economic activity can be carried out per person. One way to increase the amount of useful energy available is by adding new primary energy sources to the system. This process often requires new conversion processes that enable the energy in the primary energy sources to be accessed and converted into energy services. In the case of cloth production, the introduction of wind or water mills is an example of capital taking the form of a new conversion technology that enables access to a different primary energy source (Smil 2017b). In the human-powered treading process, solar energy is converted into chemical energy through the agricultural system. The chemical energy in food products acts as the primary energy source. People then eat this food, converting it to mechanical energy that manipulates the cloth as they tread it under foot. On the other hand, a wind or water mill introduces a new conversion technology that enables access to the energy available in wind and water by converting it into mechanical energy. Note that this process is not only about energy efficiency. Wind and water mills are typically more energy efficient than human-power, but just as crucially they are more powerful: they bring a greater quantity of energy into the process of cloth production (Smil 2017b). The importance of scale is seen across energy-economy analysis. Hall and Klitgaard (2012: 117) draw on Polyani’s (1944) substantive definition of an economy to argue that all economic activity is the application of work to transform natural resources into goods and services. In the past, most of the work of transformation was done through muscle-power, but today muscle-power is a much smaller proportion of total work carried out because of the development of machinery that allows us to supplement our muscles with the “‘large muscles’ of fossil fuels.” 3.2. Increasing energy efficiency There are places in The Wealth of Nations where we might hypothesize about energy efficiency gains explicitly. For instance, Smith tells an apocryphal tale involving a child and a fire engine, presented as an example of innovation leading to labor productivity growth. Smith writes that in the earliest fire engines a boy would be employed to open and shut different valves, until one such boy finds a way to connect the valves such that they “open and shut without his assistance” (Smith 1975: 20). Such an innovation adjusts capital in order to enable it to convert more of the primary energy source into useful energy. Prior to the boy’s innovation, the system required two primary energy inputs: the fossil energy to power the machine, and the food energy to power the boy. Once the boy innovates, the primary energy associated with his action is removed from the process and the machine uses only the fossil energy, thus increasing its overall energy efficiency. But machinery is not the only way in which humans’ access and turn energy flows toward growth of the economy in Smith’s capital theory. Smith considers the useful abilities of workers to be a form of capital and here we can see another place where energy efficiency may fit into Smiths capital theory. When defining the useful abilities of workers Smith refers to dexterity: the skills and abilities acquired by workers through the repetition and simplification of tasks. When defining dexterity Smith talks about it in terms of efficiency gains. For example, a worker specializing in the production of nails will become more skilled in their production, and hence more efficient (Smith 1975: 18). But nowhere does Smith imply that an increase in dexterity is miraculous. And although it is intimately bound up with social organization through the division of labor, we can see how energy may fit into the process. Specifically, the increase in dexterity can be understood as partly a function of the fact that energy flows are being used more efficiently. Workers learn the best way to stir the fire, to heat iron and shape the head of the nail. An increase in the skill of a worker enables them to use energy more efficiently. In this way, more efficient use of energy flows can be seen as one of the ways that the division of labor enables increases in productivity. 3.3. Summary of the energy-capital relation in The Wealth of Nations Smith views capital as the monetary and physical resources that are brought by capitalists into exchange processes with the intention of generating an income for themselves. Smith, like Marx, is clear that all production ultimately rests on inputs from the natural environment, so it is not surprising that in The Wealth of Nations we found examples of a subset of capital that generates profits by changing the way energy is used in production processes. Specifically, I presented two mechanisms that can be identified in The Wealth of Nations: bringing new energy sources into the economy (the transition from human power to wind and waterpower in the fulling process), and being made more energy efficient (through machinery innovations and specialization of labor). We can now apply this interpretation of Smith’s energy-capital theory to the question of low-carbon transitions. The examples I have elaborated support Steeds (2024: 35) notion that Smith has an “intuitive” understanding of energy. Some of the critical functions of Smith’s conception of capital can be explained in terms of how it mediates our relationship to energy. In this way, Smith’s reading is close to more modern accounts of the role of energy (Keen, Ayres, and Standish 2019, Sakai et al. 2019). But what differentiates Smith’s from these accounts is an explicit emphasis on the social context in which energy is used by capital. Some accounts of the energy-economy relationship effectively, or explicitly, reduce production to energy use. In Smith’s account by contrast, energy use is framed and shaped by social forces. Recalling Smith’s core understanding of capital from section 2, it is clear that energy is being harnessed by capital in an attempt to generate profits within a market process. In other words, in a capitalist economy where most production follows the logic of capital, the major driver of energy use will be the attempt to generate incomes for the owners of capital. This insight, though simple, is often overlooked and has profound implications for a low-carbon transition. 4. A Smithian Analysis of Low-Carbon Transitions Under Capitalism In this section, I apply the insights from the reading of Smith’s capital theory to historical data on energy use under capitalism. I argue that the theory provides a simple and compelling explanation for the constant expansion of energy use as new forms of energy have been added to the mix. Capitalists seek to use energy to grow their profits; therefore, they invest in efficiency measures or new energy sources in order to increase the total energy available to them. Energy is never saved in the sense of not being used. Rather, it is made available to new profit-seeking ventures. Across both mainstream and radical interventions into low-carbon transition debates, there is often a focus on the investment needed to grow low-carbon and energy efficiency programs (e.g., Hrnčić et al. 2021; Pollin 2015, 2019; Qadir et al. 2021). The central argument in these works is that low-carbon transitions require substantial but not unreasonable levels of investment in low-carbon energy and energy efficiency programs. Approaching this from the perspective of energy-capital relations developed in this article, we are looking at the need to transition capital from one conversion technology to another. Today, much capital takes the form of conversion technologies designed to access the energy in fossil fuels. For a low-carbon economy we need capital to take the form of conversion technologies that can access energy in wind, solar, or other low-carbon forms. It is tempting to think about this in terms of the transition described by Smith from labor power to wind power in the fulling process. However, there is a fundamental difference between the transition from one energy source to another as developed in The Wealth of Nations, and that needed in the low-carbon transition. Historically, transitions between dominant energy sources under capitalism have been consistent with Smith’s argument that capital is only motivated by the desire for profit. Past energy transitions under capitalism have been driven by a search for greater profits enabled by the new energy sources, not by pro-social or pro-ecological values. For example, Malm (2016) argues that the English transition from wood to water was driven by the desire of capitalists to concentrate and better control their workforce, simultaneously reducing losses from theft, making workers more efficient, and bringing a greater scale of energy into the production process. The consequence of the consistent searching for profits in capitalist energy transitions is that we have very few examples of energy sources declining under capitalism at the macro-scale. Under capitalism, energy transitions are better described as energy additions (York and Bell 2019). In recent decades, there has been a remarkable growth in the use of low-carbon energy sources, but at no point in this period has energy production from fossil fuels decreased (figure 1; Malanima 2022). Indeed, looking at the evolution of 9 categories of primary energy sources since 1820 (figure 1), only fodder has seen a prolonged decrease under capitalism. For instance, in absolute terms, energy from coal overtakes fuelwood as the largest primary energy carrier in the late 1800s. But after this point the energy supplied by fuelwood continues to grow. Even in the case of fodder, although it has been in decline for approximately sixty years it still provided more than twice as much energy in 2020 than it did in 1820. Looking specifically at low-carbon fuels, the charts for renewables and nuclear energy show dramatic spikes and rapid growth. But these spikes do not coincide with declines in any other fuel source, and the International Energy Agency (IEA 2023a, 2023b) reports that 2022 was an all-time high for coal production, and forecasts record oil production in 2024.   Figure 2 depicts global energy efficiency, the scale of global production, and the total primary energy use 1820–2018. Energy efficiency of the global capitalist economy has improved drastically over the two-hundred-year period covered: in 2018, producing one unit of output took only 40 percent of the energy it would have taken in 1820. But as energy efficiency has grown, so has total energy use and total output, and these changes dwarf the gains in energy efficiency. In 2018, 41 times as much energy was used as in 1820, while global production grew by 2 orders of magnitude over the same period.   From the lens of our interpretation of Smith’s capital theory, the constant expansion of fossil fuel use alongside renewables and energy efficiency gains is not surprising. The purpose of capital development and deployment in our Smithian lens is to increase income for capitalists by facilitating exchange. So, we would expect capitalists to invest in capital that enables them to access new sources of energy, like renewables, in order to bring a greater scale and quantity of energy into production. But we would also expect them to continue to invest in fossil fuels for the same reasons. More energy means more production means more profit. Likewise, we would expect capitalists to use their capital to increase energy efficiency: this reduces their costs. But we would also expect capitalists to take subsequent energy savings and use them to increase production further. As energy is used more efficiently in any given process, more energy is available to be used elsewhere in the economy or, as new energy sources are brought into production, the old sources are made available for new processes (Garrett 2014; Sakai et al. 2019; York and Bell 2019). As long as the capitalist appetite for greater incomes is present, they will seek to direct energy “savings” into new or expanded forms of production. The practical implication of this theoretical analysis is that investment in low-carbon energy sources and energy efficiency measures—no matter how bold the proposals—will not succeed without a change to the social dynamics of capitalist production. Achieving a low-carbon transition therefore requires the formidable task of coupling a large and sustained investment program in renewables and energy efficiency with a challenge to the structural logic of capital. This requires wide-ranging shifts within capitalist economies to build low-carbon energy infrastructure and develop ways of producing that disrupt the constant profit chasing of capital. The former is required to ensure action can begin now, while the latter is needed to ensure that low-carbon investments do not simply continue to expand the energy base of capitalist production. Elaborating on such possibilities is beyond the scope of this article. However, there are research programs that seek to understand alternatives to profit-driven capitalist production, notably work in post-capitalism and the post-growth/degrowth literatures that identify noncapitalist logics of production (Gibson-Graham 2014; Colombo, Bailey, and Gomes, 2024; Mair 2024; Vandeventer, Lloveras, and Warnaby 2024). A useful future direction for research lies in asking how such non-capitalist modes of production might be scaled and applied to the global energy system. 5. Conclusion In this article I have used a history of economic thought approach to analyze the relationship between energy and capital. Rereading The Wealth of Nations, I argued that Smith’s theory of capital is fundamentally socio-physical. Smith views capital as any accumulated resource that is used to support the exchange cycle of the market economy with the expectation that this will return a profit for the owner of the resource. Based on this reading, I argued that there are two ways in which energy might enter into Adam Smith’s capital theory: (1) capital is used to bring new energy sources into production; and (2) capital is used to make existing energy flows more efficient. Using this view of energy-capital relations, we can explain the major trends in historical energy-capital relations under capitalism. Over the last two hundred years, energy use has grown continuously, and the incorporation of new primary energy sources has not systematically led to reductions in older primary energy sources. This is consistent with the idea that capital is used to bring new energy sources into production. Investment in renewables is what we would expect: renewable energy technology allows capitalists to access new primary energy sources. They use this to generate more profits. They continue to invest in fossil fuel technology for the same reasons. Over the last two hundred years, there have been substantive gains in energy efficiency, and these have not led to reductions in energy use. This is consistent with the idea that capital is used to make energy use more efficient. The motivation of capitalists to make energy more efficient is to be more profitable. They then take energy savings from energy efficiency gains and use these to increase production, in an attempt to make more profits. The implication of this analysis is that investment in low-carbon technology and energy efficiency is the (relatively!) easy part of achieving a low-carbon transition. These dynamics are fundamentally compatible with the logics of capital. The barrier to achieving a low-carbon transition is that as long as this investment takes the form of “capital” (i.e., it chases profits and supports exchange processes), then it is unlikely that investment in renewables or energy efficiency programs will reduce energy use from fossil fuels. To achieve a low-carbon transition we must invest in low-carbon technology and energy efficiency, while simultaneously developing new organizational forms that challenge the capitalist dynamics of expansion and accumulation. AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank Christiane Heisse, Don Goldstein, and Robert McMaster, for their careful reviews and Enid Arvidson for her editorial work, all of which greatly improved the article. I would like to thank participants of the workshops Economic Theory for the Anthropocene (organized by the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity and the University of Surrey Institute for Advanced Studies) and The Political Economy of Capitalism (organized by the Institute for New Economic Thinking Young Scholar Initiative working groups on the Economics of Innovation and Economic History). Particular thanks to Richard Douglas, Angela Druckman, Ben Gallant, Elena Hofferberth, Tim Jackson, Andy Jarvis, Mary O’Sullivan, and Elke Pirgmaier for fruitful discussions. I would like to thank the Marxist Internet Archive for making The Wealth of Nations freely available.Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.FundingThe author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was partly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council through the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainability, grant no. ES/M010163/1.ORCID iDSimon Mair https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5143-8668Note1 The full sources for the Maddison Project Database are Abad and Van Zanden (2016); Álvarez-Nogal and De La Escosura (2013); Baffigi (2011); Barro and Ursúa (2008); Bassino et al. (2019); Bértola et al. (2012); Bértola (2016); Broadberry et al. (2015); Broadberry, Custodis, and Gupta (2015); Broadberry, Guan, and Li (2018); Buyst (2011); Cha et al. 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Revisiting Adam Smith’s theory of the falling rate of profit. International Journal of Social Economics 39 (5): 304–13. Van Zanden, Luiten Jan. 2012. Economic Growth in Java 1815–1939: The Reconstruction of the Historical National Accounts of a Colonial Economy. Unpublished Maddison-Project Working Paper no. WP 3. Groningen, the Netherlands: Groningen University. https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2020.Van Zanden, Luiten Jan, Van Leeuwen Bas. 2012. Persistent but not consistent: The growth of national income in Holland 1347–1807. Explorations in Economic History 49 (2): 119–30. Vandeventer James Scott, Lloveras Javier, Warnaby Gary. 2024. The transformative potential of everyday life: Shared space, togetherness, and everyday degrowth in housing. Housing, Theory and Society 41 (1): 69–88. Ward Marianne, Devereux John. 2012. The road not taken: Pre-revolutionary Cuban living standards in comparative perspective. The Journal of Economic History 72 (1): 104–32. Wu Harry X. 2013. China’s Growth and Productivity Performance Debate Revisited—Accounting for China’s Sources of Growth with a New Data Set. New York: The Conference Board. https://www.conference-board.org/publications/publicationdetail.cfm?publicationid=2690.Xu Yi, Shi Zhihong, van Leeuwen Bas, Ni Yuping, Zhang Zipeng, Ma Ye. 2017. Chinese national income, ca. 1661–1933. Australian Economic History Review 57 (3): 368–93. York Richard, Elizabeth Bell Shannon. 2019. Energy transitions or additions? Why a transition from fossil fuels requires more than the growth of renewable energy. Energy Research & Social Science 51: 40–43. 

Defense & Security
Hezbollah's supporters at Liberation Day (Bint Jbeil, 25 May 2014)

Hezbollah’s Hemispheric Backup: Strategic Redundancy in South America

by Jeffery A. Tobin

When Hezbollah makes headlines, it’s usually in reference to its military entrenchment in southern Lebanon, its alignment with Iran, or its influence on the internal politics of Beirut. Rarely does the Western Hemisphere—let alone South America—enter the discussion. And when it does, the framing tends to follow a familiar arc: Hezbollah, in search of hard currency, has plugged itself into narcotics, smuggling, and money laundering networks across the continent, particularly in the Tri-Border Area of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. This framing is not entirely wrong—but it is incomplete. The prevailing analysis treats Hezbollah’s South American activity as an opportunistic extension of its Middle Eastern operations: a way to fund the real action elsewhere (Sánchez-Azuara 2024). But this view underestimates the strategic thinking behind the group’s presence in the region. It also overlooks what Hezbollah has built. This is not a haphazard criminal sideline. It is a strategic redundancy network—a deliberately constructed system that enables Hezbollah to replicate key elements of its logistical, financial, and operational architecture outside the Middle East. In engineering, redundancy is the backbone of resilience. Critical systems—airplanes, power grids, even satellites—include backups not because failure is likely, but because failure must not be catastrophic. Hezbollah has applied this principle to its global infrastructure. In South America, it has established a parallel network that functions as an insurance policy. When borders close in the Levant, when sanctions bite into banks in Beirut, when surveillance escalates in Damascus or Baghdad, Hezbollah’s South American infrastructure absorbs the shock. It keeps the lights on. Quietly. Hezbollah’s footprint in South America must be reinterpreted in light of this logic. Its operations are not merely about funding jihad, nor do they reflect simple criminal diversification. Rather, they represent a strategic adaptation: a forward-looking response to growing constraints in the Middle East and a model of globalized insurgency capable of surviving geopolitical disruption. By embedding itself in regions with weak enforcement, complex diasporas, and pliable state actors, Hezbollah has created a system that mirrors and supplements its core operational capacities in Lebanon. The implications ripple outward to multinational corporations, humanitarian NGOs, diplomatic missions, and financial institutions operating in the Western Hemisphere. More Than a Militia: A Low-Burn Threat with High-Stakes Implications for South America Most strategic planning in the Americas does not seriously account for Hezbollah. But Hezbollah includes the Americas in its strategy—and has for years. Reports by the U.S. State Department, regional intelligence agencies, and investigative journalists have traced its fundraising and logistics operations as far back as the 1980s. The group’s involvement in the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy and the 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires shocked the region and revealed its operational reach. Yet even after those attacks, Hezbollah’s local infrastructure remained largely untouched. Over time, it adapted—becoming quieter, less kinetic, and more commercially embedded. Today, Hezbollah’s presence in the region extends beyond Argentina. Its operatives and facilitators maintain networks across Paraguay, Brazil, Venezuela, and increasingly, Panama and Chile. In some areas, the group benefits from corrupt municipal officials and overburdened law enforcement. In others, it leverages familial ties within Lebanese diaspora communities—many of which have resided in South America for generations and engage in wholly legitimate commerce. This duality allows Hezbollah to move seamlessly between legal and illegal domains, between visibility and invisibility. What is more, Hezbollah’s activities in South America illustrate a critical shift in how non-state actors pursue durability. The post-9/11 focus on active cells, kinetic operations, and centralized command has obscured the ways in which militant groups evolve under pressure. Hezbollah’s Latin American strategy reflects not just persistence, but future-proofing. It prepares the group to operate, fundraise, and survive—even if Lebanon’s political landscape collapses or U.S. and Israeli countermeasures grow more precise. This is what makes Hezbollah’s Latin American footprint so consequential—and so misunderstood. It does not need to launch attacks from Buenos Aires or Caracas to matter. Its function lies elsewhere: in logistics, in mobility, in backup planning. Its value is latent—until it isn’t. This article reexamines Hezbollah’s presence in South America as a strategic redundancy network—a global infrastructure designed to insulate the organization from volatility in its home region. It maps Hezbollah’s key nodes across the Tri-Border Area, Brazil, and Venezuela; analyzes how this network blends ideology, crime, and strategic depth; and assesses the risks these structures pose to multinational companies, diplomatic missions, and local governance. By shifting the analytical lens from terrorism-as-attack to terrorism-as-infrastructure, we gain a more accurate understanding of Hezbollah’s evolution. We also sharpen our ability to assess long-term risks that don’t always announce themselves through violence. The threat is not just in what Hezbollah does—but in what it has already built. To understand Hezbollah’s long game in South America, we must stop treating its regional footprint as a patchwork of illicit side hustles and begin seeing it for what it is: a modular system, designed to flex and absorb pressure. Its parts do not function in isolation. They interlock—geographically, financially, and politically—to provide resilience against external disruption (Fanusie and Entz 2017). The Tri-Border Area and Venezuela anchor this network. One provides operational depth; the other, state-enabled sanctuary. This networked approach reflects a deliberate organizational logic: decentralization without disintegration. Hezbollah doesn’t need to command every operation from Beirut to exert control. Instead, it builds regional capacities—trusted facilitators, revenue-generating enterprises, covert logistics—that can operate semi-autonomously while remaining ideologically and financially tethered to the core. The value lies in the system’s adaptability. South America’s legal pluralism, infrastructural gaps, and uneven political allegiances allow Hezbollah to embed itself in multiple jurisdictions, each contributing to a broader architecture of operational continuity. The redundancy isn’t accidental—it’s engineered to allow Hezbollah to absorb disruption without systemic collapse. At the confluence of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina lies the Tri-Border Area, a notorious gray zone where Hezbollah has operated with continuity for over three decades (Marinides 2021). Since the 1990s, the group has leveraged this region’s smuggling economy, its cash-based transactions, and its thin rule of law to generate income and obscure its footprints (Giambertoni March 2025; Singh & Lamar 2024). More than a staging ground, the region functions as a logistical twin to Hezbollah’s Levantine infrastructure: cash businesses, hawala systems, safe houses, and a deep bench of operatives linked by blood, marriage, and communal identity. The Lebanese diaspora, concentrated in cities like Ciudad del Este and Foz do Iguaçu, provides both legitimacy and opacity. While most community members engage in legal commerce, Hezbollah operatives exploit social and familial networks to build financial pipelines and conceal movement. Individuals like Assad Ahmad Barakat—an alleged financier whose web of import-export businesses stretched across Paraguay and Brazil—reveal the sophistication and scale of these operations (BBC 2018). But what makes the Tri-Border Area especially valuable is not just what Hezbollah can do there—it’s what it can replicate. This zone mirrors the group’s operational core: informal financial tools, plausible cover, limited state oversight. It offers a plug-and-play platform that persists even when international pressure tightens elsewhere. If the Tri-Border Area is Hezbollah’s logistical limb, Venezuela is its political lung—a place where the group doesn’t just operate despite the state but, increasingly, through it. Under the leadership of Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela has extended cover to Hezbollah-linked actors in ways that surpass tolerance and verge on partnership. Evidence abounds. In 2015, reports emerged that Venezuelan authorities had issued passports, national ID cards, and even birth certificates to individuals with suspected ties to Hezbollah and other extremist groups (Humire 2020). These documents grant mobility across Latin America and even into Europe. Meanwhile, direct flights between Caracas and Tehran—often operated by Iran’s Mahan Air, a U.S.-sanctioned airline with alleged ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—further illustrate the depth of coordination. Financial networks also interlace. Venezuelan state-owned banks, particularly under Chávez, were reportedly used to move funds on behalf of Hezbollah-aligned entities, sometimes in cooperation with Lebanese banks later implicated in terror financing (Testimony, U.S. Congress 2011). This alignment is less ideological than pragmatic: Hezbollah gains security, access, and mobility; Venezuela gains a partner in sanctions circumvention and international leverage. Crucially, Venezuela adds a layer of strategic camouflage to Hezbollah’s hemispheric model. While the TBA offers discretion, Caracas offers impunity (Berg 2022). The group can move assets, people, and ideas through Venezuelan channels under the guise of diplomatic exchanges or dual-national transactions. This is state-enabled redundancy: not merely a lack of enforcement, but the active insulation of Hezbollah’s operational flexibility. Together, these zones demonstrate that Hezbollah’s South American presence is not improvised—it is layered. When Argentine prosecutors expose a cell in Buenos Aires, networks in São Paulo remain untouched. When Brazil clamps down on a hawala chain, cash still flows through real estate deals in Caracas. The system is designed to endure partial failure, the way cloud computing routes around downed servers or insurgent groups retreat into sympathetic terrain. The architecture matters because it reveals the logic behind Hezbollah’s global adaptation. This is not a franchise operation outsourced to disconnected local actors. It is a strategic mesh that functions like a second operating system: invisible unless you’re looking for it, vital when the primary network goes offline. And increasingly, Hezbollah seems to assume that its primary network will face pressure—from war, collapse, sanctions, or surveillance. Its bet on South America is a bet on resilience: that geography, corruption, and complexity will give it space to breathe, to rebuild, to persist (Vianna de Azevedo 2018). If Hezbollah’s operations in South America offer strategic redundancy, then its model of action is what enables that redundancy to function. Hezbollah is no longer simply a militant group with a sideline in organized crime—it is a criminal-security complex, able to blend ideological loyalty, transnational finance, and illicit commerce into a coherent infrastructure. This hybridization is not an accident of globalization. It is an intentional adaptation: a convergence of warfighting, financing, and shadow governance designed to give the group longevity across regions and regimes. The group’s operations across South America exemplify this logic. Hezbollah traffics in cocaine not because it is drifting ideologically, but because narcotrafficking enables financial independence (Cengiz and Pardo-Herrera, 2023). It launders money through construction firms, front charities, and black-market trade not just to enrich itself, but to diversify revenue streams that are otherwise vulnerable to sanctions, asset freezes, and regulatory scrutiny. The criminal activity is not peripheral—it is integral. It funds social services in Lebanon, underwrites salaries, and maintains Hezbollah’s standing as both a state within a state and an actor without borders. Although Hezbollah’s operations in South America often emphasize logistics, finance, and redundancy, this does not mean the group has abandoned violent ambitions in the region. It has a bloody legacy. In more recent years, several planned attacks have been foiled. In 2023, Brazilian police stopped a Hezbollah-linked plot to assassinate Jewish community members in São Paulo (Ottolenghi 2024). In 2024, Peruvian police arrested Majid Azizi, who was linked to Iran’s Quds force and a plan to kill Israelis (Associated Press 2024). These incidents reinforce that Hezbollah’s South American presence is not merely infrastructural—it remains strategically capable of violence, should conditions allow or directives come from the group’s central leadership. Critically, Hezbollah’s integration into South America’s illicit economies also offers another layer of camouflage. In regions like the Tri-Border Area or peri-urban zones of São Paulo and Caracas, Hezbollah-linked actors look indistinguishable from the broader ecology of criminality—traffickers, smugglers, forgers, corrupt customs agents. This horizontal integration into shared logistics chains, financial systems, and market ecosystems makes it harder to isolate and disrupt Hezbollah’s footprint without simultaneously challenging broader organized crime structures. The result is a kind of strategic opacity: Hezbollah disappears not by hiding, but by blending in. For multinational corporations, humanitarian NGOs, and diplomatic missions operating in South America, this criminal-security complex presents a growing, if largely unacknowledged, threat. The risk does not lie in direct targeting—there is little evidence that Hezbollah seeks to attack Western firms or consulates on South American soil. Rather, the danger lies in proximity and entanglement (Giambertoni April 2025). Financial institutions may unwittingly process laundered money that ultimately funds Hezbollah’s activities. Logistics companies may contract with Hezbollah-linked freight operators (FinCEN 2024). NGOs operating in diaspora communities may encounter pressure, coercion, or exploitation. Extractive industries—especially in energy, mining, and infrastructure—face particular exposure (Chehayeb 2023). These sectors rely on subcontractors, regional supply chains, and informal agreements that can overlap with Hezbollah’s facilitation networks. The opacity of ownership structures in some Latin American business environments makes it difficult to know where one entity ends and another begins. A subcontractor in Brazil with access to port logistics might also be part of a shell company system that channels funds back to Beirut. A bonded warehouse in Ciudad del Este may function both as a legitimate import hub and a conduit for hawala-based financing tied to Hezbollah’s broader network. For diplomats, the risks are different but no less concerning. In states with fragile institutions or politicized security services—such as Venezuela or parts of Paraguay—Hezbollah-linked actors may enjoy informal protection from scrutiny. Intelligence-sharing becomes inconsistent. Local officials may be compromised. Embassies may be surveilled—not just by hostile governments, but by non-state actors with access to state resources (Giambertoni March 2025). In these contexts, the lines between criminal enterprise, political patronage, and extremist logistics begin to blur. These risks remain under-assessed. Most private-sector risk management strategies focus on regulatory compliance, physical security, and reputational threats. Few include Hezbollah in their risk matrix—particularly outside of the Middle East. Similarly, many Western diplomatic missions in Latin America treat terrorism as a foreign concern, rather than an embedded dimension of local security dynamics. This leaves a strategic blind spot: a low-visibility, high-impact network capable of exerting pressure not through acts of violence, but through slow, systemic infiltration of commerce, finance, and institutional space. Hezbollah’s strength lies not only in its weapons, but in its ability to move undetected through legal and illegal spheres (Realuyo 2023). Its South American network functions because it is underestimated—because it doesn’t look like a threat until it’s too late. For governments and global businesses alike, failing to recognize this hybrid model is not just an analytical error. It is a real vulnerability. Policy Recommendations If Hezbollah’s operations in South America represent a strategic redundancy network, then our policy responses must move beyond traditional counterterrorism frameworks. We can no longer afford to treat Hezbollah as a regionally bounded threat or assume that the absence of direct attacks in the Western Hemisphere equates to the absence of risk (Williams & Quincoses 2019). What’s needed is a recalibration of threat assessment tools—across intelligence, diplomacy, and corporate risk management—that recognizes Hezbollah’s global infrastructure as a durable, layered, and often latent system of power. Four policy recommendations are set out below. (1) Reframe Counterterrorism to Include Redundancy Networks. Current counterterrorism paradigms often emphasize active cells, plots, and kinetic capability. But Hezbollah’s South American presence thrives in the space between categories—not as an imminent military threat, but as a strategic platform for financing, mobility, and long-term resilience. Intelligence agencies and regional policymakers should explicitly include redundancy mapping in their threat assessments. This means tracing not only individual actors but also financial pipelines, logistics corridors, and diaspora-based facilitation networks.Tools developed to combat transnational organized crime—such as financial intelligence units, sanctions compliance structures, and asset-tracing software—should be integrated into counterterrorism workflows. This is particularly important in countries with weak institutional capacity. Regional partnerships, including within the Organization of American States, should prioritize shared methodologies for identifying overlapping illicit economies that enable both criminal and extremist actors to operate with impunity. (2) Build Strategic Partnerships with the Private Sector. Hezbollah’s infrastructure often intersects with legitimate commercial activities: shipping, construction, hospitality, real estate. As such, private sector actors—including banks, insurers, freight companies, and law firms—are essential stakeholders in any meaningful containment strategy. Governments should expand existing public-private initiatives, like those managed through financial transparency task forces and corporate compliance alliances, to include modules specific to extremist logistics and terrorism-financing risk in the Americas.This also means equipping multinational corporations with the right conceptual frameworks. Current risk matrices focus on political instability, cyber threats, and reputational harm. Few companies assess whether their contractors, vendors, or local partners may serve as inadvertent facilitators of a terrorist redundancy system. Governments can assist by anonymizing and sharing case studies, refining due diligence protocols, and funding third-party investigative work through credible local partners and NGOs. (3) Close Gaps in International and Interagency Coordination. Despite ample documentation of Hezbollah’s activities in the region, international coordination remains ad hoc and episodic. U.S., European, and Latin American enforcement agencies often operate on different threat models, timelines, and political sensitivities. For example, while the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned several Hezbollah-linked individuals and entities in Paraguay and Brazil, host governments have sometimes been reluctant to pursue follow-up action due to domestic constraints or regional geopolitics.To close these gaps, threat fusion centers and regional counterterrorism dialogues must prioritize cross-agency and cross-border approaches. This includes better integration of customs, immigration, and financial enforcement authorities—not just traditional intelligence bodies. Multilateral cooperation should also include non-traditional allies, such as financial technology platforms, compliance software firms, and investigative journalists, all of whom bring unique capabilities to mapping and disrupting Hezbollah’s hemispheric infrastructure. (4) Recognize the Role of State Complicity and Use Diplomatic Leverage Accordingly. Where Hezbollah has flourished, state complicity or neglect has often played a role. Venezuela’s documented provision of false identification documents and banking channels illustrates how strategic partnerships—whether ideological or transactional—can deepen terrorist networks’ resilience. The United States and its allies must tailor their diplomatic messaging and aid strategies accordingly, making clear that support for terrorist-enabling behavior comes with long-term costs.Sanctions regimes must be selective but targeted. Blanket restrictions can alienate host populations and drive illicit actors further underground, while targeted designations—such as those aimed at specific facilitators or entities—can disrupt network nodes without provoking state backlash. Where possible, quiet diplomacy should accompany enforcement, ensuring that pressure is matched by the offer of capacity-building or reputational incentives for cooperation. A smarter approach to Hezbollah’s South American infrastructure doesn’t require new tools so much as a new lens. This is not a traditional terrorist threat—it is a system of persistence, one that blends into markets, moves through paperwork, and grows in spaces where governance is uneven (Biersteker 2016). If left unchallenged, it will not just endure. It will adapt. Conclusion: The Quiet Power of a Backup Plan Hezbollah’s presence in South America is not incidental, improvised, or peripheral. It is engineered. For decades, the group has invested in a hemispheric infrastructure that does not rely on violence to assert its importance. Instead, it does something more dangerous in the long run: it endures. By embedding itself in transnational supply chains, black-market economies, diaspora communities, and state-permissive jurisdictions, Hezbollah has constructed a strategic redundancy network—a system designed not for visibility, but for survivability. This network operates on a different frequency from the one to which most counterterrorism frameworks are attuned. It does not seek attention. It does not announce itself through spectacular attacks. It functions in latency—ready to fund, shelter, transport, or regenerate Hezbollah’s central operations when other routes are disrupted. Like any sophisticated backup system, it exists precisely because failure elsewhere is assumed to be inevitable. The danger lies in underestimating this architecture. Policy models that focus solely on immediate threats—explosives, plots, active cells—miss the strategic significance of a group that is thinking in decades, not news cycles. Hezbollah has learned to operate across borders, sectors, and enforcement regimes. It has turned globalization into a defensive perimeter. And it has done so largely beneath the radar of both policymakers and corporate risk officers. To respond, we must broaden our conception of what constitutes a threat. Hezbollah’s South American operations do not simply reflect a terrorist group looking for cash—they reflect a networked actor preparing for disruption, building flexibility into its geography, financial systems, and political alliances. This demands more than sporadic sanctions or headline-driven crackdowns. It requires an integrated strategy that sees terrorist groups not only as fighters or financiers, but as strategic planners. The lesson of Hezbollah in South America is not that terrorism has gone quiet—it’s that it has gone infrastructure-first. If we continue to ignore the scaffolding in favor of the storm, we will continue to be surprised not by what Hezbollah does—but by how ready it is when the time comes. ReferencesBiersteker, Thomas J. 2016. “The effectiveness of United Nations targeted sanctions.” In Targeted Sanctions: The Impacts and Effectiveness of United Nations Action. Edited by Thomas J. Biersteker, Sue E. Eckert, and Marcos Tourinho. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Berg, Ryan. “Venezuela’s Mystery Plane Shows Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America,” U.S. Army, Training and Doctrine Command G-2, Foreign Military Studies Office, July 1, 2022.Cengiz, Mahmut, and Camilo Pardo-Herrera. “Hezbollah’s Global Networks and Latin American Cocaine Trade,” Small Wars Journal, April 26, 2023.Chehayeb, Kareem. “US sanctions Lebanon-South America network accused of financing Hezbollah.” Associated Press. September 12, 2023. https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-sanctions-hezbollah-ofac-c1e66bb0941ee01832aafbcc448856ceFanusie, Yaya J., and Alex Entz. “Hezbollah Financial Assessment,” Terror Finance Briefing Book, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance, September 2017.“FinCEN Alert to Financial Institutions to Counter Financing of Hizballah and its Terrorist Activities.” U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. October 23, 2024. https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/FinCEN-Alert-Hizballah-Alert-508C.pdfGiambertoni, Marzia. “Hezbollah’s Networks in Latin America.” RAND. March 31, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PEA3585-1.htmlGiambertoni, Marzia. “Hezbollah’s Network on America’s Southern Doorstep.” RAND. April 1, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/04/hezbollahs-network-on-americas-southern-doorstep.html“‘Hezbollah treasurer’ Barakat arrested in Brazil border city.” BBC. September 21, 2018. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45610738Humire, Joseph B. 2020. “The Maduro-Hezbollah Nexus: How Iran-backed Networks Prop up the Venezuelan Regime.” The Atlantic Council. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/the-maduro-hezbollah-nexus-how-iran-backed-networks-prop-up-the-venezuelan-regime/“Judge orders preventative detention for Iranian and 2 Peruvians in thwarted plot to kill Israelis.” Associated Press. April 24, 2024. https://apnews.com/article/peru-iran-killing-plot-detention-israeli-b89d6b69b182feafb96b44cbdefa190aMarinides, Demetrios. “Hezbollah in Latin America: A Potential Grey Zone Player in Great Power Competition.” William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, National Defense University, September 2021.Ottolenghi, Emanuele. 2024. “Hezbollah Terror Plot in Brazil.” International Institute for Counter-Terrorism. https://ict.org.il/hezbollah-terror-plot-in-brazil/Realuyo, Celina B. “Rising Concerns about Hezbollah in Latin America Amid Middle East Conflict.” Weekly Asado. Wilson Center. December 1, 2023. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/rising-concerns-about-hezbollah-latin-america-amid-middle-east-conflictSánchez-Azuara, Raúl. “Hezbollah, Entrenched in Latin America,” Diálogo Américas, March 15, 2024.Singh, Rasmi, and Jorge Lamar. “Underworld Crossroads: Dark Networks and Global Illicit Trade in the Tri-border Area Between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.” Small Wars Journal. August 6, 2024. https://smallwarsjournal.com/2024/08/06/underworld-crossroads-dark-networks-and-global-illicit-trade-tri-border-area-between/Vianna de Azevedo, Christian. 2018. “Venezuela’s toxic relations with Iran and Hezbollah: An avenue of violence, crime, corruption and terrorism.” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Policiais 9(1): 43-90.Williams, Phil, and Sandra Quincoses. 2019. “The Evolution of Threat Networks in Latin America.” Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy. Florida International University. https://gordoninstitute.fiu.edu/research/research-publications/evolution-of-threat-networks-in-latam.pdf

Energy & Economics
Los Angeles, CA USA - May 23 2025 : Donald Trump on Climate Change, Drill Baby Drill

The temporal logic of Trump II’s climate denialism

by Heikki Patomäki

In a landmark advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on 23 July 2025 that all UN member states have legal obligations under international law to address climate change, which the court described as an existential threat to life on Earth. Powerful countries too must be held responsible for their current emissions and past inaction. Possibly in anticipation of such a ruling, Chris Wright, the US Secretary of Energy and former chief executive of Liberty Energy (an oilfield services company), published an article in The Economist a week earlier, arguing that “climate change is a by-product of progress, not an existential crisis”. Whereas the ICJ relied primarily on the IPCC reports, “which participants agree constitute the best available science on the causes, nature and consequences of climate change”, Wright’s view is based on a particular temporal logic.  According to the IPCC reports, most greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels, with additional emissions from agriculture, deforestation, industry, and waste. They drive global warming, which is projected to reach 1.5°C between 2021 and 2040, with 2°C likely to follow. Even 1.5°C is not considered safe for most nations, communities, and ecosystems, and according to IPCC, only deep, rapid, and sustained emission cuts can slow warming and reduce the escalating risks and damages. The 2024 state of the climate report, published in BioScience, presents even more worrying assessments. Among other things, the report cites surveys indicating that nearly 80% of these scientists anticipate global temperatures increasing by at least 2.5°C above preindustrial levels by the end of the century, and nearly half of them foresee a rise of at least 3°C.  Wright’s article suggests that the issue of amplifying doubt about climate change may have little to do with engagement with science but rather reflects a deeper temporal logic. This logic is rooted in a Whiggish account of progress to date, a resistance to the reality of the future and the desire for nostalgic restoration. I will explain these elements one by one. The first tier: Whiggism Wright disagrees with most scientific anticipations. His views are likely representative not only of the Trump II administration but also of conservative right-wing populism more generally. It is difficult to understand their climate denialism without an analysis of their views on time and temporality. The most important question concerns the reality of the future. At the first level, Wright provides a kind of textbook example of Whig history, portraying progress as linear, inevitable, and driven by liberal values. Herbert Butterfield introduced the idea of Whig history in his influential 1931 book The Whig Interpretation of History as a critique of a specific way of writing history that he regarded as flawed and intellectually dishonest. Focusing on inevitable progress distorts historical analysis by promoting simplified cause-and-effect reasoning and selective storytelling, emphasising present-day evaluation (and glorification) over understanding the real causes of historical change. In a Whiggish manner, Wright claims that the last 200 years have seen two big changes to the human condition: “human liberty” and affordable energy. As a result of these two things, life expectancy has nearly doubled, and the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has dropped from 90% to 10%. However, Wright’s argumentation is based on non-contextual and, in that sense, timeless representations of the world, despite its “progressivism”.  For example, consider the claim that extreme poverty has dropped from 90% to 10%. It is based on using a fixed dollar threshold, such as USD 2 per day, to measure poverty over 200 years. This is misleading because most people in the 19th century lived in largely non-monetised economies where subsistence needs were met outside of market exchange, and monetary income was minimal or irrelevant. These metrics also obscure shifting and context-bound definitions of basic needs; rely on incomplete historical data; and ignore the role of colonial dispossession and structural inequality in shaping global poverty. While it is true that life expectancy has doubled, largely due to improvements in hygiene and healthcare, the idea that extreme poverty has plummeted from 90% to under 10% also ignores the fact that the global population has grown eightfold, affecting the entire Earth system with devastating ecological and geological consequences. It further ignores that the rise in life expectancy and poverty reduction has come not only from liberalism or economic growth more generally but from ethical and political struggles and public health interventions. Often, these struggles have been fought in the name of socialism and won despite capitalist incentives, market mechanisms, and related political forces. The second tier: blockism At a deeper level, Wright’s views seem to presuppose what Roy Bhaskar calls “blockism”: the postulation of a simultaneous conjunctive totality of all events. This may sound abstract, but it has been a common assumption among many 20th-century physicists and philosophers that the universe forms a static, closed totality. This view stems from an atomist ontology, where individuals are seen as abstract, events follow regular patterns, time is viewed as spatial, and laws that can be expressed mathematically are considered reversible.  In such a conception, time appears as just another “spatial” dimension. According to the block universe model, the past, present, and future all exist equally and tenselessly. The universe is imagined as a four-dimensional geometric object, like a “block” of spacetime. Time is not something that “flows” or “passes”; instead, all moments are spatially extended points in a timeless whole. Blockism suggests that change and becoming are not truly real but are simply parts of our subjective experience.  The real challenge is to reconcile Whiggism and blockism. Wright is not a theorist and might not need to worry about the coherence of his ideas, but the issue is that Whiggism assumes movement, direction, and a normatively positive evolution of change, whereas the block universe denies real temporality: there is no becoming, no novelty, no agency – only timeless existence. Some versions of the block universe attempt to preserve development by proposing that the block grows. The “block” expands as new events are added to reality, but in this view, the present defines the upper boundary of the block, and the future is not truly real. This appears to be consistent with what Wright says about climate change. Everything he has to say about global warming is limited to one short paragraph: We will treat climate change as what it is: not an existential crisis but a real, physical phenomenon that is a by-product of progress. Yes, atmospheric CO2 has increased over time – but so has life expectancy. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty. Modern medicine, telecommunications and global transportation became possible. I am willing to take the modest negative trade-off for this legacy of human advancement. From the ICJ’s perspective, this interpretation is dreadful, as the current impacts of climate change are already at odds with the rights of many groups of people. It also exhibits basic injustice, as many of the groups that suffer the most from these impacts have done next to nothing to cause the problem. However, here I am mostly concerned with the temporality of Wright’s claims. This temporality is a combination of Whiggism and blockism: so far, history has exhibited progress, but time and processes stop here, in our present moment. The third tier: nostalgia Wright’s view of time is not limited to an ultimately incoherent combination of Whiggism and blockism. There is also more than a mere hint of nostalgia. This is evident in the appeal of a Golden Age at the outset of his article: I am honoured to advance President Donald Trump’s policy of bettering lives through unleashing a golden age of energy dominance – both at home and around the world. The appeal to the Golden Age somewhat contradicts Whiggism. From a nostalgic perspective, it seems that society has been on a downward trajectory instead of progressing. In other words, regression must be possible. Within an overall Whiggish narrative, one can blame certain actors, such as the Democrats in the US political context, for causing moral and political decline.  A nationalist narrative of a “golden age” and a return to a better past (“making us great again”) is essentially connected to the denial of planetary-scale problems, such as climate change, that would clearly require novel global responses. Climate change from a real-time perspective By merging Whiggism with a block-universe ontology (either static or growing), one ends up with a pseudo-historicism that speaks of “progress” while erasing real time. In a way, such a view “performs change” through a highly selective historical narrative, while denying the ontological preconditions of real change. Real change – emergence, transformation, causation – requires a temporal ontology, where the future is real though not yet fully determined. Thus, there is no mention of global emissions that have continued to rise, their delayed effects, feedback loops, or emergent risks given multiple processes of intertwined changes. Are the basic IPCC models based on real historical time? IPCC models often treat the climate system as a bounded system with internally consistent and deterministic dynamics. The IPCC relies on modelling and uses Bayesian methods to assess uncertainties in climate projections. Bayesian statistics involve updating the probability of a hypothesis as more evidence becomes available, based on prior knowledge (priors) and new data (likelihoods). Such an approach tends to be conservative (based on moving averages, for example) and assumes the quantifiability of uncertainty. It may also convey illusory precision, especially when the underlying models or data are uncertain or incomplete. The IPCC models nonetheless indicate – in contrast to Wright – that the future is real, though the future is approached in a somewhat cautious and deterministic manner. However, many climate scientists go beyond the IPCC consensus by assuming that global heating may reach 2.5 °C or even above 3 °C degree warming by the end of the century.  From a critical scientific realist viewpoint, even such anticipations may be too circumspect. Assuming exponential growth (involving cascading events etc.) and given that recent data shows a rise from 1.0°C to 1.5°C in just 15 years (actual data taken on an annual basis, not moving averages), and using this as a basis for anticipating the future, we seem likely to reach the 2 °C mark in the 2040s and the 3 °C mark in the 2060s.  The plausibility of anticipations depends significantly on how the real openness of the future is treated. Anticipations are reflexive and can shape the future. Real time and historical change involves human freedom and ethics. The evolving universe, where time is real, is stratified, processual, and open-ended. Time involves genuine processes, real possibilities, agency, and emergent structures. Such characteristics indicate that the future is not predetermined but can be shaped by transformative agency.  To sum up, from a real historical time perspective, Wright’s combination of Whiggism, blockism, and nostalgia is a recipe for reactionary politics. Glorifying the present, thinking in a timeless way, and longing for a golden age of the past can play a major role in bringing about a dystopian planetary future.