Reflectii

Why Labour’s Sweeping Victory May Not Reverse the Country’s Decline

Although the polls had been predicting it for many months, the result of the United Kingdom’s July 4 general election was nonetheless stunning. This was the worst performance in the 190-year history of the Conservative Party. It lost almost half its share of the vote and 250 parliamentary seats. One former prime minister (Liz Truss), nine cabinet ministers (including the secretaries of defense, education, and justice), and other prominent Conservative figureheads were unceremoniously ejected from the House of Commons by their constituents. This was a tidal wave of anger washing over not just outgoing prime minister Rishi Sunak but also the last 14 years of Tory rule, and it made landfall with a deafening roar.

The fireworks in America this Fourth of July will be fuelled by the country’s imminent election, in which a convicted felon faces off against a doddering old man who is too senile to know that he isn’t really the President. The country’s elite would be glad if this were hyperbole; unfortunately for them, it is not. But Joe Biden’s fitness for office is no longer the big question that the American press is afraid to ask. After three years of near-total silence, they suddenly can’t stop asking it.

Attitudes on the war paint a complex picture where existential security threats are twisted by domestic political dynamics, but a sense of weariness is becoming evident even in the region’s most pro-Ukrainian countries.

The recent revelations by Australia’s national broadcaster, ABC, detailing the covert expulsion of four Indian intelligence officers in 2020, have stirred significant concern within the international community. These officers, allegedly attempting to infiltrate sensitive defense technologies and monitor the Indian-Australian community, highlight a troubling dimension of India’s intelligence operations abroad under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.

Most people, if they were asked to list the great seafaring peoples of history, or more specifically the great naval fighting traditions, would come up with a fairly uniform list. There are obviously the two great naval powers of modernity in the British Empire and the United States (though the latter is now not without challengers), and the navigators of the first transatlantic empires in Portugal and Spain. China had a brief period of prolific shipbuilding and navigation in the early modern period, but was disinterested in trying to leverage this into durable power projection. Modern China seeks to rectify this missed opportunity. A deeper dive into the mental archives might churn up the ancient Phoenicians, or perhaps the Genoese and Venetian city states that dominated the Mediterranean in the early modern period. There are those wonderful Vikings, who managed to reach the Americas in their open hulled longboats, and terrorized and colonized much of Europe with their nautical reach. Few, however, would immediately think of the Romans.

On entend souvent, dans la bouche des rabbins, que l’antisémitisme est la jalousie de celui qui n’a pas été choisi par Dieu — une sorte de complexe de Caïn.

Jacques Attali propose une variante plus subtile : «l’antisémitisme trouve sa source principale dans la détestation de celui à qui on voudrait ne rien devoir.» Que doivent les chrétiens aux juifs ? Dieu. Avant les juifs, nous ne connaissions pas Dieu. Grâce à eux, nous Le connaissons. Notre dette est incommensurable. Ça nous énerve.

Dans l’histoire des sociétés humaines, la concentration du pouvoir entre les mains d’une minorité privilégiée est un phénomène récurrent qui soulève des questions fondamentales sur la nature du pouvoir, la justice sociale et les fondements de la démocratie. Les oligarchies, ces systèmes où une élite restreinte exerce une influence disproportionnée sur la vie politique et économique d’un pays, incarnent cette tendance à la cristallisation du pouvoir.

Over the last month or two, the western media has been full of talk about “war” with Russia, and potentially other countries as well. For some, “World War 3” is now inevitable, for others “nuclear war” is just around the corner, for still others, because NATO and the West have agreed to transfer weapons that can theoretically strike Russia) this will inevitably “lead to full-scale war,” for still still others, the agreement signed in Pyongyang between Russia and North Korea will inevitably “lead to war”, and for yet others still, the West, and especially the US, is planning some kind of “war with China.” Here in France, serious articles have been written asking whether France will be “at war” with Russia, if the much discussed but so far not implemented proposals to send French specialists to Ukraine actually come about.

Alors que l’OTAN et ses mandataires néo-nazis coordonnent leurs frappes à longue distance avec des attaques terroristes au plus profond de la Russie (une menace qu’ils ont déjà formulée à plusieurs reprises et qu’ils sont en train de mettre à exécution, comme en témoignent les derniers événements au Daghestan), les États membres orientaux de l’alliance belligérante se préparent à entrer effectivement dans le conflit, même si ce n’est pas de manière officielle. En effet, tout comme les moyens ISR (renseignement, surveillance, reconnaissance) de l’OTAN sont utilisés pour des attaques à longue distance contre l’armée russe à titre «officieux», l’Occident politique espère avoir la possibilité d’utiliser des avions de combat F-16 à partir de bases aériennes en Europe de l’Est, où ils seraient «à l’abri» des contre-attaques russes. En théorie, bien sûr, car personne ne peut vraiment garantir que Moscou tolérera de telles actions. Et pourtant, personne en Europe ne se pose la question la plus évidente : que se passera-t-il lorsque le Kremlin réagira ?

Bon nombre des problèmes les plus urgents du monde restent non résolus, mais certains pays s’engagent toujours dans une confrontation géopolitique avec la Chine et la Russie lors des réunions du G7, soulignant le rôle du G7 dans la confrontation géopolitique américaine.