The international system and the world order are going through deep turmoil today
There is full agreement in science that the modern international order and the modern system of international relations developed after the end of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and the conclusion of the Westphalia Treaty (1648).
The senseless slaughter of World War I began with the murder of a single man, a Crown Prince of a European empire whose name no one was particularly familiar with at the time. Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria was the presumptive heir to the Austrian-Hungarian empire in June of 1914.
A long time back I was visiting some remote villages where the murder of a youth who had raised his voice against corruption of a powerful local contractor and politician had attracted a lot of attention. There was an undercurrent of simmering anger among people but no one was willing to discuss many details openly, much less make any accusations.
De-dollarization now looks inevitable and threatens to become a national security concern, according to International Crisis Group co-chair Frank Giustra.
A Business Insider report — “De-dollarization is no longer a matter of if, but when — and is a national security concern, says International Crisis Group cochair”, May 3, 2023, — said:
The central Sahel — Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger — has changed dramatically since the armed insurgencies that emerged in northern Mali in 2012. The resulting deterioration in security has been worse and more far reaching than anything experienced by the region in recent times. Aggressive extremist organizations, unaccountable community-based armed groups, and criminal gangs have all proliferated, wreaking havoc on populations in the central Sahel countryside.
Summary
• Kosovo, a country with no prior history of religious militancy, has become a prime source of
foreign fighters in the Iraqi and Syrian conflict theater relative to population size.
• About three in four Kosovan adults known to have traveled to Syria and Iraq since 2012 were
between seventeen and thirty years old at the time of their departure. By mid-2016, about
37 percent had returned.
• The vast majority of these known foreign fighters have moderate formal education. In com-
parative terms, this rate appears to be superior to the reported national rate. Two-thirds live
in average or above-average economic circumstances.
• Five municipalities—four of which are near Kosovo’s Macedonian border—judging from their
disproportionately high recruitment and mobilization rate, appear particularly vulnerable to
violent extremism. More than one-third of the Kosovan male combatants originate from these
municipalities, which account for only 14 percent of the country’s population.
• Long-term and targeted radicalization, recruitment, and mobilization efforts by foreign-funded
extremist networks have been primarily active in southern Kosovo and northwestern Macedo-
nia for more than fifteen years. These networks have often been headed by local alumnae of
Middle Eastern religious institutions involved in spreading an ultra-conservative form of Islam
infused with a political agenda.
• Despite substantial improvements in the country’s sociopolitical reality and living conditions
since the 1998–1999 Kosovo War, chronic vulnerabilities have contributed to an environment
conducive to radicalization.
• Frustrated expectations, the growing role of political Islam as a core part of identity in some
social circles, and group dynamics appear to be the telling drivers of radicalization, recruit-
ment, and mobilization in Kosovo.
« Le dollar c’est notre monnaie et votre problème. » (John Connelly, secrétaire d’État à l’Économie)
« Quand tout est troublé, que l’avenir est imprévisible et inquiétant, la « relique barbare », moquée par lord Keynes, retrouve l’attrait qu’elle a toujours eu en période de dangers. L’or redevient l’ancre de la sécurité. » (Eric le Boucher, Les Échos, janvier 2010)
The government of South Sudan has expressed deep concern over the fighting in neighboring Sudan, which it fears could spill across the border and threaten its fragile peace process.
The conflict between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary group in Khartoum has raised concerns about the potential for a full-fledged civil war, which could affect neighboring South Sudan.
The US House of Representatives passed legislation last month to include the Middle East and North Africa as a category in the Uniform Racial Classification Act, which requires state agencies to compile and report statistical data using racial classifications, thus effectively defining which groups are recognized and which are not.
Foreseeable crises
It was around ten years back, when more and more experts started sharing and discussing the argument that we are heading towards a global crisis of international cooperation, of dialogue, of collective action and responsibility, of confidence and trust; a global crisis of multilateralism. Sadly enough, this analysis and assessment has been confirmed by now. There is almost universal consensus that we are in a period of high geopolitical tensions, multiple insecurities, in a shift, often reversal of former global paradigms, and a perceived paralysis of previous conflict prevention and conflict resolution mechanisms. German Chancellor Scholz, in his ear-catching speech of 27 February 2022, called it a Zeitenwende, a turning point in history triggered by a war in Europe – war, a grossly illegal means of politics, which was – expressis verbis – presumed “unthinkable” in Europe. A large number of Western political leaders and media commentators echoed that assessment and the “unthinkability of war” in Europe.