We are living through a crazy 2025. It's hardly necessary to remind ourselves: in Gaza, genocide; in Ukraine, the unjustified invasion; in Russia, the dictatorship that has caused a war born of a desire for revenge; in Sudan, human devastation; in the US, the abuse of power that erodes its democracy and harms the world political order; in the EU, a narrow and short-sighted vision.
There is a constant theme in these events: by attempting to achieve the impossible, the instigator of the conflict has ultimately suffered the most. Israel has sought to exterminate Hamas with a war that—due to its very cruelty—strengthens its social position in Palestine. Russia, by attempting to annex Ukraine by force—which it lacks—has caused destruction that Ukrainians will not forget. The Sudanese civil war has further alienated the two opposing sides. Donald Trump's arrogance has damaged the image of the US as a center of freedom and democracy. The EU, by failing to adopt an economic and political development plan, has harmed its own institutions, rendering them incapable of leading Europe.
The Jewish people have suffered persecution throughout history: they were expelled from their land and the states where they lived, beginning with Spain in 1492. They have been condemned to live as refugees, a consequence of the Diaspora; they have been persecuted and forced to live in ghettos; and they have been systematically annihilated in Germany. It has been demonstrated that what was done to them has been replicated with the Palestinians. The excuse of terrorism is far too crude and simplistic. The self-inflicted damage to the image of the Jewish people has been historic.
But the future is hopeful. Netanyahu and Likud will not win the next elections. It is difficult to imagine that a majority of the educated and civilized people of Israel would support those who have discredited them and led them down a path of barbarism with no way out. There will be another government that, without betraying the defense of Israel, will abandon the war of extermination and a policy that has no solution and leads nowhere. Israelis have been left without an enemy in the sense that they invoke the word.
The war in Ukraine has reached a stalemate. Russia lacks the strength to win it, and neither does Ukraine unless it obtains more weapons from the West. But the outcome has been devastating: hundreds of thousands of casualties. Russia has lost its gas and oil export market to Europe, and although it has found others, they are not equivalent in either volume or price. But above all, the war has strengthened NATO. The alliance, which had been adrift, has found its raison d'être as a result of the war, and along with its two new members—Sweden and Finland—it has moved geographically closer to Russia: Finns and Russians share more than 1,300 km of border.
Since the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, Russian military strategy has been based on attacking the enemy regardless of casualties. But this strategy, in a 21st century where patriotism and epic narratives no longer hold the same value as they did a century ago, has proven ineffective: Russia has had to tighten its grip on the dictatorship and resort to prisons and mercenaries to recruit soldiers. If Putin had the power to win the war, he would have done so already. But the social upheaval and economic cost of the war have brought him to a point of no return. In the eyes of his people, Putin needs a resounding victory that he will not achieve. The regime survives only through the terror it employs.
President Trump is pursuing an unpredictable foreign policy. His claim that he has stopped eight wars is beyond comment. However, it has become increasingly clear that the victories What it has achieved are nothing more than propaganda headlines. Peace in Israel is precarious because it has not stopped but slow The aggressor remains unresolved. Peace in Ukraine is a long way off, and only force will move Russia. The clash between Trump and Putin demonstrates that the Russian leader wants to buy time: he mistakenly believes the West will abandon Ukraine, and Trump is at a loss. If he were to pursue a hardline military strategy, we would reach a point where a threatened Russia would react with the counter-threat of nuclear war. Russia's defeat must be neither too absolute nor too obvious.
However, the worst harm of Trump's policies is the damage inflicted on American institutions. The mass arrests for deporting migrants, the use of the military for domestic law enforcement and its constant presence on the streets to undermine civilian authority if it is Democratic, the legal persecution of those who oppose the executive branch—like Comey, now indicted, and former National Security Advisor Bolton—all this within the context of an EU that displays an indecisiveness and fear that discredits it as an institution: it is the first victim of its failure.
There's a Catalan saying that everything returns to its place. The positive and negative forces of the world balance out, and events return to a certain order. normalBut the damage done is irreparable: you can't put the broken vase back together. And what's even more sobering: the idea that those who cause the problem suffer the most is proven true, perhaps not immediately, but with absolute certainty.
