Migrations and irrational geopolitics

We are entering a world that does not yet have a name. At the root of current changes appear five major interrelated factors: a new global geopolitics, international migrations in a context of demographic growth, digitalization and artificial intelligence, a climate change that seems irreversible, and various internal crises in liberal democracies. Let us focus on some elements of the first two factors.Geopolitics. It must be analyzed with a world map in front of you and with the history of the affected contexts. The world of the Cold War belongs to the past, but the “new world” is still taking shape. Some notable factors: emergence of China as one of the two hegemonic actors on an economic, political, and military scale (erosion of the previously incontestable position of the USA); consolidation of regional powers (India, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, etc.); relative decline of the European Union; growth of instability in the Middle East (Iran, Israel-Palestine, agreement between Saudi Arabia-Turkey-Pakistan); strategies for the control of maritime straits in terms of security, defense, and trade (Malacca, Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb/Suez, Gibraltar); future importance of new Arctic routes. A set of factors with an uncertain outcome. No one controls everything, but no one wants to be left on the sidelines or lose positions in the next quarter of a century.International migrations. They also require having a global map. It is a topic in which socioeconomic, political, ethical, national, and cultural variables intervene, before which it seems that no one manages to offer an optimization that is both effective and reasonable. Neither the right nor the left.Geopolitics is interrelated with migration. Ceuta as a case in point. At this moment, leaving aside the Spanish government's terrible management, it seems clear that the Ceuta conflict cannot be reduced to a mere migratory dispute between two border states. The context brings to light global international strategies: the use of migration as a political weapon, the influence of the US-Israel tandem in Muslim countries; Morocco as a key piece of this strategy. It seems that China also analyzes it in these terms: if the US strategy in this territory advances, Chinese strategic options are reduced (see the article by Nadia Helmy, “Why Chinese Analysts Are Linking Morocco’s Gaza Role to Spain’s Ceuta Crisis”, Modern Diplomacy, 11-8-2026). The European Union has once again shown that it lives with its back to the Mediterranean.

Gibraltar is more important to Morocco than to Spain. The latter has guaranteed control over its territorial waters, in contrast to Morocco, where Ceuta represents a geographical and political nuisance. Everything points to Ceuta and Melilla eventually becoming Moroccan cities in the medium term, in the same way that the unification of Ireland seems likely to occur. This is a case in which geopolitics and maps impose themselves when the boundary conditions of historical international domination vary. The American base in Rota (Spain) could be moved to the eastern Moroccan coast. The crisis in Ceuta is far from being a mere conflict between domestic sovereignties; it is rather another corner of the global geopolitical chessboard.All of this, stated like this, seems very rational. However, it is known that humans, especially in times of accelerated change, decide and act in haste, while using irrational fallacies. One of the most repeated is the so-called "sunk cost fallacy": once immersed in an economic or war project that empirical experience shows cannot achieve the initial objectives, it is common to continue implementing it, because we have invested significant amounts of money, time, and energy in it. The case of some wars is exemplary (Vietnam, Afghanistan, or the current ones in Ukraine and Iran): risky decisions are made with the hope of recovering what has been invested. It is the "loss aversion" fallacy, an emotional attitude that contrasts with the better-known "risk aversion" when the balance is more favorable to obtaining gains.These are quite spontaneous mental tendencies or dispositions that make it difficult to reach agreements in negotiations between actors who, in fact, would often prefer the conflict to end as soon as possible. Napoleon, in his commentaries, saw a way out in these cases: the intervention of a strong, external actor capable of first suggesting, and then imposing, a solution that will be accepted by the various parties to the conflict and which they would never reach on their own. However, when it is great powers that are involved in an international conflict, this external actor does not exist. And no great power has any incentive for it to exist.In short, we must get used to a more multipolar, more uncertain, more changing world in which the immediacy and acceleration of collective dynamics lead to an increase in globally irrational decisions. Some of the Homo minus sapiens who govern us want to eliminate liberal democracies, promote artificial intelligence in a stupid and irresponsible way, offer money in exchange for votes, censor journalists, and believe that there is still too little carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We must fight them.