The beginning of the mechanization of war, beyond firearms, took place in the second half of the 19th century with the use of railways for troop transport during the American Civil War and European conflicts of the 1860s and 1870s, especially the Franco-Prussian War. World War I represented a major leap forward in the use of self-propelled vehicles, including airplanes, armored cars, tanks, automobiles, and motorcycles. The conflicts that followed throughout the 20th century greatly refined warfare mechanization, adding flying bombs, missiles, and nuclear weapons. All of this allowed killing and destruction on an unprecedented scale.In our century, armies have been equipping themselves with weapons that allow soldiers to avoid the front line, and to fight from the second line or even further back. Drones have been the star innovation, as they replace manned aviation at a much lower cost and without putting at risk the life of a soldier as specialized as the pilot. These devices are remotely controlled by a pilot and have proven very effective in the wars in Ukraine and Iran.The latest addition to conventional warfare is artificial intelligence (AI). It involves automating something that until now seemed impossible without human intervention: fighting each other. There are now autonomous military drones, which do not need any pilot to remotely control them, but can fly all by themselves thanks to AI. They are equipped with a multitude of sensors that allow them to navigate without human intervention, including inertia sensors, GPS, altimeters, air sensors, lidar, ultrasound sensors, stereoscopic cameras, electro-optical cameras for daytime operation, infrared and heat sensors for nighttime operation, radars, etc. All the information obtained is fused and processed in real time with AI techniques, including computer vision. This gives them a reliable and real perception of the battlefield, which feeds other AI algorithms that decide what to do in unexpected and unpredictable emergency situations, and choose targets in complex environments.

In recent months we have witnessed some shifts in European policies. At the same time, it has become increasingly clear that there will also be changes in some US policies. In both blocs, the principle of reality prevails over ideology and promises made: deviating too much from global trends makes survival difficult.

Ethics deals with the moral principles that govern a person's behavior and the way they act. In most civilizations, ethics has been closely linked to different religions, which provide guidelines for behavior for their followers and prescribe what is right and what is wrong.

At the time of writing, the hypothesis that the power outage on the Iberian Peninsula was caused by a cyberattack does not seem the most plausible. Red Eléctrica has ruled him outFor reasons of state security, the public may never fully understand the causes of the disaster, even if those responsible eventually unravel them. This isn't a question of giving potential attackers ideas. However, what we've experienced could be useful as a simulation of what could happen in the event of a cyberattack or, worse still, a military attack, such as a bombing of energy infrastructure.

Despite the recent pause in the trade war unleashed by the US, the question of what tariff retaliation the European Union could implement without setting itself too high a bar remains open. Overall, the EU exports slightly more to the US than it imports from the US (in 2023, a positive surplus of 3% of total trade of €1.6 trillion). This surplus is explained by the fact that we sell more manufactured goods to the US than we buy. However, if we look at the services balance (which the White House has not taken into account when setting tariffs), we import €109 billion more than we export to the US (2023 data). So far, it seems that we Europeans are not in a very weak position.

Despite the recent pause in the trade war unleashed by the US, the question of what tariff retaliation the European Union could implement without setting itself too high a bar remains open. Overall, the EU exports slightly more to the US than it imports from the US (in 2023, a positive surplus of 3% of total trade of €1.6 trillion). This surplus is explained by the fact that we sell more manufactured goods to the US than we buy. However, if we look at the services balance (which the White House has not taken into account when setting tariffs), we import €109 billion more than we export to the US (2023 data). So far, it seems that we Europeans are not in a very weak position.