Where is the world going? Where are international relations going?The current war in Iran and the Middle East offers an uncertain panorama. It is a notably asymmetric war in economic and military terms that has several possible outcomes. In these cases, it would not be superfluous to first analyze the observable trends at the present time, and then see if history gives us clues about probable future scenarios.If it weren't so nefariously tragic, a two-week ceasefire pact in which each of the two parties has a different text and which, moreover, both interpret in a different way results in a rather comical and surreal situation. A script that seems to have come out of a night of drinks between Gila and the Marx brothers. An imagined night that would be well worth sharing. There are elements of the recent context that point to the replacement of a scenario in which there has been an indisputable global power in economic and military terms – the US of the last thirty years after the Cold War – by a scenario in which two global powers coexist (the US and China), along with a third with nuclear military power (Russia) and several regional powers (India, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia, etc.). These are only trends, but it seems that today there is a basic analytical agreement that an evolution from a unipolar world to a multipolar world is taking place. This is no news, of course. In fact, many historical periods have experienced this type of change... until the appearance of a new hegemonic power that once again tilts international relations towards a de facto unipolarity. When hegemony becomes pluralized, a scenario of balance between powers emerges, which is often convenient for maintaining peace (understood as the absence of war) for a few decades. In optimistic terms, I believe we could be heading towards such a scenario in the coming decades.

The proposed project by the Barcelona City Council and the Catalan Government to build a Provincial Court building on the current "historic site" of the city (Passeig Lluís Companys, 1-5) is a complete absurdity. And it is absurd both in terms of its content and its procedure.

In the international landscape in which we find ourselves after the recent Trump revolutionThere are two global factors that deserve attention: China and the so-called Global South.

Gender issues have been present in human societies since long before the Paleolithic era. And they remain very poorly resolved.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the judges at the top of the Spanish judiciary are constantly engaging in politics. This becomes evident when they interpret the law according to their own pre-democratic ideological bias, twisting its meaning, denying its application, inventing concepts (violence, terrorism), or arbitrarily deciding on sentences (Statute of Autonomy, amnesty law, the sentencing of the leaders of the Catalan independence movement). The trial of the Attorney General is just the latest example.

The EU's record in recent decades has been positive: it has guaranteed peace among its members in the post-World War II era, established an economic zone and a partially shared currency, and reinforced the idea of a distinct cultural reality and a specific collective actor both internally (institutions) and on the global stage. Some more specific aspects and policies (CAP, communications space, Erasmus, energy-ecology, etc.) are part of the Union's duty.

Donald Trump seems to want to reconcile and make coherent two great dangers that the ancient Greeks pointed out for any political regime: despotism and anarchy. His decisions, both forceful and erratic—appointing incompetents, vacillating tariffs, obsession with security, militarism, distrust, etc.—may end up diminishing American power, in contrast to the pretensions of the Make America Great AgainFor his part, Trump is fostering a more anarchic world than the one he found. A self-perceived "greater" United States domestically is not contradictory to a more isolated and smaller United States globally.

The concept transition It usually indicates the transition from situation A to situation B within a given time. Normally, A and B are understood to be clearly different, almost like two disjoint sets (without common elements). B replaces A. However, this is often an illusion, especially in the political sphere.

Liberal democracies are playing a large part of their future in the United States. European democracies too. For the moment, the 21st century is a bad one for democracies. Compared to the late 1990s, there are fewer democracies in the world today, and some have still suffered a significant decline in their rule of law: Turkey, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Spain. It seems that Trump and his administration want to prove right the well-known thesis of Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018), which states that current democracies do not die from external coups d'état, but from the detachment of institutions and citizens toward authoritarianism.

From the 19th century to the present day, a serious lack of a genuinely "liberal" political culture has been evident in Spain, especially in the institutions of the judicial leadership. The journey begins with the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, which does not even mention the judiciary, conceived as a subsidiary body of the executive branch. Under Franco's regime, the courts constituted the legal arm of the dictatorship. In fact, the judges of the highest institutions have been more loyal to the goals of the permanence of the State (unity and monarchy) than to the goals of political liberalism and the rule of law (individual and collective rights and freedoms, judicial impartiality, separation of powers).

We live in uncertain times. And when times are uncertain, theories dance. Trump and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza increase uncertainties about the future. There are many types: the peace-war tandem, the struggle for hegemony between two empires (the US and China) and three major nuclear powers (Russia is also added), the shadows of various energy sources and water, a global population growth of around 20-25% in the coming decades, fundamental uncertainties, fundamental uncertainties, fundamental uncertainties, etc. The result is a colorful tapestry of fragmented uncertainties.

It definitely seems like we've entered a new world. Tougher, more practical, more realistic. The post-World War II world is abruptly coming to an end. The new US administration is the main driver of this change. Competence and security These are the renewed key words. This implies important changes not only in what happens, but also in how we think about what happens. This article focuses on the first aspect.

Uncertainties cause insecurities. And insecurities encourage authoritarianism. In the first stage, it seems that there will be a congruence between the economic and power orientations of the White House and the court of business magnates who support it: the Magnificent Seven (The Magnificent Seven) of the new technological imperialism (Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla).