When the generation that lived through the Civil War saw us dawdling with food on the table, they lost patience and would say: "You should have gone through a war." It was a serious expression, laden with anger and frustration. It wasn't the time to answer anything, because that wasn't just another little battle, but the verbalization of the trauma of having known what it is to go hungry.For the moment, most of us continue not to go hungry (though queues can be seen at social centers and churches), but we have been experiencing wars for years now. Large-scale war, and quite close to home, has already become the constant framework within which our lives are unfolding. And the roar of conflicts is felt ever closer. And their effects, in our pockets or spirits, too. The survival kit was much more than advice for alarmists. How long will it be possible to continue leading this dual life, more or less normal and with future plans, if we live surrounded by fires?We are witnessing the atavistic struggle for political and economic power, but with an exponential killing capacity, which mixes war and spectacle, while we become impoverished and our prospects are impoverished. There is a hunger for certainties, for not going backwards, for not being cannon fodder at the orders of obscene politicians. There is a desire for effort to be recognized, for public discourse not to make reality even more obscene, for our children not to be forced to become cynics. There is a desire to ask ourselves who benefits from the return of war, even when it seemed that the last one had been a sufficiently dissuasive warning that the next one could be with stones.

Escalation is usually understood as a simple increase in violence, but it is actually a more complex phenomenon: a crisis escalates when it intensifies, expands to other geographical areas or domains (land, naval, aerospace, or cyber), or affects increasingly sensitive targets, thus becoming more difficult to control. Today, this risk is greater because war increasingly depends on a set of technologies that change its logic: the use of precision and long-range weapons, the proliferation of drones –and, above all, the possibility of using them in swarms–, artificial intelligence, cyberspace, electronic warfare, satellites, and, in some cases, hypersonic weapons. But also because many of these capabilities are more accessible and spread beyond major powers. Not all have the same weight, but they share a common underlying effect: they accelerate events, increase ambiguity, and make it more likely that a limited action will be perceived as a more serious step than perhaps intended. The first problem is speed. Precision capabilities –the combination of guided weapons, sensors, command and control networks, and navigation tools that allow for the precise location, tracking, and engagement of targets– can produce profound effects in a very short time. The novelty is that the time between observation, decision, and action has been radically shortened, between the sensors that detect, the command centers that process information, and the vectors that execute the attack. Technology compresses decision cycles and favors premature reactions or those based on an incomplete reading of the situation. A well-coordinated attack can not only destroy physical targets: it can degrade command and control, disrupt communications, degrade radar coverage, or hinder target detection and tracking. To all this must be added AI, which accelerates data fusion, target prioritization, and the pace of decision-making, as well as hypersonic weapons, which, due to their speed, maneuverability, and shorter warning times, can further reduce the margin for interpreting signals and calibrating responses. The strategic problem is evident: as time shortens, the risk of reacting not so much to what is known as to what is feared increases.

There are things that don't change. Like the change of time. It doesn't matter that the seasons are distorted by climate change and that we're on the time of Nazi Germany because Franco had to align himself with the prevailing fascism. Let's see who's brave enough to change it. And even less so now that fascism is trending again and there's so much nostalgia for the eagle that if you're very distracted by the world and see all those people with expired flags, you might think they're an environmental group defending an endangered animal. Of course, in Spain, the eagle on the Francoist coat of arms has never fallen into disuse. And if you confuse an environmental group with a fascist one, it means you're more lost in aesthetics than Lamine Yamal's hairstyle. But we were talking about the time. About change. About things that don't change. Like the collateral damage of a war. As if the main damage, which also doesn't change, wasn't enough. Bombs that destroy. Bombs that kill. Bombs to make more bombs. Bombs to send more bombs. Although it's logical that if your goal is to cause harm and the only human life that matters to you is your own, the more harm you do, the better. The extent of harm for an evil person is infinite. The more people suffer to survive, the better. And with this bunch of psychopaths who are constantly measuring their trumpets to see who has the longest, suffering seems assured. For everyone. Because there are things that don't change. Like resolving conflicts by creating new and worse ones. It also doesn't change that you are rewarded for peace after generating a war. Perhaps the newest thing is that since you're not rewarded by those you expected, you're rewarded by some who believe that football promotes peace. I won't be the one to question that. Because anyone can face a hooligan, a synonym for pacifist. I'm just saying that good taste certainly isn't promoted. And since so many people follow them, they could at least have houses that didn't look like a funeral home. Inside and out.

The generation of the boomers The United States, including Donald Trump, maintains a complex relationship with oil, deeply marked by the energy crises of the 1970s. Endless lines at gas stations are an image etched in their minds. For them, that shock marked the end of the economic romance experienced during the postwar period, and since then, the price of gasoline has become their barometer of the country's economic health, even though it often isn't.

Politics shouldn't be all about pronouncements and grand gestures. Pragmatism is also essential. In short, it's about being practical so that citizens, those governed, feel they aren't being abandoned when times get tough. And this seems to be the path the Spanish government has taken with the package of measures designed to mitigate the effects of the war in the Middle East. The conflict, whose end appears far off, has driven up gas and oil prices and, consequently, the prices of everything related to them, such as fuel and electricity. That's why the measures announced by Pedro Sánchez will amount to around 5 billion euros, far less than the more than 20 billion mobilized in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine—but we are still in the early stages and don't know how long the war might last. The first decree focuses on reducing energy taxes, one of the services most affected by the impact of the Middle East crisis, and one that could have ripple effects throughout the economy. In addition to lowering the VAT on electricity and gas from the current 21% to 10%, as well as on biomass raw materials such as pellets and firewood, the energy production tax, currently at 7%, is temporarily eliminated and reduced from 5.5% to a special rate of 0.5%. Maximum retail prices for butane and propane are also frozen. The VAT on gasoline and diesel is also reduced, which, according to the Prime Minister's office, will result in a savings of approximately 30 cents per liter when filling up. Consumer organizations estimate that the reduction will be around 17 cents for diesel, which has seen the largest price increase. A key point, also included in the decree, is granting the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) new supervisory and sanctioning powers to prevent operators from exploiting the tax cut to increase their profit margins and enrich themselves. This is essential to prevent the tax reduction from benefiting certain companies more than citizens and, therefore, taxpayers.

Thursday's session saw a further surge in oil and gas prices following the Israeli bombing of the South Pars gas facilities (the largest in the world). The price of Brent crude – the European benchmark – has risen by more than 3%, climbing back above $110. In fact, it reached a high of $119 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude – the US benchmark – is up nearly 1.50%, to $97 per barrel. Meanwhile, the price of natural gas on the Dutch TTF market – the European benchmark – is around €62 per megawatt-hour (MWh), representing an increase of more than 13% during the session and nearly doubling its price since the start of the war.

The death of Jürgen Habermas (1929-2026), one of the most important thinkers of his generation, has coincided with a particularly delicate moment: a war whose underlying cause—oil—affects the entire world. What can Habermas's ideas contribute to such a grim scenario? His theory of communicative action extends far beyond the Strait of Hormuz, to put it simply: it allows us to interpret contemporary international politics globally, a world marked by deep-seated and very old geopolitical tensions, as well as by newly unleashed, all-out wars.

Whenever we try to understand complex situations, we try to find a reason that justifies how someone acts, or why something happens a certain way. Lately, even experts in politics, particularly international politics, are completely baffled as to the reasons behind this particular figure: any reasonable prediction based on the rules we previously knew has been shattered. Some, even with immense effort, have lined up all the facts, like an Excel spreadsheet, and tried to find a common thread. In Trump's case, at this point, we have to accept that everyone who has tried has failed.

The United States, in the midst of its war with Iran, is running short on air defense systems. This is demonstrated by this week's announcement to relocate these systems from South Korea to the Middle East. Seoul's conservative government has protested the decision, which exposes it to an attack from North Korea and raises serious questions about Donald Trump's commitment to his long-standing ally. Specifically, the Pentagon is moving the two most advanced types of air defense systems in the world: the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missile system and the Patriot missile batteries. The Pentagon has seven THAAD systems, two of them in Asia: one on the island of Guam in the Western Pacific, serving as a deterrent against China, and the one previously located in South Korea, to prevent a North Korean attack. The remaining systems are currently distributed among five air defense regiments, one of them in Israel.

The Spanish government wants to approve a package of measures "as soon as possible" to mitigate the economic impact of the war in the Middle East, which is already putting pressure on energy prices, particularly diesel and gasoline. Although the Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, stated this Thursday morning that some measures will be approved at next week's cabinet meeting, a more cautious approach prevails at the Moncloa Palace. "We are working to make it happen as soon as possible," government sources indicate. And the Minister of Economy himself, Carlos Cuerpo, publicly addressed the issue after a meeting with unions and employers' associations to discuss, precisely, the economic impact of the conflict: "The priority is to finalize the text, and I cannot give a date for its approval," Cuerpo said at a press conference.

The Strait of Hormuz has become one of the most volatile areas in the Middle East since the start of the Iran-Iraq War, but the events of the last few hours, with four cargo ships attacked, threaten a further escalation of hostilities at a strategic point for global hydrocarbon trade. Tehran warned that the bombing in this area will increase, while the United States also intensified its attacks on Iranian warships and threatened to use more force. On Wednesday, four ships were reported to have been hit by projectiles while in or near the Strait of Hormuz. They are Greek, Japanese, Thai, and Israeli-owned. These attacks bring the total number of commercial vessels targeted in the region since the United States and Israel launched their joint military operation against Iran on February 28 to 17, according to the UK Maritime Commercial Operations Agency (UKMTO), which oversees the safety of ships and seafarers worldwide.

Approximately $891.4 million per day. This is the cost of the first 100 hours (from Saturday to Tuesday) of the war initiated by the Trump administration with the attacks on Iran. In this short period, Washington has spent a minimum of $3.7 billion (approximately €3.2 billion), according to an independent analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). This is the first estimate made since the US and Israel began the conflict, which has spread throughout the Middle East and even into EU territory (Cyprus) and NATO territory (Turkey), among others. Another characteristic of this cost, which will increase the longer the conflict lasts, is that a significant portion was not budgeted in the accounts approved by Congress, meaning it will be financed by generating deficits and, therefore, debt.

Everything surrounding the war in the Middle East, as well as Donald Trump's threats to cut off trade, is so uncertain that the Spanish government is still hesitant to take decisive action in approving measures to mitigate a potential economic impact. However, this doesn't mean that the various ministries aren't working to understand how the conflict in the Persian Gulf and the tension with the United States might affect different sectors of the economy: from transportation and industry to the cost of living, as well as in terms of company sales and revenue, and consequently, the labor market. In this regard, the Ministry of Labor committed this Thursday to holding meetings with social partners—the major unions and employers' associations—to monitor the economic consequences of the current situation on businesses and workers. The unions also requested that any measures taken be detailed, specifying the fiscal impact they will have: that is, the public resources that will be allocated.

The day after Pedro Sánchez's "No to war"The Spanish government has announced it will send military support to Cyprus and is becoming involved for the first time in the Iran-Iraq War. Spain's participation will be strictly defensive, aimed at protecting a European Union member state. Furthermore, it will collaborate jointly with other European partners, such as Italy and the Netherlands. This aid will be in addition to that already sent this week by France, Greece, and the United Kingdom. Specifically, the Spanish government will send a warship. Christopher Columbus, which will accompany the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and other ships of the Greek Navy. The frigate joined the Naval Group on March 3 to perform escort, protection, and advanced training duties in the Baltic Sea. Now, the group will head towards the Eastern Mediterranean to reach the coast of Crete around March 10. In addition to the Christopher ColumbusThe supply ship will also briefly put to sea. Cantabriato supply fuel and provide logistical support during the Naval Group's transit through the Gulf of Cádiz.

The increasingly striking disproportion between the scale of wars like the one in Ukraine and the lack of images of the conflict doesn't seem to stem from a single factor. In any case, we must consider, among other things we won't elaborate on here, the confluence of a new puritanism with the emotional immaturity of a seemingly significant portion of younger generations. This combination has created a communicative ecosystem where war becomes a sanitized, filtered narrative, ultimately disconnected from its devastating nature. Conversely, and also in a neo-puritan vein, when armed conflicts are framed in childish terms of transgression/punishment, images previously filtered through the sieve of political correctness abound.

Hejoint US-Israeli attack against Iran It had been brewing for some time in the offices of Washington and Tel Aviv, but the imminence of the offensive didn't become clear until the day before it began. This short window of opportunity and the rapid spread of the conflict, with Tehran's response against several countries in the regionThe closure of airspace has taken citizens around the world by surprise, particularly those who were in the Persian Gulf on Saturday, whether working, on vacation, or traveling. Many are now stranded, uncertain of when they will be able to return home. For this reason, the Spanish government has already begun evacuating 30,000 Spaniards from the region, as announced by Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares at the press conference following the cabinet meeting. He explained that 175 Spanish citizens are already flying to Madrid from Abu Dhabi and are scheduled to arrive at Barajas Airport at 7:00 PM. He urged all Spaniards in the area to register as travelers to help keep track of the number of people in the Middle East. A request that the Catalan government has also made—currently counting 1,200 Catalans—with the aim of being able to send instructions for their return to Catalonia if the violence escalates. In fact, the Minister of Foreign Action, Jaume Duch, has assumed that the number of citizens is higher: "These are the people we would like to identify themselves, so that we have the means to know who they are and where they are, and to be in contact with them," he said. According to data from Idescat, 6,115 Catalans live in the Middle East.

"When one man kills another, we call it murder; when millions are killed, we call it war." These were the words of Joan Mascaró Fornés, an exile from the Franco regime, professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge, and translator of Bhagavad Gita and other great texts of Hinduism (the Upanishad, he Dhammapada) into English (and later, with the help of Elisabet Abeyà and Francesc de Borja Moll, into Catalan). Mascaró Fornés was a committed pacifist who dedicated his life to the study of languages ​​and religions as tools for knowledge, and also as tools for humankind's civilizing capacity. The pinnacle of this civilizing capacity, its highest level, would be the absence of war.

With war raging in Europe and the continent threatened from multiple fronts, the governments of the European Union have broken the taboo and are advocating—with varying degrees of intensity—the need to rearm. This new scenario once again puts the spotlight on European militaries and their potential capabilities to confront external aggression. Enrique Pérez de Tena, a retired frigate captain with decades of experience in the Spanish and NATO armed forces, is an advisor on institutional relations for the Joint Cyber ​​Command.

At the end of August, I spent a Sunday in Kiiv with soldier TarasTaking advantage of the vacation leave granted to him by the Ukrainian army to rest for a few days at home, Private Taras returned to the trenches a week later, fighting on the front lines as commander of a drone unit. He was there for four months. Now he has returned to Kyiv, coinciding with the Christmas holidays. Soon he will be called back to his positions. "War is like that movie," he said. Groundhog Day; "Everything repeats itself," she says jokingly. Private Taras, who knows her well, also says that war is "the most horrible invention ever created by humankind."

Now it has resurfaced with great force, but its roots are long in the making. A war has broken out between El Yunque—an ultra-conservative sect with Christian roots—its public and judicial arm Hazte Oír, and Vox, with both covert and overt maneuvers. This battle stems from the ultra-Catholics' support for the rebels of the youth organization Revuelta, which originated close to Vox, but with which Santiago Abascal's party broke apart amid accusations of "corruption" over the use of money raised after the DANA storm.Vox confirms that there is a conspiracy by these initially close organizations against the party leadership, according to sources consulted by ARA.