Gustavo de Arístegui: Geopolitical Analysis, January 26
- Introduction - The world in four overlapping axes of risk
- Trump: the ‘Greenland deal’ promises ‘full access’ with no time limit - warning on US debt
- NATO: Rutte narrows the debate - ‘Greenland's sovereignty is not up for discussion’
- Unprecedented purge in Chinese military leadership: nuclear general falls under suspicion of treason.
- Ukraine and the United States finalise ‘100%’ security guarantees - Russia intensifies energy terror
- Ukraine: senior electricity operator executive dies while supervising repairs under fire
- Gaza, Lebanon and Israel: operation to recover last hostage and pressure on Hezbollah
- Syria: United States demands respect for truce between Damascus and SDF - 4-day deadline extended to 15 days
- Iraq announces prosecution of Islamic State detainees transferred from Syria - massive volumes expected
- India opens its doors: tariff cuts of up to 40% on European cars.
- Gold above $5,000: structural fear and hard refuge
- Media rack
- Editorial commentary - Atlanticism without servility, realism without cynicism
Introduction - The world in four overlapping axes of risk
The international chessboard has dramatically contracted around four interconnected axes of risk that define the start of 2026 and interact with each other with relentless logic: the silent but brutal purge in the Chinese military leadership, which reaches the very heart of Beijing's nuclear programme; the gradual but decisive consolidation of security guarantees to Ukraine, which redefines the eastern flank of the Atlantic world as Russia intensifies energy terror as a doctrine of war; the growing strategic pressure on Israel and Gaza, with Washington attempting to write the architecture of the “day after” while Tehran and its proxies carry out systematic sabotage; and the spectacular jump in gold above $5,000 an ounce, an indisputable symptom of an international system that has lost confidence in the word of governments and is desperately seeking refuge in tangible value.
At the same time, we are witnessing a fundamental shift that is reconfiguring alliances and economic balances: India is attempting an ambitious trade opening with the European Union that challenges the old protectionism of the global South and signals strategic competition of the first order; Europe is trying not to be reduced to a spectator while simultaneously negotiating its energy security, its transatlantic relationship and its role in the Indo-Pacific; and the United States, under the Trump presidency, is combining a selective heavy hand—against narco-dictatorships, Iranian theocracy, and transnational organised crime—with a transactional pragmatism that unsettles both the West's adversaries and more than one European partner accustomed to soft rhetoric without consequences.
Meanwhile, the Greenland crisis—which has dominated headlines for days—continues to act as a stress test for Atlanticism: when the leader of the most powerful democracy on the planet talks about ‘full access’ without time limits to the territory of a European ally and threatens economic retaliation, he is not reinforcing strategic deterrence; he is creating structural mistrust. And mistrust is exactly the fertiliser Putin needs to see his objectives flourish without firing a single additional missile.
The result is an international system where there are no longer any ‘exceptional crises’ that can be managed on a case-by-case basis, but rather a succession of overlapping conflicts that demand moral clarity and nerves of steel: in the face of Chinese expansionism, revanchist Russian imperialism and theocratic terrorism exported from Tehran, ambiguity is not diplomatic sophistication, it is moral surrender disguised as prudence.
Trump: the ‘Greenland deal’ promises ‘full access’ with no time limit - warning on US debt
Facts
Speaking from Davos, President Trump described the agreement under negotiation on Greenland as ‘full access’ without time restrictions or ‘direct cost,’ after withdrawing tariff threats and explicitly ruling out the use of military force. At the same time, he warned of potential retaliation if European governments proceed with massive sales of US sovereign debt as a gesture of political protest.
Profound implications
This is not a diplomatic technicality that can be resolved in bilateral committees. It is an existential struggle over the very concept of allied sovereignty in the 21st century. The Arctic is home to mineral resources critical to energy transition and defence (rare earths, lithium, uranium), maritime routes that climate change is opening up, and military positions that are crucial for monitoring Russian and Chinese hypersonic missiles.
The West needs a reinforced presence in Greenland: early warning radars, deep-water ports for nuclear submarines, air bases for interceptors, logistical infrastructure for power projection towards the North Atlantic and Central Arctic. All of this is legitimate, necessary and urgent.
But the language of ‘full access’ without time limits invites structural misunderstanding with devastating consequences: allies can—and must—accept enhanced cooperation under NATO architecture; they cannot, under any circumstances, accept a de facto protectorate that erodes the sovereign dignity of consolidated European democracy.
The warning of retaliation for the sale of US debt is even more revealing: it confirms that the conflict transcends the geopolitical dimension and enters into a spiral of bilateral economic coercion with systemic potential. If the United States uses the dollar and the Treasury as levers of pressure against its allies, it not only destroys trust: it irreversibly redefines the rules of the global financial game, accelerating the de-dollarisation that Beijing and Moscow have been pursuing for decades.
Outlook and scenarios (30-90 day horizon)
∙ Optimal scenario (35%): Limited contractual agreement specifying dual-use infrastructure (Golden Dome missile defence, logistics bases, SIGINT/ELINT surveillance), with an explicit clause on Danish sovereignty, five-year review mechanisms and institutional NATO participation.
∙ Controlled tension scenario (45%): Intermittent return of tariff threats as a negotiating lever. Conflict management through cycles of escalation and de-escalation that keep the crisis simmering without a formal breakdown.
∙ Strategic fracture scenario (20%): Accelerated erosion of transatlantic trust; proliferation of anti-American narratives in mainstream European politics; ideological ammunition for sovereigntist, populist and pro-Russian currents; structural weakening of NATO cohesion. Exactly the goal pursued by China and Russia: a divided, demoralised, paralysed Western bloc.
NATO: Rutte narrows the debate - ‘Greenland's sovereignty is not up for discussion’
Facts
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte categorically stated that the issue of Greenland's political status vis-à-vis Denmark was not discussed with President Trump. Rutte refocused the debate on enhanced strategic cooperation in the Arctic in the face of growing Russian-Chinese military and economic activity.
Strategic implications
Rutte is executing a textbook defensive-diplomatic manoeuvre: building a conceptual firewall that removes from the ‘territorial-sovereign’ plane what should remain strictly a discussion of defence architecture, military presence and conventional deterrence.
The real risk is that this rhetorical firewall will not withstand the pressure of presidential statements that contradict or go beyond the NATO framework. If explicit political limits are not set in writing—with parliamentary validation in Washington and Copenhagen—the conceptual vacuum will inevitably be filled by presidential momentum and the media narrative of ‘total access.’
NATO cannot allow its northern flank—traditionally the most cohesive—to go from being a vector of strategic deterrence to a source of intra-alliance conflict. That would be geopolitical self-harm with lasting consequences.
Outlook and scenarios (60-90 days)
∙ Constructive scenario (40%): NATO formally frames the issue as operational reinforcement (updated contingency plans, dual military infrastructure, integrated surveillance systems) under full allied sovereignty. Deactivation of ‘territorial delirium’.
∙ Strategic dissonance scenario (45%): Persistent dissociation: NATO talks about standard military cooperation; White House maintains “full access” rhetoric; Copenhagen navigates between both poles. Latent crisis without resolution.
∙ Adversarial exploitation scenario (15%): Moscow and Beijing exploit contradictions through disinformation campaigns, increased naval and air patrols in the Arctic, and diplomatic pressure on Nordic states. Acceleration of poorly coordinated European strategic autonomy.
Unprecedented purge in Chinese military leadership: nuclear general falls under suspicion of treason.
Facts
The Wall Street Journal revealed that Zhang Youxia, number two in the Chinese armed forces and top political-military official in Beijing's nuclear programme, is accused of leaking nuclear secrets to the United States, unleashing an internal earthquake in the People's Liberation Army. Chinese media accused Zhang of corruption and challenging Xi Jinping's authority; accusations also extend to Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli; both were placed under investigation on 24 January. Taipei describes the move as ‘abnormal’ due to its scope and abrupt nature.
Far-reaching implications
A purge of this magnitude at the heart of the communist regime's nuclear apparatus confirms what analysts had warned: Xi's personalistic model of power, far from bringing stability, generates factions, fear and infighting, with the strategic security of the planet becoming a bargaining chip.
The fact that the head of the nuclear programme can be accused simultaneously of leaking information to the enemy and of systemic corruption shows that the Communist Party's supposed meritocracy is nothing more than a veneer over a huge, opaque patronage structure, far removed from the official narrative of technocratic efficiency.
Outlook and scenarios (immediate horizon: 30-60 days)
∙ Chaotic reconfiguration scenario (40%): If relevant leaks are confirmed, Beijing will be forced to review protocols, command structures and perhaps nuclear sites, with the risk of miscalculation in the midst of a strategic race with the United States in the Indo-Pacific.
∙ Authoritarian consolidation scenario (35%): Xi uses purges to eliminate potential rivals and further centralise control over the armed forces, with consequences of greater unpredictability in Chinese foreign policy.
∙ Taiwan signalling scenario (25%): For Taiwan, Japan and Indo-Pacific allies, a combination of political purges and expansionist ambition reinforces the need for a robust, Atlanticist security architecture without naivety. No one wants a nuclear arsenal controlled by an elite that purges generals for personal loyalties.
Ukraine and the United States finalise ‘100%’ security guarantees - Russia intensifies energy terror
Facts
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the security guarantee document with the United States is ‘100%’ ready, a text which, according to diplomatic sources, is inspired by the logic of NATO's Article 5 without formally leading to Ukraine's immediate accession to the Alliance. The last 48 hours have been marked by massive Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as part of a campaign of attrition that is systematically degrading the power grid during autumn 2025 and winter 2025-2026. Reuters described a dramatic worsening of the situation: power cuts regularly exceed 12 hours in urban areas and 20 hours in peripheral areas, with average temperatures of -8°C and night-time lows of -15°C.
Moral and strategic implications
Moscow has made it clear that any step towards Ukraine becoming more integrated into the Western security architecture will be met with blackouts and missiles, in a typically imperial strategy of collective punishment that has nothing to do with legitimate defence and everything to do with state terrorism.
What Russia is waging is not simply conventional warfare with collateral damage. It is energy terror as a deliberate, refined and systematised military doctrine. The objective is not only to degrade Ukraine's military capacity – classic military logic – but to destroy the will of civil resistance through unbearable cumulative suffering.
Russia seeks psychological surrender, not just military surrender. Energy terror is not a side effect; it is the main objective. And it is a litmus test for the West: if we tolerate systematic coercion against the civilian population as a tool for strategic victory, we open Pandora's box for that logic to be exported to other theatres (Moldova, the Baltic, European submarine infrastructure).
Outlook and scenarios (60-90 days)
∙ Robust response scenario (30%): Qualitative leap in air defence (additional Patriot, IRIS-T, NASAMS systems), reinforced protection of critical nodes, accelerated deployment of distributed generation. Ukrainian resistance remains, civilian morale is preserved.
∙ Controlled degradation scenario (50%): Normalisation of civilian suffering as an ‘unavoidable price’. Europe provides humanitarian aid but not sufficient air defence. Each winter is progressively worse. Russia wins through attrition.
∙ Catastrophic scenario (20%): Serious incident in critical infrastructure (collapse of hydroelectric dam, destruction of last functioning thermal plant) causing massive humanitarian shock. War changes in nature. Pressure to negotiate on Russian terms becomes unbearable.
Ukraine: senior electricity operator executive dies while supervising repairs under fire
Facts
Reuters confirmed the death of a senior executive of Ukraine's national electricity grid operator while supervising urgent repair work on a facility damaged by Russian attacks. Circumstances: temperature -12°C, strong winds, persistent risk of secondary attacks (Russian military doctrine: attack infrastructure, then attack repair teams), inadequate protective equipment due to shortages.
Symbolic and operational implications
This event, seemingly minor in the avalanche of news, is a brutal symbol of a reality that Europe must internalise: energy warfare is not measured exclusively in megawatts lost. It is measured in human lives: technicians, engineers, operators who literally sustain with their hands and lives the possibility of the Ukrainian state continuing to function.
Ukraine is keeping a country under constant bombardment operational, in conditions of ice and darkness. This is not poetry: it is engineering under fire, highly qualified personnel risking death to reconnect transformers, teams working 18 hours a day, critical spare parts that must be manufactured or imported while Russia destroys faster than they can be repaired.
Europe must read this as an existential warning: national resilience is not motivational rhetoric. It is concrete material capacity: spare transformers, trained technical personnel, anti-aircraft umbrellas that allow repairs without turning every operation into Russian roulette.
Outlook and scenarios (14-30 days)
∙ Accelerated reinforcement scenario (25%): Europe and partners provide massive amounts of repair equipment, technical support personnel, physical protection for equipment (armoured vehicles, portable anti-drone systems), life insurance and family compensation.
∙ Insufficient adjustment scenario (60%): Marginal increase in aid, without the necessary scale. Each repair remains a high-risk operation. Casualty rate increases. Network degradation accelerates because there are not enough personnel to keep up.
∙ Systemic collapse scenario (15%): Extreme fatigue + critical shortage of spare parts + sustained attacks = inability to maintain minimum operations. Permanent blackouts in large areas. Mass exodus. Pressure to negotiate on Russian terms becomes overwhelming.
Gaza, Lebanon and Israel: operation to recover last hostage and pressure on Hezbollah
Facts
Israel launched a large-scale operation to locate the body of the last remaining hostage, Staff Sergeant Ran Gvili, in Gaza, in coordination with the United States and under a fragile ceasefire with Hamas that is violated on a daily basis. At the same time, the IDF continues to carry out targeted attacks on Hezbollah infrastructure and positions in southern Lebanon, after weeks of crossfire.
Implications for post-war architecture
While Tehran continues to finance, arm and guide Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel is forced to live in an impossible balance between international pressure to consolidate a truce and the reality of terrorist proxies who only understand the language of force.
The growing presence of US special envoys in Israel to negotiate the future of Gaza highlights an uncomfortable truth: without a secure Israel and the effective dismantling of Islamist militias, there will be no lasting peace for either Israelis or decent Palestinians held hostage by Hamas.
Outlook and scenarios (30-90 days)
∙ Dignified closure scenario (35%): Operation to recover body concludes without major escalation. Israeli government reinforces narrative of absolute commitment to citizens, but structural conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah remains intact.
∙ Iranian sabotage scenario (50%): Proxies carry out provocations designed to break the truce and derail any post-war architecture. Selective attacks, assassinations of moderate figures, disruption of humanitarian flow.
∙ Regional escalation scenario (15%): Serious incident (massive attack, high-level assassination) triggers large-scale Israeli response and chain reaction with Hezbollah, Iraqi militias or Iran directly.
Syria: United States demands respect for truce between Damascus and SDF - 4-day deadline extended to 15 days
At the heart of the negotiations is a struggle between a state in reconstruction seeking to recentralise sovereignty and a Kurdish actor attempting to salvage as much political-military autonomy and control over resources as possible before losing its last trump card: residual protection from the United States.[1][2][3] [4]
Facts
• Al-Sharaa comes to power after the fall of Assad, with a five-year transitional mandate, centralising and explicitly opposed to strong forms of political decentralisation.[5][6] [7]
• In March 2025, a ‘historic’ agreement on SDF-State integration is announced: incorporation of Kurdish structures into national institutions, return of borders, oil and gas fields, and a general ceasefire in exchange for recognition of Kurdish citizenship and certain cultural rights. [1]
• Implementation stalls: Damascus demands full military integration and de facto renunciation of DAANES autonomy; the SDF demands written guarantees, administrative decentralisation and differentiated Kurdish units within the armed forces.[2][8][1]
• At the end of 2025, the initial deadline expires without substantive progress; clashes occur in Aleppo and the northeast, while Ankara pushes for the dismantling of the YPG and cooperates with Damascus on border security. [9][10][2]
• In January 2026, the government combines incentives (recognition of Kurdish as a national language, citizenship for stateless persons, Nowruz holiday) with a limited offensive that reverses SDF positions and brings critical infrastructure and ISIS detention camps under state control.[3][4] [11]
• Washington attempts to preserve the economic viability of the new regime and avoid a disorderly Kurdish collapse, but has de facto accepted a substantial reduction in the SDF's room for manoeuvre.[12][3]
Implications
• For the SDF/DAANES: the window for negotiating a robust autonomy formula has narrowed; its position has shifted from that of a quasi-equal actor in 2025 to that of a subordinate partner negotiating terms of orderly capitulation rather than an equal pact.[4][2][1]
• For Damascus: partial success against the SDF reinforces the narrative of territorial reunification and consolidates Al-Sharaa's leadership, but increases dependence on tactical agreements with Turkey and complicates the management of wary Kurdish and Arab minorities.[7][11] [9]
• For Turkey: Damascus' advance against the YPG reduces the incentive for deep unilateral operations, but creates a stronger Syrian interlocutor who will demand, in the medium term, a review of the Turkish military presence north of Aleppo.[2] [9]
• For the United States and Europe: the supervised integration of the SDF into state structures offers a possible ‘responsible exit’ from their military involvement, but with the risk of losing leverage over the internal Syrian agenda and the treatment of former ISIS fighters. [3][12][1]
• For the regional system: the recomposition of the Syrian state under Al-Sharaa, if the Kurdish question is stabilised, may accelerate normalisation with Arab actors and open up space for energy investments, provided that Iran is kept at bay.[6] [7]
Scenarios
1. *Negotiated integration with limited autonomy (base)*
- The framework of the March 2025 agreement is resumed, with adjustments allowing for robust Kurdish administrative structures but under unitary constitutional sovereignty.[1] [2]
- The SDF is transformed into regional security forces nominally integrated into the army, with mixed command structures, while Damascus consolidates control over resources and borders.[2][1]
2. *Hard-line centralising victory for Damascus (maximum control)*
- Continued military and political pressure until most of the DAANES' political-military structures are dismantled, with symbolic cultural concessions to legitimise the process.[11][9][3]
- Risk of low-intensity Kurdish insurgency, additional displacement and recurrent use of ‘terrorism’ as a framework for repressing dissent.[4] [9]
3. *Prolonged deadlock and fragmentation (risk)*
- Stalled negotiations, recurring armed incidents and fluid lines of control in the northeast, with constant interference from Turkey, pro-Iranian militias and remnants of ISIS.[10][9][2]
- Erosion of the governance capacity of both Damascus and the Kurdish authorities, worsening humanitarian conditions and slowing reconstruction.[7][4]
Iraq announces prosecution of Islamic State detainees transferred from Syria - massive volumes expected
Facts
The Iraqi government announced that it will take over the prosecution of Islamic State detainees transferred from Syria. Reuters confirmed that 150 prisoners have already been transferred and thousands more could follow in the coming months. Detainees include Iraqi and Syrian citizens, as well as nationals of third countries (Europeans, North Africans, Central Asians).
Legal and security implications
Significant change of phase: from territorial containment in Syria to prosecution in Iraq. Understandable move for security reasons — Iraq has greater state capacity — but raises multiple dilemmas:
1. Capital punishment: Iraq maintains and applies the death penalty for terrorism. Europe and NGOs will oppose this.
2. Procedural guarantees: Fair or expeditious trials?
3. European nationals: Repatriation for trial in Europe? Recognise Iraqi sentences?
4. Prison radicalisation: Problematic history of prisons becoming jihadist universities.
Editorial line: Jihadism must be pursued without ambiguity. But the West — particularly Europe — cannot indefinitely outsource the problem. Terrorism that is not managed with robust justice and effective security returns as an amplified threat.
Outlook and scenarios (90-180 days)
∙ Robust management scenario (30%): Iraq develops a specialised judicial system with international advice, acceptable procedural guarantees, coordination with Interpol and European agencies, and anti-radicalisation protocols in prisons.
∙ Political backlash scenario (50%): Proliferation of high-profile cases of European nationals sentenced to death. NGOs demand repatriation. European governments caught between public pressure and legal limits. Recurring political crisis.
∙ Systemic collapse scenario (20%): Overloading of the judicial and prison systems. Conditions deteriorate. Corruption networks (release through bribery), escape attempts, riots. Reactivation of ISIS networks in Iraq. Threat exported to Europe.
India opens its doors: tariff cuts of up to 40% on European cars.
Facts
India is set to cut tariffs on car imports by up to 40% as part of a trade agreement with the European Union, according to sources cited by Reuters. The move is part of a broader package aimed at attracting European investment, technology and high value-added production, in the context of a partial decoupling of supply chains from China.
Strategic implications
India's move challenges the protectionist inertia of the global South and positions New Delhi as a key partner — and strategic competitor — for both the EU and the United States in the battle for industrial relocation and security of supply.
For Europe, the opportunity is clear: diversify markets, reduce dependence on the Chinese market, and strengthen industrial presence in an Asian democracy with global ambitions. But there are also risks if openness is confused with naivety and it is forgotten that India is playing its own game.
Outlook and scenarios (horizon: agreement to be concluded in the coming months)
∙ Trade redesign scenario (45%): Agreement is concluded. The redesign of trade flows in the automotive sector affects Europe and India, but also Japan, South Korea and China, which will see the consolidation of an Indo-European bloc that is less dependent on their value chains.
∙ Triangular competition scenario (35%): India plays the European and American cards simultaneously, extracting maximum concessions from both while preserving strategic autonomy.
∙ Blockage due to internal resistance scenario (20%): Protectionist sectors in India or Europe block or water down the agreement. Opportunity is wasted due to an inability to overcome short-term corporate interests.
Clear political message:
In a world where dictatorships—from Beijing to Moscow—use trade as a weapon, democracies must speak the language of well-understood interests, without complexes and without ceding strategic autonomy in exchange for mirages of an ‘infinite market.’
Gold above $5,000: structural fear and hard refuge
Facts
The price of gold exceeded $5,000 per ounce, reaching an all-time high driven by a surge in demand for safe-haven assets amid a combination of geopolitical tensions, doubts about growth and concerns about the sustainability of debt in major developed economies. The move comes after a period of less tense rhetoric on Iran and other hot spots, but against a backdrop of persistent uncertainty.
Implications for the global financial architecture
The fact that gold is soaring in the midst of supposed monetary ‘normalisation’ is a definitive indicator that the international system is in a phase of structural mistrust: citizens and markets do not fully believe in either the fiscal discipline of states or the ability of political elites to manage a series of crises.
For emerging economies, the rising cost of the golden refuge is a double-edged sword: it protects the reserves held by some central banks, but it makes financing more expensive and amplifies the vulnerability of those who depend on external capital.
Outlook and scenarios (60-120 day horizon)
∙ High consolidation scenario (40%): Gold consolidates above the threshold. Growing pressure on weak currencies, tensions in sovereign debt, debate on fiscal restraint that governments have irresponsibly postponed.
∙ Technical correction scenario (35%): After a speculative rally, a 10-15% correction returns gold to the $4200-4500 range. But the structural floor has risen permanently.
∙ Scenario of accelerated de-dollarisation (25%): A world rushing towards gold is a world preparing for greater volatility, where reputation, keeping one's word and institutional strength will count for more than speeches in Davos. Central banks accelerate diversification away from the dollar: yuan, gold, multilateral baskets.
Media rack
Anglo-Saxon media (US/UK)
The NYT, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, Fox News and CNBC have focused their attention on three vectors: geopolitical reorganisation in Davos, the closure of security guarantees for Ukraine, and pressure on Israel and Gaza regarding the ceasefire and the political future of the enclave.
Continental European media (France, Germany, Italy, Spain)
Le Monde, Le Figaro, FAZ, Die Welt, Corriere della Sera, La Repubblica highlight Europe's ambivalent role: aspiring to be a strategic player, but held hostage by internal divisions and energy, technological and security dependence on the United States and unreliable suppliers.
Middle East and Arab world media
Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, Asharq al-Awsat and Arab News focus on the Tehran-Hezbollah-Hamas triangle, Israeli manoeuvres in Gaza and Lebanon, and the forced redefinition of the role of Gulf countries in an environment where no one believes in promises of “economic peace” as a substitute for serious political solutions.
Asian media (China, India, Japan)
South China Morning Post, China Daily, Times of India, Hindustan Times, Yomiuri Shimbun highlight the purge in the Chinese military leadership, India-EU trade negotiations, and the readjustment of the balance in the Indo-Pacific, with China becoming more aggressive and simultaneously more insecure internally.
International agencies
Reuters, AP, AFP, and DPA provide the backbone of information on Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, the US winter storm, and the surge in gold prices, with a constant flow of figures, official statements, and updates on damage and sectoral impacts.
Editorial commentary - Atlanticism without servility, realism without cynicism
The world has returned to the essentials: power, deterrence and will. The liberal democracies that built the post-war international order are being challenged simultaneously by external revisionist powers (Russia, China, Iran) and by internal fractures that threaten to be more lethal than any geopolitical adversary.
The greatest danger of the last 48 hours does not come from Moscow, which is carrying out systematic energy terror against Ukrainian civilians. Nor from Beijing, which is purging its nuclear military leadership in the midst of strategic competition. Nor from Tehran, which is mobilising proxies to sabotage stability in the Middle East.
The greatest danger comes from an all-too-human temptation: confusing strength with caprice, imagining that power allows one to dispense with allies, believing that coercion is an effective substitute for trust.
Greenland: the litmus test of 21st-century Atlanticism
Greenland is strategic. This is an indisputable geopolitical fact. The Arctic is home to critical mineral resources, emerging sea lanes and military positions that are crucial for hypersonic missile surveillance.
The West needs a stronger presence: radars, ports, bases, logistical infrastructure. All of this is legitimate, necessary and urgent.
But a great power that claims to lead the free world cannot treat a consolidated democratic ally as if it were up for auction.
When the President of the United States talks about ‘total access’ without time limits and suggests financial retaliation, he is not reinforcing deterrence: he is creating mistrust. And mistrust is Putin's favourite fertiliser.
Every imprudent word about Danish sovereignty, every tariff threat used as leverage, every insinuation that the alliance is a transaction where the strong dictate terms, is a strategic gift to Moscow and Beijing. They do not need to win militarily. It is enough for them that the West is divided, demoralised, paralysed.
The difference between alliance and vassalage
Atlanticism is not blind obedience or submission. It is an alliance between equals, based on shared values (liberal democracy, the rule of law, the market economy, human dignity) and converging strategic interests.
An alliance between equals is sustained by three pillars:
1. Firmness: A willingness to defend common interests even when it is costly. Europe must increase defence spending, develop its own military capabilities and assume responsibilities in its strategic neighbourhood.
2. Loyalty: Mutual support in times of existential threat. The United States defended Europe during the Cold War. Europe invoked Article 5 after 9/11 and sent troops to Afghanistan.
3. Dignity: The courage to say ‘no’ when a partner crosses red lines, because complicit silence destroys mutual respect.
Europe must find its voice. Not the voice of populist anti-Americanism, which is music to Putin's ears. But the voice of an adult partner, capable of cooperating loyally and standing firm when necessary.
Ukraine: the moral test of the West
While we debate Greenland in Davos, Ukraine survives — literally — in darkness and cold. Millions of civilians without electricity 12-20 hours a day, temperatures of -15°C, hospitals with failing generators, collapsed heating systems.
Russia has discovered that massive and sustained civilian suffering can be a more effective political weapon than conventional military victories. Energy terror is not collateral damage; it is a primary strategic objective. Putin is betting that the West — comfortable, prosperous, risk-averse — will tire before Ukraine does.
The day the West gets used to the fact that terror against civilians works, we will have lost more than a war: we will have lost the moral right to call ourselves a civilisation that protects the innocent.
Aid to Ukraine cannot be measured by accounting logic. It must be measured by the strategic logic of ‘how much will it cost us if Putin wins’. Because that victory would not stop at Dnipro. It would extend as far as the West is willing to concede.
China: when the dragon devours itself
The purge in the Chinese military leadership reveals something that serious analysts have been warning about: Xi's personalistic model of power, far from bringing stability, generates factions, fear and internal struggles where the strategic security of the planet becomes a bargaining chip.
The fact that the head of the nuclear programme can be accused of leaking information and corruption shows that the Communist Party's supposed meritocracy is a veneer over an opaque patronage structure.
For Taiwan, Japan and Indo-Pacific allies, no one wants a nuclear arsenal controlled by an elite that purges generals for personal loyalties. This reinforces the need for a robust, Atlanticist security architecture without naivety.
Gold does not lie: when markets vote with their feet
Gold's jump above $5,000 is not a technical anecdote. It is a definitive indicator that the international system is in a phase of structural mistrust. Citizens and markets do not believe in fiscal discipline or in the ability of elites to manage a series of crises.
A world rushing towards gold is a world preparing itself—consciously or not—for scenarios of greater volatility, where reputation, keeping one's word and institutional strength will count for more than speeches in Davos.
Conclusion: Atlanticism is a choice, not a destiny
The transatlantic order is not a law of nature. It is a fragile political construct that requires constant maintenance, periodic adjustments and the will of successive generations to preserve it.
That order survived the Cold War, the Soviet collapse, 9/11, the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit, and Trump 1.0. But no political structure can survive indefinitely when faced with internal erosion combined with external pressure.
The real challenge of 2026 is not Greenland as a territory. It is Greenland as a symbol of what kind of alliance we want: transactional or transformative, based on power or principles, sustained by coercion or trust.
If Europe does not say ‘cooperation yes, but sovereignty is non-negotiable’, it will be inviting blackmail to become normalised.
If the United States does not understand that treating allies as vassals is giving Putin a strategic victory without Moscow firing a missile, it will be making a mistake with historic consequences.
Because if we do not build together the line that separates firmness from arrogance, loyalty from submission, cooperation from coercion... history will draw it for us with a vengeance. And it will be too late to rectify.
Twenty-first-century Atlanticism must be an alliance of adults: capable of cooperating loyally, demanding reciprocity firmly, and saying ‘no’ courageously when a partner crosses red lines. Only then will it survive the challenge that Putin, Xi and revisionist authoritarianism pose to democratic civilisation.
The alternative is not the European strategic autonomy dreamed of by some. It is Western fragmentation, geopolitical paralysis, and a default victory for those who bet on our division. We must choose. And we must do so now.
Spain knows well that exemplary transitions are built with courage, moderation, and moral clarity, such as the one led by King Juan Carlos I.
That legacy is not a museum piece: it is a reminder that tyranny can be defeated without resorting to revenge, that freedom can be expanded without destroying institutions, that one can be firm without being sectarian.
Today, when drug traffickers, jihadists and new forms of authoritarianism seek to impose their law on us by force, the response cannot be retreat or cynicism, but rather the unapologetic recovery of a project of civilisation that believes in itself.
Because, in the end, history is not written by the loudest or the most fanatical, but by those who, amid the noise, have the courage to call things by their name: aggression when it is aggression, terrorism when it is terrorism, dictatorship when it is dictatorship.
And today, more than ever, it is the duty of the West to stop apologising for its existence and start behaving as it claims to be: a space of freedom, justice and responsibility that is not willing to surrender its future to Beijing, Moscow, Tehran or the suicidal complacency of its own elites.
