Gustavo de Arístegui: Geopolitical analysis of 8, 9 and 10 November 2025
- Editorial introduction: the state of the world
- Crisis at the BBC: top brass resign over editorial manipulation of Trump's speech
- United States: Senate agrees on first step to end shutdown
- Global markets: dollar volatility plummets after Trump shock
- China: Beijing commissions the Fujian aircraft carrier
- Mexico: Sheinbaum sends more troops to Michoacán after mayor's assassination
- Hybrid threat: suspicious drones over Brussels; UK sends special team
- Transatlantic tension: Kallas (EU) demands that the US respect international law over attacks on drug-smuggling boats
- Tactical diplomacy: Lavrov declares himself ready to meet with Rubio
- Natural disaster: Typhoon Fung-wong hits the Philippines
- Media rack: analysis of international narratives
- Final observations and strategic analysis
Editorial introduction: the state of the world
Analysis of the global situation over the last 24 hours reveals a landscape defined by the rapid erosion of trust in the institutions that the West considered pillars of its order, political paralysis in the US due to the federal government shutdown, which is hampering strategic decision-making, and the methodical consolidation of revisionist powers that are not waiting for the West to resolve its internal crises.
This report delves into the events that define this era: from the questioning of the credibility of the BBC, which, despite all its flaws, is incomparable to the Spanish public media, to the recurring chaos of the US political system with its shutdown, to China's show of naval force with its new aircraft carrier.
At the same time, there is a dangerous naivety among certain European actors in the face of hybrid threats that are no longer theoretical, but present and real. The response to drone incursions over European capitals and, alarmingly, the conceptual confusion in addressing international drug trafficking, demand a strategic realism that seems to be lacking. The following analysis advocates an approach committed to truth, sovereignty and criticism of the abuse of power, regardless of its geographical or ideological origin.
Crisis at the BBC: top brass resign over editorial manipulation of Trump's speech
Facts:
BBC Director-General Tim Davie and News Chief Executive Deborah Turness have resigned abruptly. The trigger was the broadcast of a documentary by the prestigious Panorama programme dealing with the events of 6 January 2021.
The investigation, uncovered by The Daily Telegraph, revealed that the production edited a speech by Donald Trump, merging sentences spoken at different times to suggest a direct incitement to violence at the Capitol. Critically, the editing deliberately omitted parts of the same speech in which Trump called on his supporters to protest ‘peacefully’.
Implications:
The BBC, long considered the global pillar of public service broadcasting, faces an unprecedented crisis of governance and credibility. This issue reignites the debate about the impartiality and responsibility of public media in an environment of extreme polarisation.
This is not an isolated incident, but the culmination of an ideological drift perceived in other sensitive coverage (such as Gaza or gender identity), which has eroded audience trust. The effect is twofold: on the one hand, it strengthens populist narratives about fake news; on the other, it provides arguments for the British government to push for a thorough review of the corporation's funding and mandate.
Internationally, the BBC's fall from grace as a benchmark for objectivity creates a vacuum that will be immediately exploited by authoritarian state media, such as Russia's RT or China's CGTN, to discredit all Western media.
United States: Senate agrees on first step to end shutdown
Facts:
After more than 40 days of federal paralysis, the US Senate has reached a preliminary agreement to reopen the government. The key to the deal was the concession of a group of moderate Democrats, who agreed to vote for the reopening without including the extension of ACA (Affordable Care Act) health subsidies, popularly known as Obamacare.
The agreement, which still has several hurdles to overcome, funds the federal government until January 2026 and reverses the layoffs of civil servants, but postpones the crucial battle over health subsidies.
Implications:
The resolution of this impasse shields the institutional stability of the US in the short term and softens the ‘Washington risk’ that penalises the markets. However, it highlights political paralysis due to extreme partisan polarisation. The shutdown has had severe tangible costs, including massive flight cancellations due to a lack of air traffic controllers and delays in federal food aid.
The root cause is the ‘tyranny of the minority’: critical sectors of the Republican Party have demonstrated their ability to hijack the federal government. Although the White House is buying time, moderate Democrats could pay a political price with their electoral base, encouraged by the most radical sector of the party, the members of the SQUAD (Squad) led by the ultra-leftist Alejandra Ocasio-Cortez, for giving in on the protection of the ACA.
Overall, 40 days of shutdown have damaged the image of the United States as a serious and reliable administration, highlighting that its political system is structurally vulnerable to recurring obstructionist tactics.
Global markets: dollar volatility plummets after Trump shock
Facts:
Financial markets have seen a notable decline in the implied volatility of the US dollar. This stabilisation is interpreted by trading desks as the definitive overcoming of the Trump impact, a period of high exchange rate uncertainty linked to the political rhetoric of recent weeks.
Implications:
This stabilisation cannot be viewed in isolation; it is directly connected to the previous news item. The fall in volatility is not only due to the market ‘overcoming’ political rhetoric, but more tangibly to the end of the government shutdown eliminating massive and immediate macroeconomic uncertainty. Traders had already ‘priced in’ the political risk, and the resolution of the deadlock allows a return to normality.
The stabilisation of the dollar favours international trade and renews confidence in safe-haven assets. However, the ‘knock-on effect’ will be felt in emerging economies. A stable and strong dollar is bad news for peripheral markets and Asian stock markets that had benefited from the weakness of the US currency for their exports and debt servicing.
China: Beijing commissions the Fujian aircraft carrier
Facts:
The People's Liberation Army Navy has commissioned its third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, in a high-profile ceremony presided over by Xi Jinping. This ship marks a technological milestone for Beijing: it is its first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults (EMALS), a technology that until now was only mastered by the US and which allows heavier aircraft to be launched, with more fuel and weaponry, and at a higher rate of departure.
Implications:
The Fujian represents an undeniable ‘qualitative leap’ in the projection of Chinese naval power and the consolidation of its blue-water navy (as opposed to its Coast Guard, which is a true naval force). Although the ship is still conventionally powered and smaller than the US Ford class, this comparison is irrelevant to its main theatre of operations, primarily the South China Sea.
The real threat from the Fujian is regional. Its strategic objective is not to compete globally with the US Navy, but to make US military intervention in defence of Taiwan unsustainable and to consolidate its absolute dominance in the South China Sea.
This is causing immediate concern in Washington, Tokyo, Manila, Bangkok, Canberra and all ASEAN nations. The Fujian is forcing Western allies (especially the AUKUS alliance, Australia, the UK and the US) to accelerate their own deployments and revise their combat doctrines, dangerously increasing the risk of accidental escalation in the Western Pacific.
Mexico: Sheinbaum sends more troops to Michoacán after mayor's assassination
Facts:
Drug cartel violence in the state of Michoacán has reached a new peak with the broad daylight assassination of the mayor of Uruapan during Day of the Dead celebrations.
In response, President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced the deployment of 1,000 additional federal troops, bringing the total in the region to 10,000. This show of force is complemented by a £2.5 billion investment in social programmes in the area.
Implications:
The deterioration of security in Michoacán jeopardises the country's governability and the confidence of foreign investors. Sheinbaum's mixed strategy (a 2.0 version of ‘hugs and bullets’) is an implicit recognition that the purely military strategy has failed in the past. However, the spillover effect of violence is already a reality affecting agri-food supply chains (such as avocados) and migration flows.
President Sheinbaum has rejected direct US intervention, accepting only intelligence cooperation in an effort to defend Mexican sovereignty. Although this stance is politically popular in Mexico, it is strategically risky.
If this new strategy fails to eradicate the deep institutional corruption that allows the cartels to operate, violence will persist and pressure on Washington to act unilaterally, as seen in News Item 7, will increase exponentially. The power and violent influence of Mexican drug cartels has turned Mexico into a failed state in the states with the strongest presence of these powerful mafias.
Hybrid threat: suspicious drones over Brussels; UK sends special team
Facts:
Belgian security forces are on high alert after multiple incursions by unidentified drones over Brussels. The devices have been spotted near critical infrastructure, including Brussels-Zaventem International Airport (the country's main airport) and, according to worrying reports, in the vicinity of a military base housing US tactical nuclear weapons. In a swift show of cooperation, London has responded by sending a team of technical support and anti-drone specialists from the British Army.
Implications:
The proliferation of drones over European capitals highlights a serious vulnerability in the ‘lower layer’ of air defence. This incident illustrates the new reality of the hybrid threat: it is a low-cost tactic (a commercial drone is cheap), high-impact (capable of closing an airport or causing panic) and extremely difficult to attribute.
The post-Brexit response of the United Kingdom is significant. It shows that, even outside the European Union, the United Kingdom remains indispensable to the European security architecture (NATO). This action strengthens bilateral cooperation between the UK and Belgium and, at the same time, highlights the frustrating slowness of the EU's own institutional response to physical threats in its capital.
Transatlantic tension: Kallas (EU) demands that the US respect international law over attacks on drug-smuggling boats
Facts:
At the CELAC-EU summit held in Colombia, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, publicly urged the United States to respect international law. The statement comes after US attacks reportedly killed 69 people aboard vessels suspected of drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Pacific. At the same summit, Colombia described these events as ‘extrajudicial killings’.
Implications:
This issue is causing serious tension in judicial and maritime cooperation between Brussels and Washington. The EU, in its role as a defender of multilateralism, is attempting to draw legal red lines and preserve the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Washington, for its part, is making it clear that it prioritises its ‘war on drugs’ and national security over global norms when it considers them to have failed. The resulting friction alienates Latin American allies and fuels anti-Americanism in the region. For the EU, this stance undermines transatlantic anti-drug coordination, creating a rift that only benefits the cartels and the states that sponsor them.
No one ever criticised President Obama for eliminating terrorist targets in populated cities and even in residential buildings with drones, such as the operation that eliminated Bin Laden's sinister successor at the head of Al-Qaeda, Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri (a paediatrician...). Eliminating drug-trafficking boats belonging to the terrorist-mafia organisation ‘Tren de Aragua’ or the brutal Venezuelan narco-dictatorship is part of legitimate defence and the fight against extremely dangerous criminals, which in the opinion of many experts is fully justified.
Tactical diplomacy: Lavrov declares himself ready to meet with Rubio
Facts:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has stated (through the state agencies RIA and TASS, and reported by Reuters) that he is ‘ready’ to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. No agenda or venue has been proposed. In the same statement, Lavrov reiterated Moscow's non-negotiable conditions for peace in Ukraine: Russian control of the annexed regions and Kiev's renunciation of any aspirations to join NATO.
Implications:
This is not a peace offer, but strategic communication in its purest form. It is a tactical signal from Moscow designed to appear open and willing to engage in dialogue.
Lavrov's real goal is not to convince Rubio, but to address the more sceptical wing of the Republican Party and European allies who are showing signs of ‘war fatigue’. He seeks to consolidate his positions on the front while attempting to create cracks in Washington's support for Kiev.
With no concrete results on the table, the gesture is propaganda. For the United States, it offers a window for diplomacy only if it is exercised from a position of unequivocal strength, preventing Russia from dictating the terms of a ‘peace’ that would only serve to ratify its aggression.
Natural disaster: Typhoon Fung-wong hits the Philippines
Facts:
Super Typhoon Fung-wong (with winds of around 200 km/h) has hit the main island of Luzon in the Philippines with extreme violence. The provisional death toll is two, but the mass preventive evacuation of more than a million residents is noteworthy. This is the 21st tropical cyclone of the year in the country, which is still recovering from the impact of the deadly Typhoon Kalmaegi a few weeks ago. Fung-wong is now heading towards the South China Sea.
Implications:
The disaster is accelerating a humanitarian crisis and testing the emergency management capacity of the entire Southeast Asian region. The evacuation of one million people, while tragic, highlights a significant improvement in the Philippines' resilience and early warning systems.
However, the intensity and frequency of these superstitions is a direct consequence of climate change, which exacerbates the region's vulnerability. This typhoon is not just a humanitarian event; it is geopolitical. Its trajectory will temporarily impact supply chains and shipping routes in the South China Sea, forcing Taiwan and Japan to activate their contingency plans, diverting military and intelligence resources.
Media rack: analysis of international narratives
Analysis of the dominant media narratives reveals how these nine events are interpreted through markedly different ideological and national lenses:
US axis (NYT, WaPo, WSJ, Fox News): Coverage of the shutdown is the top domestic news story, but with opposing frames. The New York Times and The Washington Post present it as a failure of the Republican Party and a risk to democracy and the ACA. In contrast, Fox News celebrates the fall of the BBC leadership as a victory against the mainstream media and proof of its allegations of fake news. The Wall Street Journal gives priority to Fujian, framing it as a military escalation that demands an economic and defence response.
UK axis (Times, Telegraph, Guardian): The BBC scandal dominates the agenda. The Daily Telegraph, which broke the story, presents it as vindication of its criticism of the corporation's bias. The Guardian distances itself from the domestic scandal to prioritise criticism of Kaja Kallas as a necessary defence of international law, and the humanitarian impact of Typhoon Fung-wong.
Continental Europe axis (Le Monde, FAZ, Die Welt): The focus is on security. The BBC crisis is viewed with nervousness, due to fears of a domino effect on their own public media. The drones in Brussels and Lavrov's tactical offer are seen as direct threats, one hybrid and the other diplomatic, to the stability of the EU and NATO.
Russian and Chinese axis (RT, TASS, SCMP, China Daily): The narrative is textbook. RT and TASS present Lavrov as the reasonable diplomat seeking peace, while the West (the US with its shutdown, the BBC with its crisis) is falling apart due to its own incompetence. China Daily and the South China Morning Post celebrate Fujian as a milestone in national sovereignty and a purely defensive technological achievement, ignoring the tension it generates.
Latin American axis (Clarín, Reforma): The focus is on sovereignty. Reforma defends President Sheinbaum's position in Michoacán. Clarín and other media outlets in the region echo the CELAC-EU summit, supporting criticism of US actions against drug smuggling boats. Final observations and strategic analysis.
Final observations and strategic analysis
The day highlights three clear vectors: the fragility of political and media institutions in the West, the fiscal realism that prevails in Washington only when the economy coughs, and the consolidation of the Indo-Pacific chessboard, where China is accelerating its formidable military rearmament while nature reminds us that strategy is also resilience.
However, two of the day's news items require additional critical assessment due to their profound strategic significance.
First, the statement by EU High Representative Kaja Kallas on drug smuggling boats is not only diplomatically clumsy; it is reckless and strategically incomprehensible. By demanding that the United States ‘respect international law’ by attacking drug trafficking vessels, Kallas displays a dangerous naivety. These vessels are not romantic smugglers, but logistics operators for ultra-violent cartels, many of them directly linked to the Venezuelan narco-dictatorship and other hostile state actors who use drug trafficking as a weapon of hybrid warfare against the West.
The blatant hypocrisy of the Brussels bureaucracy is evident. The strictest legalism is invoked to protect drug traffickers, while silence is maintained or the tone is lowered when anti-terrorist operations that are as justified as attacks on narco-terrorists (who often operate in similar legal grey areas) are also carried out by the US, incidentally in record numbers under the Obama presidency.
It must be said clearly: traffickers who move tonnes of poison and corrupt entire states are just as violent and dangerous as terrorists, which is why many governments have proceeded to declare drug cartels terrorist organisations, with all the legal implications that this entails.
Kallas' position highlights a dangerous reversal of values in the EU, where misguided legal formalism (since cartels are terrorist organisations under US law and can therefore be dealt with in the same way as Al Qaeda or Daesh) takes precedence over real security, seriously weakening Atlantic cooperation against narco-terrorism.
Secondly, the crisis at the BBC (News Item 1) is symptomatic of the profound decline of public media when they succumb to ideological bias and arrogance. The resignation of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and Head of News Deborah Turness over such crude editorial manipulation as the biased, biased, manipulated and malicious editing of Trump's speech during the storming of the Capitol (a video that, incidentally, was used as evidence in the legal proceedings against Trump in this matter) is the only honourable way out of such serious and scandalous manipulation of information due to a profound ideological sectarianism unworthy of a public broadcaster. In any case, this is child's play compared to what is happening at the public broadcaster RTVE.
But this scandal highlights a painful comparison. In the United Kingdom, at least, there is a media ecosystem (in this case, The Daily Telegraph) capable of exposing wrongdoing and an accountability mechanism that, albeit belatedly, has resulted in resignations at the highest level.
A scandal of this nature is simply ‘unthinkable’ in the current Spanish context. And not because the Spanish public media enjoy greater integrity, but for exactly the opposite reason. In Spain, the public media, led by RTVE and the EFE agency, have long since renounced any pretence of neutrality and have been reduced to a mere ‘platform for government propaganda’. They have ceased to be a public service and have become a tool of power. Bias is not a scandal that leads to resignations; it is official editorial policy.
Geopolitics demands committed vigilance. Democracies must strengthen their firewalls (legal, editorial and military) against the serious threats posed by powers that have chosen to be enemies of the West, as well as internal naivety on the one hand and the deep ideological sectarianism that is pitting entire societies against each other, favouring the most extremist elements.
Particularly worrying is the obsession of some leaders of democratic countries with controlling all areas of power, thereby breaking the separation of powers, and controlling the editorial line of publicly owned media or any other means or instrument of influence. There are increasing examples of this, in Hungary, Turkey and especially Spain, which is undoubtedly the most serious example of all, as pointed out by a growing number of international media outlets, including those on the centre-left.