Who's in charge?
I have spent many years of my life observing the evolution, development and changes in the world around me; in fact, a period of just over sixty years. In my childhood and training as a professional, during my busy active life and even when I have dedicated myself to the not inconsiderable contemplative life - as at present - and always, whether for personal interest or professional deformation, I am increasingly and worse, more and more astonished, disoriented and, why not say it, rather more concerned by the evolution and development of the major and serious events that occur almost daily and by observing the reactions of command and resolution that arise in the International Community (IC), to correct or mitigate the effects of the events.
As a citizen of a medium-sized and not very wealthy country -surrounded by others with greater specific weight in the IC either by their own entity or derived from their great capabilities or from the traditional alliances and trends in which they are immersed or by other types of military possibilities that differentiate them from the others- I understood from a very early age that the world did not walk alone, that something or someone was in charge and was setting the pace of things and the future of the times.
Analysing it slowly, I discovered that there were countries that dominated all the others or others in their immediate or medium environment, and that, in some cases, as a consequence of great wars or confrontations that have produced millions of deaths and devastation of entire countries, the need was felt to create supranational Organisations, with the task and the "necessary authority" to curb the drifts, inclinations, unhealthy ambitions or the less than decent intentions of countries or their protagonists who, intermittently, showed an irrepressible desire to extend their own borders or those known as areas of influence and interest.
After several centuries of alternative dominions of the many empires that arose, grew and died in what is now known as Europe, Africa, Asia and even America and Oceania, the world has suffered the devastating effects of major clashes between countries or coalitions of them, all of which have arisen for the same reason as in the past, to extend their borders, in an effort to improve their international prestige or to grab the natural fruits that flow in other territories and that do not exist or are scarce in their own.
Thus, we reached the 20th century where those wars, increasingly generalised and deadly, increased in strength, gravity and intensity at the hands of a series of madmen, despots or tyrants and, in the space of thirty years, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific became great war scenarios where barbarity and terror reached unimaginable heights. The world, almost unanimously, became involved in one way or another in those conflicts and their ensuing barbarity.
As is often the case, out of that dust came mud which, in this case, because of its novelty and even a certain, albeit imperfect, "neutrality and originality" in its scope and the way in which it took its decisions, was able - more or less - to maintain a certain degree of peace and tranquillity at the global level; although these were always forced and adopted thanks, fundamentally, to the balance between two powerful resulting blocs (NATO and the Warsaw Pact), with their satellite countries and the consequent large and very costly military formations or organisations that emanated from them as their own powerful executing arm.
These organisations or political-military blocs were the solid pillars on which they based their decisions and orders, as they were seasoned with large contingents of troops and large arsenals of weapons of all kinds - among them, those of mass destruction, mainly nuclear - which were undoubtedly the most important due to their capacity for destruction and deterrence, given the sadly proven devastating effect they produced.
While it is true that these blocs have played a very important role in maintaining peace by sustaining or placating most of the excessive impulses that were out of tune or with little quorum, it soon became clear that their existence was not enough to maintain with guarantees and on their own, the world at peace, albeit divided into two large blocs - not at all well-matched, by the way - nor to definitively and in a coordinated manner, correct the steps of those who, from time to time and beyond their control, would stick out their paws and create situations of sufficient unrest in others.
It was therefore necessary to create a super-arbitrator which, while relying on both, would, on its own initiative, maintain a certain order and concert among most of them and which would be supported, from one side or the other, by all the nations of the world, or at least the most important ones at the time. The UN.
In any case, and given that man is imperfect, fickle and tends to tire of everything - even what goes well for him - there have always been a series of dominant figures on the fringes of the UN. Heads of state who, backed by their country's own military capabilities and those close to them, have maintained and exercised the position of international arbiter or judge and have sought to set the course of action, or the path to follow, not only to resolve conflicts, but also to prevent them from coming to fruition and have even sponsored the aid necessary to defuse or diminish the effects of many conflicts.
This role has been predominantly in the hands of the US and Russia; each of these countries and their peculiar and very protagonist leaders have been exercising this role in their neighbouring areas and other areas of interest or influence; above all, due to strategic interests, energy, political proximity or to create the bases to establish their ideologies or, in many cases, the necessary military deployments to fulfil and exercise their known or hidden agendas.
For decades, other countries such as China, India, North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Morocco and Turkey - among several others - have maintained and exercised more restrained roles in the sphere of international leadership and the role to play in the march of the IC, except in very local cases and almost always in support of or very close to one of the two aforementioned leaders, but never raising their voices more than them.
However, external wear and tear, and much more internal wear and tear, after prolonged leadership and the enormous real economic and military cost that this entails, have meant that recently countries like the US -although this has not been the norm until now- when the defence or maintenance of its traditional international policy has passed through "different" hands, due to very subjective reasons or certain spurious interests, have changed their minds and varied their positions, and many of the seemingly traditional and immovable arenas in which they had been exerting their influence close almost overnight, pick up their pieces and those "protected" outcasts are left again to their own devices or to the mercy of other lethargic or not very active internal enemies or neighbours, who, given the previous unwavering US presence and commitment, did not show their full extent and capacity of intentions.
Nowadays, the number of "leaders" turned demagogues, with international pretensions of an almost global character, proliferate everywhere, and even the most insignificant, the most clever or the one who has found the magic solution for everything, such as the elixir of life, money, beauty and health, is postulated as the most important; they give gratuitous lessons that are contrary to their usual political practice and do not hesitate to confront giants such as the US, the EU or Israel with a great deal of self-confidence; they create high-intensity and long-lasting armed conflicts or endanger the functioning of the economy and world trade.
It is true that this is happening because the UN is totally discredited; the EU is missing all the trains that could take it to the right destination; Russia can no longer even eat a small fish like Ukraine after a conflict of much attrition, and the US is once again - and at the beginning of a new electoral process - being subjected to an erosion of its less-favoured political caste, at the hands of a lunatic who is persecuted by the law of his country and led by an octogenarian who is beginning to have trouble distinguishing between the hand and foot on either side, while Russia continues its war without anyone being able to stop it, China is beginning to think that its turn has come to stop being a pariah, joined by others that are beginning to find their feet, such as Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, or old-new terrorist groups that, with determined and powerful external aid, are convulsing the current world.
Special mention should be made of the state of decay and rottenness in which Europe and the EU find themselves, the scarcity of true leaders with a capital letter or involved in scandals of various kinds, a dubious and highly erratic political attitude, no common military capacity and major economic problems.
Moreover, it should be added that all this is happening at a time when the local and global economy is based on unlimited debt and deficit growth, when technological and climatic changes and the emergence of the so-called revolutionary Artificial Intelligence are forcing us to make major internal and external changes and investments that not all countries are able to keep up with, much less digest or overcome.
With all this background and with some added local seasoning, it is more than logical to think that in many corners of the world there is a proliferation, like mushrooms, of true autocrats and that many of the leaders are free to do as they please and without fear of being questioned or knowing that any comments or slight external pressure that may come to them will have no real repercussions on their term of office.
You don't have to go far to see and confirm what has been said so far; we Spaniards have a president of government who has all of the above in order to stay in his seat at all costs; who intends to continue signing books that, by the way, he does not write; who seeks to carve out a comfortable future free of economic burdens and, meanwhile, continues to feed his great ego through walks and conferences around the world wrapped in a false halo of triumphalism.
A person, who is the paradigm of changes of opinion in everything related to the economy because he spends without restraint and, above all, in national and international politics; changes or abolishes the laws that hinder him in his way; cancels through absorption and pollution state or judicial organizations - which until now were supposed to be independent - to turn them into true servants and fulfill their desires; it makes pacts with Bildu - the true successors of ETA - or with separatist parties such as Junts, Esquerra or the PNV and maintains a highly corrosive, harmful and totally unstable government, which is barely maintained thanks to continuous and serious political and economic concessions, no matter how much the government and its parties insist on denying it, they seriously endanger the identity, entity and national integrity, they could constitute an attack on the Constitution and the entities and organizations that make up the skeleton of what our rule of law means.
Given what I've seen inside and outside the house, I honestly must confess that I don't know how to answer the question that gives this work its title.