A New World: The Road to Fragmentation

The war in Ukraine became the geopolitical trigger of a new global transition, unleashed by the disruption caused by a war that militarizes almost everything. This is the thesis of Mark Galeotti, in "The weaponisation of everything".

From this perspective, interdependencies constitute a factor of power and coercion that are expressed outside the old and sick multilateral system. On the other hand, the analysis of the dynamics of the Summit Meetings does allow us to gauge where the "house of power" is and the contents of the new agendas. Take, then, three recent summits: Arab League; Hiroshima G7 and the China-Central Asia Summit.

The Arab League, meeting in Saudi Arabia, did not exhaust itself in Syria's return to the Group. President al-Assad re-entered, but in return he made two commitments: to distance himself from some of his allies such as Turkey, Russia and Iran and the closure of plants producing captagon, a synthetic drug that has been installed in the petro-monarchies of the Gulf.

In Djeddah, the cycle of the Arab Spring, in its Muslim Brotherhood version, was definitively closed; a veritable "democratic winter" was consecrated; the military governments of Egypt and Sudan were warned that the aid they receive will not last forever and, finally, the leadership of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates was exposed.

Stability and modernization constitute the pillars of a new regional order, where these two monarchies intend to anticipate the end of the oil age by designing a large business space in the Gulf, as can be seen in the "Saudi Vision 2030".

It is true that in that space Washington lost influence, but not so much: the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, was a special guest of the Saudi King. For that reason, analysts often encounter obstacles when trying to identify members of the so-called "Global South."

The "Group of 7", at the Hiroshima meeting, basically devoted its agenda to the war in Ukraine and relations with China. The commitment to aid Ukraine was at the centre of the agenda, symbolised by the invitation extended to the Ukrainian President.

The issue of sanctions occupied a special chapter, since military aid policies and the policy of compliance with economic sanctions do not walk in parallel. Moscow undoubtedly faces unforeseen problems in the military field, but it has managed, thanks to the effective management of the Central Bank, to protect its macroeconomic balances.

In the commercial dimension, its external networks have been very effective and have allowed it to circumvent sanctions and blockades. An example: the studies carried out by the Pentagon on the battlefield on the weapons destroyed and abandoned by Russian troops show, for example, that Russia supplies itself with semiconductors, used in the manufacture of armaments, e.g. drones, installed in many European electronic products marketed on the international market.

Neither does the U.S. The US has managed to get its European partners to comply with the agreed sanctions and not all participate fully in military aid. On the "China question", the consensus remained.

The cracks there do not exist, even one of the "guests", the Prime Minister of India N. Modi, arrived at the Summit when his country is again involved in an old border dispute with Beijing around Bhutan, a State located in the Himalayan Chain, where history testifies to an agenda of military conflicts and border disputes.

The choice of Hiroshima as the venue for the G7 clearly reveals the state of the world: that city is a symbol of war, at a time when Japan is focusing on its defence vulnerabilities, increasing military spending and leaving behind the pacifism expressed in Article 9 of its Constitution.

At the "China/Central Asia Summit" in Xian, President Xi Jinping scored a victory while the G7 was meeting in Hiroshima. A new Bloc took shape, composed of the former Asian Soviet Republics that became independent in 1991: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and of course China.

A decade after launching "the Silk Roads," President Xi pushed a cooperation agenda that includes the installation of a Permanent Secretariat in China. The rest of the proposals add up: economy, connectivity, a new gas pipeline, "green innovation", security, defense and the "promotion of the reconstruction of Afghanistan".

These five countries make up a geopolitical space where historically interests and tensions intersected.

An example: prior to the Summit, the Chinese ambassador in Paris, Lu Shaye, made "inopportune" statements that reflect the existence of diverse visions in Chinese diplomacy: he defended the Russian invasion of Ukraine and affirmed that the borders of the countries that made up the USSR would not have legal status.

That statement shocked Central Asia and Beijing quickly disavowed it. At the Xian Summit, China's interest in displacing Moscow from the region and monitoring Islamic groups became clear. Trade, basically the gas that China imports, facilitates that design. Finally, in Central Asia, the invasion of Ukraine ended an old Russian aspiration: to lead that great geo-economic space.