Worldwide geopolitical reordering, the global war and the hybrid war

Carlos Sánchez Berzaín
February 28, 2025

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The worldwide status-quo is changing due to United States actions in the first month of President Trump 47 government, with active leadership and strategies aimed at modifying situations of aggression, end conflicts, and manage tensions that took us to the “First Global War” and to permanent attacks against democracies through operations of a “Hybrid War.” We witnessed actions aimed at the reordering of worldwide geopolitical positions that could end the global war and increase the levels of international security and peacekeeping.

We are in the First Global War since Russia’s invasion to Ukraine. There are no neutral countries in this conflagration. Democracies back Ukraine, they provide it with economic, political, and financial aid and have levied sanctions against Russia who has established and strengthened Support and Backing Treaties and Accords with dictatorships from China, Iran, North Korea, and dictatorships from Africa, 21st Century Socialism in the Americas, and para-dictatorial governments. With the terrorist attack of Hamas against Israel, the Global War was expanded with a second front.

The Global War is “the armed conflict that involves forces of specific warring parties in a determined geographic area, but the political, economic, financial, technological, propaganda confrontation does not exclude anyone” it is global. In a global war “there is no generalized armed action, but all countries participate, no one is neither neutral, nor impartial’ and is different than a World War because this type of war is an armed conflict between all or the majority of the countries of the world.

The hybrid war is “the strategy of aggression in which all types of means and procedures, conventional or irregular forces, are used (insurgence, terrorism, migration, common crime, narcotics’ trafficking, cybernetics …).” It is confirmed by; forcible migrations, drug trafficking, human trafficking, the presence of organized crime, and the profusion of common crime. This type of war seeks to destabilize and wreck democracy using its own mechanisms and more. The hybrid war grants the aggressor governments the possibility of denying their involvement (plausible denial).

The first month of Trump 47, points to two types of warfare, the Global and the Hybrid War. Interactions with governments from the Americas; clarity when facing terrorism, narcotics’ trafficking, and transnational crime on a global scale; initiatives for peace between Russia and Ukraine; actions in the Middle East and backing for Israel; Europe and NATO; identification of allies and adversaries with new terms of reference; tension in the Pacific, China, Taiwan; and more …

With the cease of fire in Gaza, the Global War continues to have an open front between Russia and Ukraine with a multi-pointed negotiation started by the US and Russia, with fears in Ukraine, mistrust in Europe, pressure from dictatorships of China, Iran, North Korea, fearful expectations of dictatorships from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and the para-dictatorial governments from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras. The outcome will configure a worldwide geopolitical reordering, whether be it ending or delaying the Global War by discontinuing the armed fight or advancing the conditions for World War III.

The key element of this negotiation is presented as the protection of Ukraine and the security of Europe in the face of the Russian threat seen as a repetition of the times of the Cold War, but in reality, it is about the geopolitical positioning of Russia who, with its invasion to Ukraine, has subordinated itself to China and with peace can integrate itself to the European block to regain equilibrium in regards to China.

The shifting of Russia’s geopolitical position, going from being the enemy of the Western world to being a non-ally of China, should be the first step to execute -with over 30 years of delay- the strategic recommendation that presidents Clinton and Bush 43 did not implement in the aftermath of the disappearance of the USSR: To incorporate Russia into the democratic and Western security system to gravitate over China with a focus similar to the policy of Nixon and Kissinger who by opening-up to China, deterred the USSR.

Today, the winner of the war between Russia and Ukraine is China. Western democracies have high economic costs, have lost the Russian market now supplied by China, suffer energy consequences by buying Iranian oil that sustains terrorism. The undollarization of Russia’s economy, followed by Iran’s, makes China grow and causes damage to the worldwide economic system, the crises in the Russian-European pipelines create losses to both parties, Russia sustains the war with electronics from China, ballistics and drones from Iran, and troops from North Korea, and more.

No one can win the war in Ukraine because -in case of extreme pressure- Russia will use atomic energy and that would lead to World War III and, conversely, in case of Russian extreme pressure. Only China and dictatorships of Transnational Organized Crime who feed from State-terrorism and crimes against humanity sustain themselves with the current situation.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

Published in Spanish by infobae.com Sunday February 23, 2025