The first volume of the series (edited by Federico Rampini) on global competition and the analysis of strategic positions is out on newsstands with the newspaper on 11 March
In controversy with the Kremlin over the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in the Donbass, in 2014 Maksim Shevchenko, anchorman of the first Russian TV channel, resigned from the state broadcaster. An independent journalist since then, he explains, in a nutshell, what we are experiencing: «The conflict in Ukraine has come as a real hurricane to disrupt the lives of millions of people. An imperialist war to overturn the world order and acquire resources. From this point of view it recalls the First World War. In addition, the weight of resources must be observed. And in this case I’m talking about land: Ukraine exported 60 million tons of wheat to the world market and was the leading exporter of corn to China. And it has nuclear power plants, which are a huge energy resource. If Russia wins, it will get its hands on all this, with an unimaginable profit, much higher than North Stream-2 (the pipeline from Russia to Europe under construction, now stopped by the German government, ed)».
It is a key to the Russian invasion. Of course, and you are reading them every day on these pages, there are many more possible ones, starting with the revanchism of the Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and his desire to revive Greater Russia (or a small Soviet Union), with everything. what this entails in the redefinition of planetary balances, between great powers and areas of influence, economic forces and military alignments. The British weekly “The Economist”, in an old advertising page, promoted itself with the slogan “The Why Behind the Who, the Where, the What and the When”, “the Why behind the Who, the Where, the How and the When ”, establishing an order of priority among the“ 5 W ”, the basic questions of journalism (Anglo-Saxon and not only).
That “why” is naturally the result – first of all – of the essential narration of the facts, but then – above all – of the ability to cross latitudes and longitudes of the world, abscissa and ordinate of history, made up of political and geographical elements. Geopolitics, in fact. And this cannot be improvised. It focuses – it is not an exact science, maybe it was – as it is done with binoculars, a microscope or a telescope, by turning the lens wheel, which modulates the set of skills and knowledge to be applied to the reading of reality .
Tools that are those contained in the series edited by Federico Rampini, composed of his books with which, as the same columnist of the “Corriere” says, he has been trying “for twenty years to enlighten readers on the world as it is and on the world to come “, But also, as he explains in the preface of the first volume on sale tomorrow, The red lines“From the great classics of foreign authors who have taught the scenarios of geopolitics, geoeconomics and international strategy”, giants like Paul Kennedy and Henry Kissinger.
Napoleon defined strategy as the art of using time and space. In his case it was used to win on the battlefield, but the definition also works with broader strategies. Those that come even more after the noise and horror of the bombing. One of the most striking aspects of the new war is how old it is, again and again: the comparison between the tools of soft power and the planetary cultural hegemony on which we had tuned in in the last twenty years gives way to a “geographical” and “political” reading that takes us back to the distant past of the twentieth century: the goal is the subjugation of a people and its riches.
This war in Europe is again drawn on maps: as well as missiles and fighter-bombers, it is made up of gas pipelines, nuclear power plants, mines and lands to be controlled. The Russian-Ukrainian border, however, is only the epicenter. Geopolitics is never static. In its dynamism it forces us to continually review the factors, their combination: finance, crops, rivers. The effects of each imbalance reverberate – to give just a few examples – from the fields of the Arctic, which will see new tensions for access between the powers, to the black heart of Africa, that Sahel in which Putin’s paramilitaries support various coup leaders to push back Western influences (and businesses).
Maksim Shevchenko says that for the world order as we have known it in the post-war past – an expression that from now on will take on a new, dismal meaning – this is a hurricane. More: it is an earthquake of which no one is yet able to measure its magnitude, identify its depth, calculate its duration and damage. Since February 24, 2022, the tectonic plates of history have been shifting. Russia, Europe, the United States, China … geography will never be the same again. But geopolitics will always give us the compass.
The debut title: Federico Rampini highlights the “Red lines”
Federico Rampini’s book is out on newsstands on 11 March with the Corriere della Sera The red lines, on sale at the price of € 8.90 plus the cost of the newspaper. This is the first volume of the series «Geopolitica. Understanding the balance of the world ”, edited by Rampini himself. In all there are twenty titles, which go on newsstands every Friday until July 22: in addition to the essays by the curator, it includes works by eminent figures in the field of international relations studies, such as the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the historian Paul Kennedy , international relations experts Ian Bremmer, John J. Mearsheimer. “For every conflict – writes Rampini in the book -, for every porous border crossed by refugees, for every people in suffering or in revolt, for every threatening and aggressive regime, for every new technology that conquers territories, there is a red line that someone has drawn and others widen or contest, violate. America has a leadership that falters fearfully, Europe is losing its pieces, a restless Italy is awakened by signs of uneven economic recovery, in patches of leopard. In the background, the advance of authoritarian impulses within Western liberal democracies, the aggression of terrorism that always looms over us. We have an acute need for interpretative keys, new ideas, recipes ». The second volume of the series «Geopolitica. Understanding the balance of the world “will be World order by Henry Kissinger, out March 18. Followed by: Federico Rampini, The Chinese century (March 25); Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why nations fail (April 1).
March 10, 2022 (change March 10, 2022 | 21:38)
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