GATE Opinion

The Middle East has entered a phase of accelerated transformation. The twelve-day war of June 2025 and the new military escalation of February 2026 should be understood as stages of the same regional dynamic: the convergence between Israel’s strategy of degrading Iranian capabilities and the American interest in limiting Tehran’s regional and nuclear reach.

On April 17 and 18, 2026, Barcelona brought together the highest concentration of global progressive leadership recorded in recent decades. The deliberate overlap of the IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy with the Global Progressive Mobilisation gathered more than 3,000 participants from over 40 countries, including the presidents of Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, and South Africa, as well as the President of the European Council. This is no minor detail.

On April 15, 2026, the civil war in Sudan entered its third year and shows no signs of ending in the near future.

On March 12, 2026, thirty years marked since the enactment of the Helms–Burton Act in the United States, legislation that codified the economic and political embargo against Cuba and reinforced its extraterritorial character by expanding sanctions to foreign companies and actors maintaining economic relations with the Island.

Following China’s example, India seeks to take advantage of its “demographic dividend” and improve its socioeconomic indicators before its population ages.

Without a doubt, 2025 will not go down in history as a year of peace. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), in 2025 some 240,000 people died in violent clashes, an increase of 23% compared to the previous period.

Under the unoriginal and almost anachronistic motto “Promoting peace and prosperity through effective multilateralism”, the VII European Union (EU)-African Union (AU) Summit was held in Luanda (Angola) between November 24 and 25, 2025.

That one of the most-viewed news items about the 4th EU–CELAC Summit was that President Pedro Sánchez wore a guayabera confirms the perception of the Summit as a second-tier event in which the most noteworthy aspect is the attire of Spain’s Prime Minister.

The cruel and protracted Israeli assault on Gaza, as well as its open fronts in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran, amid an international scenario marked by war conflicts and the absence of a structuring leadership for global governance, are severely affecting international relations in the Middle East.

Latin America and the Caribbean face an increasingly pressing dilemma: how to finance robust social protection systems amid fiscal constraints, structural inequality, and multidimensional crises.

Gilberto Aranda B., Full Professor of International Relations, University of Chile     On the eve of the Spanish-American War (April to August 1898), Admiral Alfred T. Mahan envisioned an “American Caribbean” equivalent to the Roman Mediterranean (The Interest of...