(This article was written by Hermann Tertsch and appeared in El Debate. Washington declara a Europa en quiebra civilizacional y en Bruselas se esfuerzan por darle la razón)

The political leadership and the colossal institutional bureaucracy of the European Union hate and fear Donald Trump as much as they do the European national, conservative and sovereigntist forces. They know in Brussels that there is a direct relationship between this president’s second arrival at the White House and the conservative revolution spreading across the United States, Europe and now also Ibero-America, which makes the forces that are at least partly in political tune with the North American president grow without pause.

Now in Brussels, Berlin and Paris they have more reason to hate Trump. On the one hand, they have the 33-page United States Strategic Policy document, which warns that the economic decline and the political and social degradation in Europe are no longer problems of circumstance but a crisis of civilisation that makes the countries of the European Union, dragged along by a destructive ideology, weak societies incapable of being reliable and valid allies for the United States.

That is how serious they see the situation in Washington, and that is how serious many of us in Europe see it. And the media and the political caste of Brussels may eclipse and silence those of us Europeans who think this way, but not the administration of the United States. That does an enormous favour to the truth, which enters through new cracks in the perfectly mendacious and failed discourse of the European Commission and of governments as failed and weak as the German and the French.

One of the causes identified in the report as the origin both of the political degradation and of the economic decline is the fear of freedom and the ever greater censorship and persecution of dissent. Well, the European Union rushed to prove the White House report right before it had even been published by announcing a fine against Elon Musk’s platform, X. They cite misleading advertising, but everyone knows that the European Commission and its attack dogs against the national and anti-socialist forces cannot bear the degrees of freedom of expression that Elon Musk reintroduced at X when he bought the platform. And Musk himself has confirmed that the EU offered him a way to avoid fines if he went back to applying censorship to certain opinions, which are always the same ones, the conservative and national ones.

We members of the European Parliament are witnesses to a European Commission policy marked by the same panic felt by the social-democratic majorities of the People’s Party and the socialists in Germany, in Austria or in France, who block national governments that are already the leading force. The president of the European Commission feels no ridicule at all when she states that they are going to make a great deal of money available to independent media. Nor do they feel any shame when they are confronted with facts that are hard to call legal, such as the subsidising with thousands of millions in past years of NGOs, all of them leftist and with woke ideology, always devoted to the war against the conservative forces. Now with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which they have used to fine X, and with the “Democracy Shield”, which is the programme against supposed disinformation and attacks by external enemies but which is in reality first and foremost the joint command of extraordinary measures to combat the national, conservative and sovereigntist forces that grow ever stronger in the member states.

The direct relationship between Trump’s election and the spectacular growth of these forces of the real right does exist. But it is not that this spectacular conservative expansion across countries in the Americas and Europe was caused by a president who personally is not a conservative. The change of era has been maturing for years because the failure of social-democratic policies and their ideological hobbyhorses of climate, gender, immigration, multiculturalism, degrowth and impoverishment is a catastrophe that endangers the whole of Western civilisation in Europe.

The direct relationship that most unites these forces with Washington is the certainty that the arrival of the new Trump administration has prevented the social-democratic majority of the People’s Party, socialists and greens in Europe, which has imposed its policy for decades, from having a free hand to crush, by methods that are in no way orthodox, in no way democratic and very often in no way legal, the national forces that keep on growing.

They do not have a free hand because the European national forces are ever larger, but most especially because Washington denounces them and holds up a mirror to the European democracies that makes all their contradictions explode. One of the first, and much talked about, came in Munich at the beginning of the year from the mouth of Vice President JD Vance. This strategic paper is no less significant.

The whole political caste and the European elites bet on an electoral tandem as grotesque, mediocre and leftist as Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on the Democratic ticket in 2024, because with them globalist social engineering would already have been launched in unrestrained and perhaps irreversible fashion. It is no exaggeration to state that a victory by Harris and Walz would have brought with it in Europe a wave of bans on national parties. And that with a leftist administration in Washington they would not have exerted themselves much in looking for pretexts to impose that ancient and well-worn practice of prohibiting forces that in freedom could wrest power from them from speaking, acting and standing for election.

The North American administration says in its paper on Strategic Policy that Europe faces serious problems caused by the policy of the European Union and other transnational organisations which undermine the political freedoms and the sovereignty of nations and encourage an immigration that is transforming the continent and creating conflicts, the imposition of censorship, repression of freedom of expression in general and suppression of political opposition, in addition to the collapse of the birth rate, with a loss of national identity and self-esteem.

It is a pity that in the European Union there is not enough honesty to publish similar documents, and that when strategic papers are commissioned it is always done in the knowledge that they will be written by some member of the Europeanist caste who endorses the failed EU policy of past decades or at least does not openly fight it. Without allowing within the institutions any opinions other than the inbred ones of the two-party social-democratic caste, failure is assured. And Trump’s enemies once again prove him right.

Hermann Tertsch is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

Executive Summary

Lebanon in 2025 has reached a stage of structural collapse that now shapes how Washington, Riyadh, and other international actors evaluate the country’s strategic relevance. The decision by the Trump administration to cancel all scheduled meetings for Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) Commander Rodolphe Haykal in Washington constitutes a pivotal indicator of this reassessment. This study examines the strategic implications of this diplomatic shift, contextualizes it within Lebanon’s internal security developments—including the arrest of Nouh Zeiter and the assassination of Hayssam “Abu Ali” Tbatabai—and analyzes how these events reinforce the perception of Lebanon as a state fully compromised by Hezbollah’s influence.

I. Strategic Context of the U.S. Recalibration

The cancellation of Haykal’s Washington engagements reflects a U.S. determination that Lebanon no longer functions as a neutral or independent actor within the regional system. The American position is informed by the persistent inability of Lebanese institutions to assert sovereignty or implement security obligations, particularly those related to dismantling illegal armed networks. The withdrawal of political recognition from the LAF is therefore not a tactical decision but part of a broader shift in how Washington interprets Lebanon’s alignment and credibility.

Concurrently, the “Beirut One” economic forum underscored the international consensus regarding Lebanon’s deteriorating governance. Foreign investors stated directly that economic recovery is impossible without the consolidation of state authority, the restriction of weapons to legitimate institutions, and the implementation of structural reforms. This external feedback reinforces the U.S. conclusion that Lebanon’s governing system remains unwilling or unable to initiate sovereignty-reinforcing measures.

II. Internal Security Indicators and the Erosion of Hezbollah’s Control

Lebanon’s internal security landscape revealed significant indicators of shifting power dynamics in 2025. The arrest of Nouh Zeiter, a major narcotics figure long considered protected by political and militia networks, demonstrated an unusual operational success by the Lebanese Army Intelligence Directorate. The arrest, executed without resistance, raised questions regarding the withdrawal of protective cover and whether certain factions within Hezbollah’s environment are weakening. Regional security actors have noted that the LAF’s recent ability to disrupt cross-border narcotics operations aligns with a pattern of reduced militia oversight in some localities.

A more consequential indicator was the targeted killing of Hayssam “Abu Ali” Tbatabai, a high-value Hezbollah commander with a standing American bounty. The rapid exploitation of a security lapse leading to his assassination signaled a deeper Israeli penetration of Hezbollah’s operational ecosystem. This event highlighted structural vulnerabilities within Hezbollah’s command-and-control networks, as well as growing discontent within its base, particularly among communities fatigued by continuous mobilization in service of Iran’s regional agenda. The assassination suggests that Hezbollah now faces second-generation attrition, marking an evolution in Israel’s long-term strategy to degrade the organization.

Together, these internal developments—Zeiter’s arrest and Tbatabai’s elimination—support the assessment that Lebanon’s coercive landscape is no longer monopolized by Hezbollah and that the party’s ability to maintain absolute control over its internal environment is visibly eroding.

III. Lebanon’s Institutional Unraveling and the Loss of Credibility

Lebanon’s institutional collapse remains the central factor driving international policy recalibration. Economically, the country continues to suffer from currency destruction, banking paralysis, capital flight, and minimal investor confidence. Demographically, Lebanon endures sustained emigration, the depletion of professional sectors, and the political marginalization of core communities, including a shrinking Christian presence. Politically, the paralysis of parliament, cabinet dysfunction, compromised judiciary, and constrained security institutions have rendered the state incapable of executing fundamental governance responsibilities.

Within this framework, Washington no longer distinguishes between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah’s decision-making apparatus. Foreign policy positions, including those related to Gaza, the Gulf, and U.N. engagement, are broadly understood to reflect Hezbollah’s strategic preferences rather than state interests. Consequently, the LAF is no longer perceived as an independent partner capable of enforcing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 or counterbalancing militia authority.

IV. Regional Dynamics and the Repositioning of U.S. and Saudi Policy

Lebanon’s marginalization is further entrenched by the emergence of a new regional architecture anchored by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and the UAE. This axis prioritizes stability, investment flows, counterterrorism, and technological cooperation. Lebanon remains structurally outside this framework due to its alignment with Iran’s regional networks. Tehran’s continued use of Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Syrian auxiliaries, and Yemeni Houthis to project influence has reinforced the U.S. conclusion that Lebanon cannot be stabilized under its current political configuration.

Border tensions between Hezbollah and Israel intensify Washington’s perception of Lebanon as a security threat rather than a stabilizing partner. The downgrading of the LAF’s political engagement in Washington must be interpreted within this regional security lens.

V. Strategic Scenarios for Lebanon’s Trajectory

Given these converging factors, three strategic pathways are emerging in policy discussions:

1. Escalation of targeted sanctions against political, economic, and militia-aligned actors, with a focus on financial disruption and political isolation.

2. A coordinated U.S.–Saudi pressure framework that conditions aid, supports sovereignty-oriented political actors, and seeks partial restructuring of Lebanon’s security sector.

3. A controlled collapse leading to reconfiguration, potentially involving decentralized governance, federal models, or international trusteeship if national institutions become fully nonfunctional.

The combination of diplomatic downgrades, internal security shifts, and regional realignments strongly suggests that external actors are preparing for a post-Hezbollah or post-status-quo political order, regardless of Lebanese internal resistance.

Conclusion:

Lebanon’s 2025 trajectory reflects a profound crisis of sovereignty, institutional capacity, and strategic alignment. The U.S. cancellation of the LAF Commander’s Washington meetings is emblematic of a deeper determination that Lebanon, under current conditions, cannot operate as an independent state or credible partner. Simultaneously, the arrest of Nouh Zeiter and the assassination of Hayssam Tbatabai underscore structural vulnerabilities within the militia-state ecosystem and reveal shifts within Lebanon’s coercive environment.

(This article, written by Geoffrey Van Orden, appeared in the HISTORY Reclaimed. Commonwealth War Graves Discrimination Claims Reviewed)

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is one of our great institutions. It looks after a million war graves in more than 23,000 locations worldwide. In 2021, during the BLM onslaught, it limply allowed its reputation to be besmirched by unfair allegations of racial discrimination.

In 2019, at the height of the imported “Black Lives Matter” furore, David Lammy MP fronted “The Unremembered”, a Channel 4 documentary that sought to highlight discrimination in commemoration of African war dead by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). The programme was researched by a social theorist and feminist, Professor Michèle Barrett, who became a leading member of a special committee subsequently established by the CWGC to “Review Historical Inequalities in Commemoration”. Its remit was not just Africa but “to search for any similar problems that might exist elsewhere”. Its findings were published in 2021. Tendentiously, it found that “overarching imperial ideology connected to racial and religious differences were used to divide the dead and treat them unequally in ways that were impossible in Europe”. It seems to have been determined to ascribe base motives to administrators working in difficult circumstances a century ago. The CWGC was criticised for not looking for problems and not making them public. Helpfully, the Guardian felt able to report “pervasive racism” in the commemoration of black and Asian servicemen. The well had been successfully poisoned. Even six years later, as he observed Commonwealth High Commissioners laying their wreaths at the Cenotaph on 9 November 2025, the BBC narrator of the Remembrance Day commemorations could not resist commenting that their troops often “never received a proper grave”.

Visiting our war graves all over the world, I have always been struck by the equal and respectful commemoration of the deaths of not only British soldiers but those from the Empire, of all ranks and religions, who had served in every theatre of war. In addition to those from Africa and the Caribbean, some 4 million Indian soldiers served during the two World Wars in the British Indian armies in Burma, North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. They were all volunteers, recruited primarily but not exclusively, from the Sikhs and Muslims of the Punjab. The spectacular India Gate landmark memorial in Delhi, erected during the Raj, has the names of the 70,000 Indian soldiers who died between 1914 and 1921. The CWGC’s Haidar Pasha cemetery in Istanbul, located next to the barrack site of Florence Nightingale’s hospital, has the well-laid out and individually named graves of Muslim soldiers of the British Indian Army.

I was particularly fortunate, over 40 years ago, to spend a year with the Indian Armed Forces, attending their Defence Services Staff College at Wellington in the Nilgiri Hills of South India and visiting Indian military units all over India. We had a great bond of shared traditions and experience. Nowhere did I meet hostility, quite the opposite. Indian officers and their families from those days continue to be among our closest friends. One of those officers, a retired Major General, joined me a few years ago for a tour of battlefields in Flanders. He was greatly moved by the individual names of the many Indian soldiers inscribed on the magnificent Menin Gate among the 54,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Ypres salient with no known grave.

The idea that Britain would deliberately discriminate in its commemoration of the Fallen had a very hollow ring to it. I wondered what truly motivated those that thought it useful to deliberately seek out some example for complaint and what their motive was in impugning the work of yet another great national institution.

In 2024, on Remembrance Day, the Nagaland Government in India’s North East region hosted a magnificent service at the Commonwealth War Grave in Kohima. The Pipes & Drums of the Assam Rifles, the Assam Regiment band and the band of the Nagaland Police played to the many official guests led by the Chief Minister, Neiphiu Rio. They were there to pay their respects to the British, Indian and Gurkha soldiers of the British Indian Army who lost their lives in the terrible events culminating in the siege of Kohima, 80 years ago in April 1944. Kohima was the crucial land battle that turned the Japanese back at the gateway of India.

As a former British Army Brigadier, I was treated as an honoured guest, invited to lay a wreath and join the Chief Minister’s commemorative events. Everywhere, I received only warm welcome. As I walked with Indian friends among the 1,420 individual graves of British and Indian Muslim soldiers, we saw that each tablet was similar and each bore the name of the fallen soldier buried beneath. According to their tradition, the 917 Sikh and Hindu fatalities at Kohima were cremated. We read their names on the great stone edifice commemorating their sacrifice.

We do an enormous disservice to ourselves, to the descendants of the Fallen, to understanding of our shared history, to national integration and cohesion, and to our international relationships, if we encourage politically-motivated activists to give currency to distorted allegations of deliberate discrimination. Of course, omissions and mistakes should be corrected – as they have been in many cases over the years.

We should greatly welcome initiatives to increase knowledge of those who served in our armed forces from across the Commonwealth during the World Wars and beyond. This should not just be a matter of commemoration but of instilling consciousness of our proud shared history, particularly among young people whose parents or grandparents chose to move to Britain from other Commonwealth countries. This could be one of the most powerful instruments in integrating newcomers into our national culture.

Geoffrey Van Orden is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian and appeared in The Western Journal. Trump’s ‘Peace Through Partnership’ Doctrine Has Been Vindicated, Again)

Recently, the world quietly admitted what many Americans already knew: President Donald J. Trump’s foreign policy was not only right — it was revolutionary.

In a rare display of unity, the United Nations Security Council on Oct. 31 voted with overwhelming support to back Morocco’s Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara, recognizing it as the only viable path toward peace.

After nearly five decades of paralysis, the United Nations has finally caught up to the reality Trump set in motion five years ago, one in which American clarity, not bureaucratic hesitation, defines diplomacy.

When President Trump recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara in December 2020, the foreign policy establishment gasped. They warned that it would “destabilize the region.” Instead, it did the opposite. It ended decades of diplomatic gridlock and strengthened one of America’s oldest and most loyal allies in what is an increasingly fragile region central for U.S. foreign and security policy interests; a nation central to counterterrorism, trade, and security across North Africa.

Five years later, the United Nations endorsement of Morocco’s plan is an admission that Trump’s “peace through partnership” approach works. It’s proof that realism, not idealism, builds lasting peace.

The decision confirms what many conservatives have argued all along: true, lasting peace comes from clarity, not endless committees. The Morocco breakthrough, however, was not an isolated victory. It was part of a broader shift in how America engages the world, a shift born under Trump’s leadership and defined by his willingness to put results before rhetoric.

For decades, U.S. diplomacy had been trapped in a cycle of committees, conferences, and compromises that led nowhere. Trump broke that cycle. His approach was simple: reward allies who deliver stability and stop funding those who thrive on chaos. That philosophy, call it the Trump Doctrine of peace through partnership, has left a legacy that continues to shape the Middle East and Africa today.

Morocco’s Autonomy Plan, which grants the people of the Sahara self-rule under Moroccan sovereignty, backed by extensive investments and security guarantees, is already transforming lives. New infrastructure, expanding trade corridors, and growing investments have replaced decades of neglect. The Western Sahara, once a symbol of stalemate, is now a showcase for what pragmatic diplomacy can achieve when paired with clear vision and American support.

But this resounding success didn’t happen in a vacuum. It reflects a broader diplomatic shift born during the Trump years, a style that has placed sovereignty, economic partnership, and realism over empty slogans.

Behind the scenes, that success was no accident. While the headlines have focused on world leaders, a quieter diplomacy has been at work. Led by individuals like Massad Boulos, Senior Advisor to the President for Arab and African Affairs and a seasoned strategist and tireless advocate of Trump’s foreign policy principles, Boulos has ensured that the recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty remains, in his words, “irreversible.” His approach mirrors Trump’s own: respectful of allies, skeptical of bureaucracy, and focused on results, not rhetoric. In an era when many diplomats chase applause, Boulos like Trump has pursued outcomes that redefine what American strength looks like abroad.

The Western Sahara breakthrough is part of a pattern. The same clarity that guided Trump’s recognition of Morocco also underpinned the Abraham Accords, which reshaped the Middle East and ushered in an era of cooperation that most of the foreign policy establishment never thought possible. Across Africa, similar partnerships are now emerging, replacing the outdated “aid-first” mentality with a “partnership-first” model that rewards self-reliance and sovereignty.

Trump proved that peace isn’t purchased with endless aid checks or signed in glass conference rooms. The principle is simple: America should support those who build, not those who beg. It’s built by nations willing to take ownership of their future and stand beside America as equals, not dependents.

Under Trump, Morocco became a hub for renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, and counterterrorism cooperation, a partner the U.S. can rely on in an increasingly unstable region. Across the continent, countries are now seeking to replicate that success, pragmatic partnerships grounded in mutual respect and shared interest. Even recent peace efforts between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda reflect echoes of this approach: diplomacy backed by strength, not weakness.

The United Nations embrace of Morocco’s Autonomy Plan represents more than just a policy shift; it’s a moral one. It signals the triumph of realism over idealism and of courage over cowardice. Trump’s foreign policy was never about isolation or intervention for its own sake. It was about partnership, the kind that empowers nations to stand on their own two feet while aligning with America’s vision for stability and growth. It was about peace through strength, but also mutual respect. Now, the same global institutions that once dismissed his ideas are quietly affirming them.

The United Nations has validated what the Trump administration understood from the beginning: that peace cannot be imposed from New York or Brussels, it must be built by those willing to take responsibility for their destiny.

The Abraham Accords continue to expand, and following recent successes ending the war between the DRC and Rwanda, African nations are seeking similar partnerships that blend security with investment.

As the world grapples with new conflicts and shifting alliances, the lesson of Western Sahara is clear: Trump’s diplomacy works. It’s firm without being reckless, pragmatic without being cynical, and guided by a deep respect for national sovereignty. With advisers like Massad Boulos carrying that torch forward and applying a basic truth most diplomats forget, peace follows strength, and prosperity follows ownership. America will continue to take clear positions and reward nations that share its values.

This means everyone wins. And the world is better for it. It is only bureaucrats who profit from endless stalemates.

Trump’s foreign policy was never about isolationism or idealism. It was about partnership — the kind that brings results. The Western Sahara decision proves it. And with advisers like Massad Boulos continuing to champion that model, the case for returning to peace through partnership has never been stronger.

When America leads with strength and conviction, even the world’s most stubborn institutions eventually follow. The United Nations decision proves that peace through partnership works.

Adelle Nazarian is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Shea Bradley-Farrell and appeared in Human Events. Why President Trump’s Argentina support is strong ‘America First’ strategy)

Critics in Washington, D.C. argue that the Trump-Rubio Doctrine in Latin America — such as recent economic support to Argentina — is not “America First” policy, but they are objectively wrong. President Donald Trump uniquely realizes that decades of U.S. “benign neglect” of the southern part of the Western Hemisphere have left a void now filled with our adversaries. The U.S. lost military presence, geopolitical influence, and economic opportunity to China; bad actors from China, Russia, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and narco-terrorism have formed complex business and criminal networks in our own backyard, pushing drug and human trafficking, illegal immigration, terrorists, and more across our borders.

Recently, I met with Vice President Victoria Villarruel of Argentina and her Senate about the many great opportunities the U.S. and Argentina have right now — during the Trump-Milei era — for a mutually-beneficial partnership based on fraternity, hemispheric security, and homeland defense.

The United States needs the Milei administration. After almost a century of oppressive socialism, poverty, crime, and corruption, Argentina elected President Javier Milei, who has the courage to fight for freedom, drastically cut federal spending, eradicate corruption, and do the hard work to help Argentina prosper over the long term. Vice President Villarruel has even more in common with MAGA conservatives—she is pro-life, honors the military, stands for strong family values, and has a deep Catholic faith.

For the sake of our shared hemisphere, Argentina’s current leadership must not fail.

Allies of freedom, democracy, and free markets are shrinking in the Western Hemisphere. Authoritarianism, Marxism, and socialism are spreading. Consider Venezuela’s fraudulent authoritarian regime, Cuba’s one-party totalitarian communist regime, the repressive dictatorship in Nicaragua, and the Sao Paulo Forum, the “world’s largest and most impactful Marxist international organization,” active across Latin America, founded by Fidel Castro and Lula da Silva, and connected to guerrilla groups, terrorists, and drug trafficking.

President Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio have put Latin America and the Western Hemisphere back at the center of U.S. foreign policy. Some call this a return to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, and there are similarities in that the U.S. rejects the influence of outside global powers, but the Trump-Rubio Doctrine is not patriarchal nor neocolonial. Instead, it seeks a mutual strategy for economic prosperity, hemispheric security, and shared homeland defense.

This is important: The Trump-Rubio Doctrine recognizes that in order to stop China’s plan of expansion and domination, just combating Chinese takeover in the Indo-Pacific is not enough; we must also stop China’s “victories” in our own hemisphere. This is how we win; this is how we protect our homeland.

Most Americans are aware of China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific, its intellectual property theft, and its cybersecurity threat to the United States. However, China’s “whole of government campaign” against America and its citizens is much more: it includes the insidious infiltration of illegal aliens and fatal drugs in record numbers into the U.S. For example, fentanyl precursor chemical ingredients are supplied by China directly to the drug cartels below our southern border, then trafficked by the cartels illegally into the U.S. Under the Biden administration, fentanyl-related deaths became the number one killer of younger U.S. citizens between the ages of 18 to 45.

Obviously, supporting a free, law-abiding, and prosperous Latin America is an “America First” strategy. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. no longer tolerates drug cartels, as other administrations have, and is conducting military strikes against the cartels — attacking drug boats before they arrive in our country to make billions of dollars from exploiting our communities and killing our young people.

There are many opportunities for the U.S. to collaborate with and support free Latin America. Here are two important opportunities for collaboration with Argentina.

First, the $20 billion currency swap line agreement with Argentina’s central bank (which allows Argentina to exchange pesos for U.S. dollars) and the $20 billion credit line through private banks and sovereign wealth funds are both investments in our shared security. The U.S. is simply supporting Milei’s administration as it fights to restructure Argentina’s economy and become less economically reliant on Chinese investment and currency swap lines.

Decades of socialist and corrupt Peronist and Kirchnerist-led governments not only bankrupted Argentina but also pushed it toward heavy reliance on Chinese investment, trade, and business “partnerships” in infrastructure and technology, which China uses to spread its military intelligence and power. However, Milei has expressed a desire to sever some ties with China and strengthen economic and military ties with the U.S. Recently, Rubio signed a historic trade deal with Argentina’s foreign minister, which opens Argentine markets to U.S. industries.

As U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent put it: “I would rather use ‘peace through economic strength’ than have to shoot at narco boats coming offshore if the government collapsed …we are preempting the collapse of a government (from) going back to a Peronist agenda and a Left-Wing government. What if someone had … said, ‘look at what’s happening with Hugo Chavez, (or) Maduro,’ and had helped the opposition there?”

For critics to call U.S. economic support to Argentina “a bailout” is silly. The U.S. government did not just give away money (like we did to Ukraine); instead, it has already made a profit from the currency swap with Argentina, at the same time helping to stabilize an allied government during its congressional elections. And Milei’s party won in a landslide, giving him the legislative power to continue economic reforms in Argentina. This will also have positive effects on future democratic elections throughout Latin America.

Second, Argentina’s geographical location is an incredible strategic asset for monitoring and evaluation in the South Atlantic Ocean and Antarctic with satellite surveillance, and maintaining our shared hemispheric defense and security. Argentina’s satellite leadership, with the National Space Activities Commission (CONAE), and its unique position and autonomy, give great advantages for launching satellites, ground operations, and testing and experimentation.

But the sale of Chinese military equipment and arms, and the establishment of Chinese ports, military bases, and observation facilities in Latin America, including the Espacio Lejano (“Outer Space”) Station run by the Chinese military in Patagonia, are serious security concerns. Although China denies nefarious intentions, the station enables global tracking and surveillance by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, with the ability to interfere with U.S. and other partners’ satellites.

Argentina has the ability to lead in space-based technology, and the U.S. is the best option for investment and partnership. Together, we can roll back China from our hemisphere.

The success of the Milei administration has created a platform for Argentina to take a position as a leader and model for regional success. The time is now for the United States to bind together with Argentina and the free nations of Latin America and fight to preserve our civilization. As Secretary Bessent rightly said, “We have a generational opportunity in Latin America to create allies.” I argue that we also have an obligation.

Tragically, under previous administrations, the U.S. lacked a clear strategy for partnership, investment, and presence in Latin America. In collaboration with Milei’s administration, the Trump-Rubio Doctrine for the Western Hemisphere can bring new and “out of the box” opportunities for U.S.-Latin American economic integration, defense, and security.

The time to seize these opportunities – together – is now.

Shea Bradley-Farrell is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Adelle Nazarian and appeared in The Western Journal. The Weaponry of Words: What Israel vs. Hamas Taught Us About the Fight for Truth)

In war, truth has always been the first casualty. In our time, it may also be the most powerful weapon.

On Nov. 2, the remains of three more Israeli hostages, including Israeli-American Omer Neutra, were returned from Gaza. It was a small mercy amid deep moral confusion.

President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, announced in September, aimed to end the bloodshed through an immediate cease-fire and the return of all hostages.

Yet the cease-fire remains broken, the hostages are not all home, and Gaza continues to hover between anarchy and illusion.

The recent public executions of eight so-called collaborators with Israel carried out by Hamas following the partial retreat of the Israeli Defense Forces raised eyebrows about the willingness of the terrorist group to disarm and to give up control in the strip.

If Hamas continues to refuse to give up control in Gaza, the hopes for long-term peace would be in fumes, and a likely scenario would emerge in which the Gaza war would morph into a more hybrid model, where increasingly unconventional means would be deployed.

The United States, determined to prevent a complete collapse, has deployed senior officials and established a new military base in Israel’s Kiryat Gat.

But the deeper struggle is not over territory or tactics. It is a struggle over truth. The Gaza conflict has revealed a new front in modern warfare: the weaponization of language itself.

In the 21st century, wars are waged not only with drones, sanctions, and cyberattacks, but also with words. Bombs are no longer the only things that destroy nations — words do as well.

Terminology has become a frontline weapon in hybrid warfare, where the power to define events can be as decisive as a military victory.

The words “genocide,” “resistance,” “occupation,” and “terrorism” carry moral weight. These words shape how conflicts are understood. They influence global perception, determine legal outcomes, and define who is seen as the victim and who is seen as the aggressor.

In fact, few terms in contemporary geopolitics are as contested as “genocide.”Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the word genocide in the aftermath of the Holocaust, believed that precise language could help humanity confront evil with moral clarity. He gave the world a vocabulary to describe its darkest impulses so that atrocities could never again be justified or ignored.

That clarity, however, has vanished.

And that is why to classify an event as genocide is to trigger legal obligations, mobilize international outrage, and redefine the legitimacy of the actors involved.

Yet the growing appropriation of this term by advocacy groups, NGOs, and state actors risks diluting its force. The term is now used carelessly by these groups and even governments to describe everything from legitimate counterterrorism operations to political grievances. When every atrocity is labeled a genocide, the word loses its potency, and the international community becomes paralyzed by semantic overload.

The overuse of this word dulls its power and paralyzes the international community in a fog of false equivalence.

Hybrid warfare thrives in this space of ambiguity. States and non-state actors manipulate language to control narratives — Russia, for example, describes its invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” to avoid both legal accountability and moral condemnation.

This distortion is vividly seen in the case of the Pennsylvania-based Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. Founded in 2021, the institute has accused the United States of complicity in “genocide” while condemning Israel for targeting Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, and even portrayed Hezbollah as a victim of Israeli “terrorism.”

It has published numerous reports on “Israeli genocide in Gaza,” quoting the Hamas-controlled sources, and even claimed that the brutal murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky in Washington by a pro-Palestinian activist might have been “a false-flag operation.”

The irony is staggering. In fact, none of this aligns with Raphael Lemkin’s moral intent, as the man who coined the very term “genocide” was one of the architects of the UN Genocide Convention, and he fought tirelessly to establish rigorous definitions and legal frameworks that could prevent mass atrocities.

His life’s work was rooted in precision and moral clarity. Today, what he envisioned as a tool for justice has been reduced to a political instrument in a global war of narratives.

For an organization to exploit his name in the service of politicized and selective accusations undermines those principles entirely.

Lemkin’s family has recently pursued legal action to challenge this distortion of his legacy, a reminder that the fight over words is as consequential as the fight over territory.

According to several reports, the family’s lawyers addressed Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Corporations and Charitable Organizations, noting that the Institute “represents itself as an embodiment of Mr. Lemkin’s ideology,” while its “policies, positions, activities, and publications are anathema to Mr. Lemkin’s belief system.”

The fight over Lemkin’s legacy illustrates a deeper truth. The war for language is the war for reality. When activists and institutions twist definitions, they do not simply influence opinion, they alter the moral architecture of the world.

But this battle over words is not confined to the Middle East. During Trump’s first term, the United States declared China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang (East Turkestan) to be genocide. This marked a global precedent, and it was a designation that the Biden administration quietly chose to maintain.

The move was both a foreign policy milestone and a rare bipartisan success. China, predictably, rejected the label and described its campaign as “counterterrorism” to justify its repression in Xinjiang.

However, other governments, including the U.K., Canada, and the Netherlands, along with several human rights organizations, have likewise used the term “genocide” to describe China’s campaign against Uyghur culture.

In Iran, the violent suppression of women’s protests is presented as the “protection of cultural values.” Each of these examples underscores a global reality: Narrative control has become a form of geopolitical power. If you can rename evil, you can justify it.

Nowhere is this manipulation more dangerous than in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where language itself has become a battlefield.

In the Middle East, throughout the West, and globally, activists and Israel’s critics routinely and increasingly weaponize terms such as “apartheid” and “genocide” not only to condemn Israel, but also to reshape diplomatic debates in capitals across the West, all of this while ignoring Hamas’s strategy of embedding fighters and weapons among civilians, quite literally using them as human shields, and forcing innocent civilians to remain in their homes despite Israel’s warnings to evacuate areas that will be targeted to artificially drive up casualty statistics. Hospitals, schools, and mosques are even used as shields.

Israel has indeed caused civilian casualties in Gaza, but statistically at levels far lower than those of comparable Western military operations like those in Fallujah or Mosul during the Iraq War. One civilian death is too many, yet Israel argues that allowing Hamas to operate unchecked poses an existential security threat.

This debate becomes even more charged when some peace activists openly support Hamas or echo its extremist narratives.

Activists have organized rallies across Western capitals where chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are used, phrases that align with Hamas’s stated goal of eliminating Israel altogether. There is no such thing as coexistence with Hamas in the picture.

Others, meanwhile, downplay Hamas’s violence by reframing it as “resistance” while avoiding acknowledgment of the group’s calls for the destruction of Israel or its treatment of women and other groups under strict Islamist codes.

Some academic institutions have justified the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist massacres as “resistance” against “colonial oppression.”

When universities and advocacy groups frame terrorism as liberation, they cross the line from compassion into complicity. Human rights language, when applied selectively, ceases to defend humanity and contributes to the same dilution of moral clarity that undermines international law. It becomes an instrument of ideological warfare.

The danger of propaganda is that it does not merely distort perception; it reshapes policy.

Propaganda can be as destructive as bullets. When the international community adopts the vocabulary of extremists, it legitimizes their cause and erases the suffering of their victims. Calling Israel’s right to self-defense “genocide” while ignoring Hamas’s genocidal intent is not simply dishonest. It is destructive.

Hamas has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews, presenting its vision of an Islamic society as a replacement for the state of Israel.

When activists, NGOs, or institutions adopt language that obscures these realities, they are not merely misusing words — they are actively shaping the battlefield.

The struggle over terminology is not just rhetorical. It is a form of hybrid warfare, determining how conflicts are understood, whose suffering is recognized, and which actors are deemed legitimate.

Raphael Lemkin envisioned a world where words could prevent atrocities. Today, the distortion of his legacy shows that words can just as easily enable them.

In today’s hybrid warfare, victory is no longer measured solely by military strength but by mastery over meaning. To name something whether, “genocide,” “apartheid,” or “counter-terrorism”, is to claim it. To redefine it is to erase it.

When terrorism becomes “resistance” and self-defense becomes “aggression,” moral gravity is turned upside down. Raphael Lemkin once hoped that the right words could save lives. His legacy now reminds us that the wrong words can destroy them.

The conflicts in Gaza, Xinjiang, and Ukraine are not only geopolitical battles. They are part of a broader civilizational struggle over truth itself. The question is no longer who controls land or borders, but who controls meaning.

The twentieth century was defined by industrial warfare. The twenty-first is defined by linguistic warfare. The dictionary has become a battlefield.

Those who care about freedom must reclaim it. The defense of truth begins not with weapons or sanctions, but with words that reflect reality. If we lose the meaning of words, we lose the foundation of everything worth defending.

less top-down control from Brussels, more bottom-up power from local municipalities. Fewer corporates calling the shots, more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) driving the economy

If we want to save democracy in our country, we must decentralise—urgently.

The concentration of power in the hands of a few mega-funds and international platforms such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) is undermining our sovereignty and liberty. What we are witnessing is no longer free-market capitalism, but a corporatocracy: a system in which unelected elites, through financial giants like BlackRock and Vanguard, set the rules—often under the guise of “public-private partnerships” that substitute genuine democracy with networked corruption.

BlackRock and Vanguard collectively manage over $20 trillion in assets and are simultaneously the largest shareholders in 88% of S&P 500 companies. Competition vanishes. When the same entity owns both Ahold and Jumbo, who still advocates for the consumer? What we get is pseudo-competition: rising prices, falling innovation, and a marketplace that serves capital, not citizens. SMEs—the engine of genuine competition and local economic resilience—are systematically outcompeted, absorbed, or stifled through overregulation and bureaucratic hurdles. COVID policies further exacerbated this imbalance, disproportionately harming smaller businesses.

Then there is politics. In Davos, politicians are welcomed with feel-good narratives of sustainability, health, and digital inclusion. But behind those noble slogans lies a model where public policy is converted into a profit mechanism for multinationals. In practice, public-private partnerships (PPPs) bypass parliamentary oversight, award contracts without competitive tendering, and—most alarmingly—shape policy behind closed doors. The WEF may brand this “stakeholder capitalism,” but in reality, it’s shareholder + civil servant = elite consensus. Politicians are promised top jobs; the citizen is excluded. And thus, so is democracy.

Decentralisation is the only path back to true democracy and functioning capitalism. We must dismantle the monopoly power of mega-funds: introduce legislation capping common ownership in any sector at 5%. Impose a concentration tax on funds exceeding

€1 trillion in assets, and channel the revenues into strengthening SMEs through fiscal relief and legal support. No hollow pledges—real action: low-interest loans for local entrepreneurs, tax incentives for cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises, and backing for local banks that are independent of Wall Street and Frankfurt.

At the same time, democratic oversight must be restored. All PPP agreements must be made public—no confidentiality, no backroom deals. Politicians involved in such arrangements should be barred from joining the private partners involved for at least five years. And any agreements made in Davos on behalf of the Netherlands must be subject to full parliamentary accountability—before and after the fact.

Technology can be an ally here: decentralised finance via blockchain enables citizens to fund local projects directly, without money flowing through BlackRock or Goldman Sachs. Let us deploy these tools—for the people, not against them.

Our society is drifting toward a neo-feudal model, where digital elites reign and citizens are managed more than represented. That must be stopped. The Netherlands has a proud tradition of local autonomy and entrepreneurship. It’s time to rebuild on that foundation. Only by returning power to the grassroots—to citizens, municipalities, and SMEs—can we truly reclaim our democracy. The time for half-measures is over. It’s now or never.

Rob Roos is a distinguished fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington, DC-based think-and-do tank.

(This article was written by Hermann Tertsch and appeared in El Debate. De la mala fe al ridículo)

The policy of the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen is as immense a disappointment for its supporters in the alliance of the People’s Party and the socialists as it is a radical confirmation of all the fears and warnings issued by the forces to the right of the People’s Party. There are now moments in which panic spreads among the People’s Party. So much so that they try to correct themselves, as happened on Thursday when they joined the Patriots, Conservatives and Sovereigntists to impose for the first time a cut to the preposterous impositions of the Green Pact that the People’s Party itself had created with its socialist and green allies.

The disasters already caused by the policy of the social-democratic consensus, interventionist, anti-national and marked by permanent social engineering, are reflected in a general and vertiginous impoverishment of the middle classes throughout Europe, a collapse of security because of its immigration policy, and a sinking of European competitiveness owing to the self-mutilations of the suicidal climate ideology, the Green Pact and its hundred thousand derivatives.

But there are some fields in which the mistaken policy sinks into abysses of embarrassment and blush-inducing ridicule. Foreign policy is one of them. Foreign policy is a national competence which, like so many others, Madame Ursula’s Commission usurps with ever greater effrontery.

The most recent High Representatives for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Mogherini, Borrell and Kallas, who theoretically apply a policy agreed by the 27 countries in the European Council, have devoted themselves to carrying out a policy designed by the ideologised bureaucratic monster of Brussels with all the blemishes and squalor of progressivism. Thus, they openly practise everything from blackmail in order to impose gender and climate ideologies in Africa to the financing with thousands of millions of networks of NGOs that promote wokery, socialism and hatred of the West.

Where this cynical, socialist and liberticidal EU policy perhaps reaches its summit is in Ibero-America. Because there it also comes with a vice added to the ideology of failure and to the ridicule: evident bad faith. That is where one perceives most strongly the very clear will to sabotage every attempt by the Ibero-American nations to climb out of the interventionist, socialist and criminal quagmire that for more than half a century has strangled their freedom, their security and their development and prosperity.

And above all it is there that one clearly perceives that the European Commission and the Brussels bureaucracy prefer an alliance with the criminal regimes of Cuba or Venezuela and their partners such as Gustavo Petro, Lula da Silva and other aspiring tyrants, to supporting Donald Trump’s policy of war on the drug cartels and on all the organised crime that tyrannises these countries under the banner of socialism or progressivism.

The Santa Clara summit in Colombia between the EU and CELAC, that piece of rubbish invented by Cuba and Chavismo in an attempt to hollow out the OAS, was one more proof last week that the whole of European policy in Ibero-America is socialist and colonialist in its promotion of woke aberrations in societies that are much more conservative and still structured.

The failure of participation in the EU CELAC summit in Santa Clara has already been spectacular. Few heads of government, with only seven Europeans. The 60 delegations from 27 European and 33 American countries found themselves, of course, entangled in the manoeuvre of turning that summit into an act of condemnation of “imperialism”, as they call the North American pressure to put an end to the Cartel de los Soles in Venezuela and to the usurpation of the presidency by Nicolás Maduro.

Von der Leyen, Kallas and the EU troop, as well as the countries’ delegates, were not even ashamed to use the summit in the lair of Gustavo Petro, a prominent member of the transnational organised crime organisations that are the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, in order to join in the message of narco-socialism and accuse Washington of violating international law. When they know that only Washington can put an end to the murderous nightmare that is the kidnapping of Venezuela by organised crime. But Maduro will fall and many of his accomplices too. All of them are part of the narco-socialist web and all of them have received massive aid from Brussels against their internal conservative rivals.

Thus, the European Union once again ends up with the losers. If the European nations suffer and are absolute losers under the suicidal policy against their competitiveness and their prosperity that Brussels has imposed on them in its energy, industrial, agricultural, transport and other policies, many Ibero-American nations suffer corrupt and narco-socialist regimes protected by the European Union.

Once again it becomes evident that Brussels concerns itself only with its own power and the interests of its elites, and that it imposes defeat and failure wherever it has influence. By sabotaging the United States and trying to prevent the liberation of Venezuela and of Cuba, whose communist dictatorship it continues to finance directly, the EU not only shows its bad faith but multiplies the ridicule of the loser before history.

Hermann Tertsch is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.

(This article was written by Hermann Tertsch and appeared in El Debate. Con Maduro caerán otros)

The only thing that can prevent American military action to behead and liquidate the criminal power that has held Venezuela hostage for the past twenty-five years is for the current supreme chief of that organisation, Nicolás Maduro, to announce, very soon, his withdrawal, resignation, flight or suicide. And that, immediately afterwards, his accomplices, the leading cadres of the narco-socialist regime, civilian and military, should solemnly announce that they accept the results of the elections of 28 July, that they recognise Edmundo González as the legitimate president of the Republic of Venezuela, and that they place themselves at the orders of the government presented by the president and María Corina Machado, the undisputed leader of the great battle that brings the unappealable defeat of the criminal regime.

Then Machado and those responsible for the beautiful and incredible feat of last summer following the elections, with the operation to save the tally sheets, will take up the reins of power. Their chief problem will no longer be Maduro’s hired killers, whose leaders will possibly all die in a single day. They will be replaced as a threat by the hordes of traitors already forming in an attempt to maintain a criminal system as brutal and immensely lucrative as the one that has sustained the regime until now.

If this does not happen, if Nicolás Maduro does not announce his withdrawal, resignation, flight or suicide very soon, other things are going to happen. Forceful and indispensable things. Because, fortunately for all those who still believe in freedom and in the necessity of a commitment to truth for the survival of Western civilisation, in Washington today some people are in charge who consider that the criminals of the transnational regime of narco-socialism are not “merely” a terrible torture lasting a quarter of a century, a monstrous tragedy for three generations of Venezuelans and a political, social and economic catastrophe affecting the entire subcontinent

Maduro’s criminal regime, which is not a government but an organised crime cartel, is a threat to the whole reasonably free world and, what matters most in Washington, it is a ferocious and hyperactive enemy of the United States. And not only because of its fundamental role in mass drug trafficking. Venezuela and Cuba are the two main military bases of all the enemies of the United States installed in its “backyard”. Without forgetting, of course, Mexico, which in the delirious drift of AMLO and Sheinbaum is striving to be ever more of an enemy of its big neighbour to the north. It does not look like a good calculation, even though the cocaine business cartels rule in Mexico City as they have never ruled before.

From China to Iran, Hezbollah or North Korea, from the narco-communists of the cartels of the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group to Vladimir Putin and his henchmen, organised crime and destabilising Islamist penetration, all of them have a lair, launch pads and financing in Venezuelan territory and in the great financing fund that is the production and trafficking of cocaine. These do nothing but increase in neighbouring Colombia, whose president Gustavo Petro is by full right very high on the list of Maduro’s accomplices who may share his fate. Although cocaine is the star by volume, to the business of this great transactional orchestra must be added other drugs, trafficking in hydrocarbons in breach of sanctions, and other illegal, semi-legal or even official enterprises.

In Europe there is no country more affected by the international criminal activities of the powerful Cartel de los Soles of Nicolás Maduro, Vladimir Padrino and company than Spain, where they have bought the goodwill of individuals, of groups, of a couple of parties and even of the government when they have needed it.

Spain lives under a government intimately linked to transnational organised crime, to which it renders services as a sanctuary, as a rearguard for investment and laundering and of course as political influence in the European Union. Ever since Pedro Sánchez came to power the socialists have been at every moment the most uninhibited representation, in the European Parliament and in the institutions of Brussels, of the narco and criminal axis of Caracas and Havana, later extended to Bogotá and Brasília. The European Commission, its external service and its embassies, which are a reflection of the alliance of socialists and the People’s Party, are an authentic disgrace as permanent accomplices of all the regimes and forces integrated into the international organisations of narco-socialism such as the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group.

Well, all of that is very probably going to collapse before Christmas. Let us hope only the minimum force will be necessary. That only those who deserve it will die and that Venezuela will make a peaceful transition with a firm and at last legitimate government that neutralises all the threats. The effect of the fall of the narco-socialist regime will without doubt be felt throughout the Americas. The front that has held in check the democracies and all decent people who defend freedom and truth in the countries threatened by this immense federation of forces combining totalitarian vocation and organised crime will thus be left terribly weakened.

Among them, let us insist, must be included the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez, the PSOE and the whole rabble of separatist, pro-terrorist and communist parties which for years have joined in the Chavista feast of the “bundles” of blood-stained dollars. Maduro’s fall is going to be a very hard blow to a whole world of accomplices the regime made for itself over a quarter of a century. Let us hope that in Spain too it ends up sweeping away those who profited from the suffering and plundering of Venezuelans and who are trying to guarantee impunity for their crimes by methods ever more similar to those of the murderers whose twilight is being announced.

Hermann Tertsch is a Distinguished Fellow (Honorary) at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based foreign policy and defense think tank.