Columnistas invitados/Guest columnists

During the recent Iran–Israel war, the US used up to 20% of its global stockpile of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile interceptors, each costing over $18 million. THAAD isn't effective against hypersonic missiles, which both Iran and even Yemen's Houthis now possess.

War, in the long run, is a matter of economics. If you can't afford to fight a war, you'll lose the war. Missiles are now the preferred weapon for taking out enemy targets, and the only effective counter is anti-missile missiles. The problem is that both are brutally expensive. Can the costs be kept down, so war is more… affordable?

Generals, politicians, and "defense" contractors, however, love expensive high-tech toys. But if you're going to afford a war, the most cost-effective weapon is an ignorant teenage boy—something the Third World, especially the Muslim world, is awash in. They're cheap and stealthy delivery systems, far more effective than multi-million-dollar missiles. There's an endless supply of them, and they can be employed in a myriad of ways. From an economic point of view, it makes no sense for technologically advanced countries (like the US) to use ultra-expensive weapons to attack primitive countries, as we've done for the last 75 years.

Regardless of the weapons used, the thing to remember is that war amounts to setting wealth on fire. Missiles are about taking real goods, manufactured at great expense, and using them to blow up other real wealth; there can be a perverse logic to it. However, despite their rhetoric to the contrary, I'm not sure governments are too concerned about lots of young men dying. A surplus of unemployed young males is destabilizing, especially in poor countries.

El ethos es el conjunto de rasgos y comportamientos relacionados con el carácter o identidad de un individuo o grupo. La Real Academia Española (RAE) lo define, entre otras cosas, como “costumbre, hábito; modos de ser, pensar o sentir; o como conducta, carácter, temperamento y moral”. El ethos es la clave para entender la ética y la moral individual o colectiva.

El historiador estadounidense Víctor Davis Hanson (1953) asegura que existe un ethos en las guerras occidentales heredado de la Grecia antigua y que sigue presente en el mundo actual. Esta idea se refleja en su obra en títulos como: La Guerra y la Agricultura en la Grecia Clásica (1983), Las Guerras de los Antiguos Griegos y la Invención de la Cultura Militar Occidental (1999), Entre la Guerra y la Paz: Lecciones de Afganistán e Irak (2004), y su novela histórica El Fin de Esparta (2011).

El historiador francés Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau considera que las tesis y obra de V.D. Hanson son instrumentales en las ciencias sociales.

El profesor y sus estudiantes

Víctor Davis Hanson, inició su enseñanza de la historia clásica con un curso de introducción a las Humanidades en la Universidad Estatal de California en 1984. Sus modelos eran La Ilíada y La Odisea de Homero, Edipo Rey de Sófocles, Bacantes de Eurípides, Orestía de Esquilo, y selecciones de Tucídides y Heródoto. El primer semestre finalizaba con la Apología de Platón y Crito.

The controversy that President Trump is provoking with his statements proclaiming that he will take possession of Greenland  is a monumental blunder that places the United States in direct rivalry with its NATO allies. It demonstrates a profound diplomatic incapacity in its approach to an issue that should have been handled in private meetings, leading to a mutually beneficial and mutually acceptable agreement for both parties.

It is incomprehensible that Trump and his cabinet might be so blind as not to realize that the defense of Greenland can be resolved through NATO with the significant and powerful participation of the United States; that, in addition, other military bases of his country can be negotiated on the gigantic and icy island and, In addition, agreements on the exploitation of natural resources could easily be reached by showing both natives and Danes the enormous financial and technical capacity that would make this possible. 

It is also important to emphasize that international law has evolved over the centuries, shifting from land-grabbing colonial powers to modern treaties that honour borders and sovereignty, largely developed after World War II. There is, therefore, a high degree of respect for the sovereignty of others in today’s world, especially when it comes to friends or allies.

Part I

Based on his critical analysis of the evolution of criminal power in Venezuela, Fleischman exposes the deep symbiosis between the state, the military, and powerful criminal networks, as well as the decisive role of the Orinoco Mining Arc, the Cartel of the Suns, and alliances with armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). His assessment paints a picture of a fully consolidated narco-state, whose criminal operations not only sustain the regime but also pose a direct threat to the stability and security of the entire region.

Diálogo: You have stated that the Nicolás Maduro regime now depends more on criminal economies, especially drug trafficking, than on oil. What is the strongest evidence that illicit income has become the main source of financing for the political and military elites in Venezuela? And, under this logic, what criteria and indicators allow Venezuela to be defined as a narco-state?

Luís Fleischman, expert in international relations and founding co-chair of the Center for Democracy in Palm Beach: The evidence comes from numerous reports documenting how the Nicolás Maduro regime is sustained by drug trafficking and its cooperation with criminal organizations. Analysts, international organizations, and testimonies, such as that of former [Venezuelan] intelligence chief Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, have consistently described these practices.

To understand this phenomenon, one must look at the collapse of the Venezuelan economic model. The severe deterioration of PDVSA, coupled with international sanctions on the energy industry, left the regime with virtually no legal income.