Geopolitics: what’s new in 2023?

Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and the relationship between the West and China, or rather between the United States and the Asian Giant, are currently setting the geopolitical agenda of the planet.

The world from a political-economic point of view could very well simulate a battlefield. Disputes aimed at establishing and demonstrating a country’s power over one or more territories are a daily occurrence.

It is a situation that has characterized the intensification of the struggle of social classes throughout history, increased exponentially in recent times.

February 2022 will probably be remembered as the turning point towards a new geopolitical epoch. On the 24th of that month, Russian military forces launched the special military operation to liberate the territories and populations of eastern Ukraine, when days earlier, Moscow and Beijing had signed a joint declaration.

It proclaimed a bilateral relationship «without limits» and the desire to establish a global order where the concepts of democracy and human rights would prevail.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict, in which NATO is also directly involved, has caused enormous repercussions worldwide and, among other important phenomena, the destabilization of the energy and food markets, in addition to the suffering of the population and the serious consequences on a planetary scale.

Many voices are calling for a cessation of hostilities through diplomacy, although this option does not seem to be close. The war and the consequent Western sanctions against Russia increase geopolitical tensions.

Similarly, other global economic turbulences, the emergence of the BRICS Group, de-dollarization and the well-known fight against climate change are some of the many issues with which this globalized world faces 2023. They are key issues that mark the geopolitical office this year.

For the time being, confrontations continue in many corners of the world, which, in spite of everything, moves forward with a notable growth in military spending and with the risks of an unfinished Covid-19 pandemic that persists as an unresolved issue.

Written by Lizt Lauren García Hoyos, Journalism student