At the beginning of the train of celebrations for Armed Forces Day, two of the nuclei of the gray matter of the armies, the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies, (IEEE) and the Higher Center for National Defense Studies (CESEDEN) They have met in the monumental area of La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia) to study the state of the world. Said this way it may sound ambitious, but it is the transitioning balance of power on the planetin essence, the issue dealt with by IEEE Geopolitical Conference. This year they reach their second edition under the impulse of the Ministry of Defense and with the title The International Order in Transition.
This Tuesday, this meeting, which is consolidating as first-rate strategic reflection forumhas opened its doors with the participation of the Minister of Defense, Margarita Roblesand the assistance of the Chief of the Defense Staff, General Admiral Teodoro Esteban Calderónand with an inaugural session in which it does not seem coincidental that it is up to a top-ranking NATO diplomatic figure to give the starting conference: Javier Colomina, representative of the secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance for the southern neighborhood.
This initial intervention, with open doors, is titled “The international order in transition: fragmentation, competition and conflict”.
Colomina will also be one of the speakers at a high-level colloquium scheduled for Wednesday night, after dinner, in which the former high representative of the European Union for foreign and security policies will take part, Joseph Borrellthe former Foreign Minister Ana de Palacio and the director of the IEEE, Brigadier General Victor Bados. The four will talk about the situation in Europe, its industrial challenge and its path towards strategic autonomy.
Energy, NATO and competition spaces
On Wednesday and Thursday, the analysis of the global “Spaces and dynamics of competition” will be addressed, with two blocks: one dedicated to “Power and strategic resources”, which will study the “geopolitics of energy, critical resources and supply chains”, according to the program. At the gates of the La Granja district, a gas station belonging to a Spanish multinational shows a very eloquent summary of the situation on its price poster.
In this same block the situation of “Ibero-America in the new global competition”, five months after the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro by North American military forces and while pressure from the White House on the dying Cuban regime grows.
The other table, or Block II, addresses on Wednesday a vision of the Euro-Atlantic link and the role of NATO at the crossroads. In another table the maritime domain as a scenario of tensionespecially in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.
Europe and its industrial preparations for defense, or, more commonly, its rearmamentwill be the topic of block III of these days, already on Thursday.
A meeting on the panorama of wars titled “Interconnected conflicts: Ukraine, Middle East and systemic competition and its national impact”.
The closing, at noon on Thursday, corresponds to the director of CESEDEN, Lieutenant General Miguel Ballenilla.
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