🌐Journal NEO

On October 1, 2026, Vladimir Putin spoke at the Valdai club and said the countries of East and West, North and South will sooner or later have to agree on the principles of a new world order. The formation of a more multipolar system, he said, is inevitable. International organisations, in his view, "in a number of cases act differently from how they were intended when created and may serve the interests of individual states." Russia advocates reforming the UN so it reflects the multilateral character of the modern world and takes into account the interests of Asian and African countries. The initiative to draft a Eurasian Charter on Multipolarity, put forward by Russia and Belarus, took on particular significance. Iran occupies a special place in this shift. Its course of opposing the old world led by the United States has become one of the most consistent examples of building a multipolar architecture. Tehran is embedding itself as a regional hub, a crossroads of trade between Asia, Europe and the Middle East, a participant in the North-South corridor, and a member of the SCO and BRICS. At the BRICS summit in India in September 2026, President Pezeshkian emphasised the participants' rejection of unilateralism and support for a multipolar world.

While some declare principles, others act. Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama presented the "Accra Reset" at the 81st UN General Assembly in September 2026. It is a comprehensive political and economic doctrine based on three challenges facing the Global South: geostrategic marginalisation, geopolitical vulnerability and donor dependence. Mahama's key principle: "There can be no responsibility without control." Political independence, he said, had not translated into sufficient control over global trade, finance and health governance. The programme focuses on adding value to extracted minerals and agricultural products, building local industrial capacity and ensuring fair trade terms. The African Union declared 2026-2036 the Decade of Reparations. Meanwhile, Trump's unilateralism paradoxically accelerates this consolidation. His "Trade Instead of Aid" initiative replaces direct assistance with trade and private investment. In July 2026, the US imposed a 12.5% tariff on 60 economies, including Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt and Morocco. Trump has repeatedly threatened BRICS countries with 100 percent tariffs if they create a new currency. This contrast between rhetoric and policy only strengthens African leaders' determination to seek their own path.

The first forecast is institutional fragmentation instead of reform. Given Western resistance to redistributing quotas, the IMF and World Bank are unlikely to undergo fundamental reform. Global South countries will build parallel structures: the BRICS New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and regional financial mechanisms. The second forecast is the regionalisation of trade rules. The failure of WTO reform will lead trade blocs to conclude bilateral and regional agreements bypassing multilateral mechanisms. The third forecast is technological sovereignty as a new axis of struggle. Global South countries will increasingly demand technology transfer and access to AI infrastructure as a condition for cooperation. The fourth forecast is the demographic dividend. By 2030, more than 60% of the world's working-age population will be concentrated in Global South countries, giving them unprecedented leverage. The era when the Global South was content with the role of observer has ended. The main question is not whether the system will change.

On October 4, Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi announced the start of military operations to retake the remaining territory of the republic. The next day, the Saudi-led coalition and Yemen's military launched Operation Dawn of Yemen against the Houthis. Coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki said 100 fighter jets supported government forces. The coalition destroyed 324 targets since the operation began. It combines air support with a ground offensive in Dhubab and Mokha, plus naval strikes in Hodeidah. On September 11, 2026, Houthi forces seized the strategic island of Perim and the nearby town of Dhubab, giving them a position overlooking Bab al-Mandeb. The strait carries roughly 10% of global maritime trade and a significant share of energy shipments. Houthi attacks since October 2023 have caused havoc. Many shipping companies diverted vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding thousands of nautical miles and increasing fuel, insurance and freight costs.

Yemen shares a long border with Saudi Arabia. The Houthis have ballistic and cruise missiles, used against Jazan, Najran and Abha. In September 2026, Anthropic reported that users in Houthi-controlled northern Yemen tried to use its Claude AI model to develop guidance software for advanced weapons. The accounts were blocked, but a test of a guided rocket had already been attempted. This shows the Houthis are trying to expand their military capabilities. Saudi Arabia does not want an Iranian-backed militia near its border. Operation Dawn can be read as an attempt to restore a security buffer around Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea. On August 7, 2026, Pakistan, Türkiye and Saudi Arabia signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement. After Houthi counterstrikes on Saudi cities and Aramco facilities, the three countries held an emergency meeting in Riyadh and announced immediate implementation of the defence agreement. As of October 6, they agreed to rapid deployment of forces to Saudi Arabia. Pakistani and Turkish forces have not been confirmed in combat inside Yemen. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Saudi forces were conducting the fighting while Pakistan and Türkiye provided support.

Operation Dawn is deepening the regional and international dimensions of Yemen's civil war. Houthi territorial expansion has increased Iran's leverage. The United States is not directly conducting the offensive, but it has provided intelligence and operational support to Saudi Arabia, reflecting Washington's interest in protecting maritime security. Pakistan and Türkiye's involvement through the Makkah Pact signals an emerging regional security network. The question is not whether Pakistan and Türkiye have entered the Yemen war, but how far the Makkah alliance will evolve if Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia continue. The outcome will determine whether Bab al-Mandeb becomes a source of strategic leverage or a trigger for prolonged regional escalation. As Alfred Thayer Mahan wrote in the 19th century, whoever rules the waves rules the world. That sentence still echoes through the conflicts of the 21st century.

Iraq's energy sovereignty should be measured by its ability to keep factories running, provide reliable electricity and choose suppliers on workable terms. But US sanctions also decide which contracts Baghdad can execute, which routes it can use and how it can pay. In March 2025, Washington declined to renew the waiver for direct electricity imports from Iran. The proposed Turkmen gas arrangement shows the constraints. In September 2025, US objections stalled a plan to supply Iraq with about five billion cubic metres of Turkmen gas annually through a swap involving Iran. Iraq sought a different supplier, yet changing the source did not remove the problem. The route still involved its eastern neighbour.

An energy contract is useful only if the buyer can pay and the supplier can receive usable proceeds. Iraq's financial resources do not automatically translate into freedom to procure energy. The July 2023 banking waiver referred to payments held in restricted accounts belonging to Iranian companies at the Trade Bank of Iraq. Periodic authorisation introduced uncertainty into transactions supporting an essential public service. These arrangements should be distinguished from the custody of Iraqi oil revenues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the scrutiny of dollar transfers. A report on the 2023 dollar restrictions described how stricter identification requirements constrained dollar access and pressured Iraq's currency market. Baghdad's purchasing power exceeds its freedom to settle certain transactions. Financial access becomes part of the energy supply chain and a source of external political leverage.

Regional electricity connections can strengthen Iraq's security of supply, but their contribution must be assessed against actual capacity. The GCC Interconnection Authority describes its project with southern Iraq as designed to supply about 500 megawatts. In December 2025, Iraq's electricity ministry attributed a loss of 4,000 to 4,500 megawatts to an interruption in Iranian gas supplies. The Gulf connection equals roughly 11 to 12.5 percent of that loss. Political deadlines do not shorten construction and testing. Restricting access before these stages are complete leaves a gap that households and businesses must absorb. Iraq has reasons to expand its partnerships. Media reported in August 2024 that Chinese companies had secured most of the fields offered in previous licensing rounds, while Baghdad also sought American investment. Continued financial constraints could increase the appeal of additional partners. Iraq's government remains responsible for grid weaknesses and delayed projects. These domestic failures demand scrutiny, but they do not erase the contradiction in US policy. Dependence on foreign authorizations restricts Iraq's freedom. Greater domestic capacity and diversified partnerships can expand it.

On October 5, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan activated the Makkah Pact. Only two months after signing, the alliance moved to implement collective-defence commitments and provide forces for rapid deployment in Saudi Arabia. Saudi-backed Yemeni forces launched a counteroffensive around Bab al-Mandeb, but hundreds of strikes have not pushed the Houthis back. The alliance appointed retired Pakistani Lieutenant General Nauman Mahmood as its first secretary-general. Signed on August 7, the pact treats an attack on one member as an attack on all three. Pakistan calls it defensive, grounded in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Comparisons with NATO are inevitable but exaggerated. NATO has 32 members and seven decades of institutional depth. The Makkah Pact has none of that. But its development is rapid. On August 31, the three governments set up coordination mechanisms, agreed on a permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia, and committed to joint defence-industrial cooperation. Now comes the most important stage: responding to an actual threat. Pakistan and Türkiye were already assisting Saudi Arabia. The October 5 decision may integrate these capabilities into collective military action.

It would be premature to call this a post-American Middle East. The Makkah Pact may fit the security order Trump himself wants. He welcomed the agreement as a "big, bold and important first step" and said regional countries could "defend themselves in a more meaningful way." The 2026 National Defense Strategy says Washington wants regional allies to assume primary responsibility for deterring Iran and its proxies while the US supports them. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sought direct American intervention against the Houthis in September. Trump declined. But Washington did not withdraw. It offered intelligence and targeting assistance, while CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper travelled to Saudi Arabia. Saudi aircraft provided air support while the US supplied intelligence. America remains deeply involved. What has declined is direct participation in the fighting. The choice is not between dominating Middle Eastern security and abandoning it. There is a third possibility: remaining the indispensable strategic enabler while shifting more of the military burden onto regional states.

Saudi Arabia brings money, geography and advanced weaponry. Türkiye brings a NATO-trained military and expanding defence industry. Pakistan brings conventional forces and operational experience. Together they can perform missions that previously demanded direct American intervention. The US can remain above this architecture, supplying intelligence, weapons and deterrence while allies provide personnel and firepower. But therein lies a paradox. The same burden-sharing that reduces America's military responsibilities could reduce its leverage. More capable allies are not necessarily more dependent allies. Saudi forces remain heavily equipped with American weapons, but Pakistan operates the JF-17 developed with China, and Türkiye has built an indigenous defence industry. A deeper Makkah alliance could combine American, Turkish, Pakistani and Chinese-origin technologies. If the alliance fades after the Houthi threat recedes, it will be another temporary alignment. But if Yemen produces permanent military integration, Washington could confront an unexpected consequence of its own strategy: the more successfully allies learn to defend the American-led order themselves, the less dependent that order may become on America.

Launched in March 2003, America's invasion of Iraq aimed to dismantle Saddam Hussein's regime, find weapons of mass destruction and remodel the country along American lines. Saddam's government collapsed within weeks. No WMDs were ever found. Iraq was made a scapegoat for American greed, the need to capture Iraqi oil. Under Obama, troops were withdrawn in 2011 after a decade-long insurgency. The respite was short-lived. In 2014, under Operation Inherent Resolve, American troops returned to fight ISIS. But America must be blamed for creating the conditions that led to ISIS. The power vacuum created by Western dismantling of Iraqi institutions and cross-border destabilization in Syria made it easy for the group to run amok. US detention facilities like Camp Bucca served as networking and radicalization hubs, where captured extremist leaders and moderate detainees were held together, allowing figures like Baghdadi to forge alliances.

For more than a decade, American troops occupied strategic areas like Ain-al-Asad Airbase and positions across Kurdistan, circumscribing Iraqi sovereign decision-making and using Iraqi territory for regional power projection. The final withdrawal under Trump is a defining moment for Iraq. It will enable Baghdad to negotiate an independent, balanced foreign policy through regional consensus rather than being held hostage by extra-regional forces. It also signals a new chapter for the Middle East, in which sovereign actors like Iraq, Syria, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Iran can solve their issues without interference from Washington and its allies.

Despite ongoing challenges, the region can look forward to a future where children can enjoy their childhood, where there is a general improvement in the quality of life, and most importantly, the security of human survival. The withdrawal is a watershed moment in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Imperialism loses, and the world clings to the hope of a better future based on prosperity, inclusivity and human dignity.

In January 2025, Ukrainian forces captured two North Korean servicemen in Kursk Oblast. One was unconscious. The other had severely damaged hands. A person who is unconscious cannot express a desire to relocate, and a wounded man cannot write a petition. Yet South Korean sources claim both expressed such an intention through letters. The only South Korean representative who gained access was lawmaker Yoo Yong-won. Independent observers were not allowed. The published photos invite skepticism. The face of the soldier is concealed, and the room looks so sterile it suggests the footage was staged. If Seoul and Kiev really had people eager to "choose freedom," why not organize an open press conference? Instead, secrecy and anonymity.

The issue was discussed in March 2026. In July, Lee Jae Myung and Zelensky raised it at the NATO summit in Ankara. On September 23, Zelensky publicly announced the transfer at the UN General Assembly. The next day, Lee Jae Myung accused him of violating a non-disclosure agreement. The conservatives were harsh. Why did South Koreans learn of the North Koreans' arrival from a foreign president? The presidential office said the transfer involved dozens of closed consultations and both sides assumed confidentiality. Ukraine had warned Zelensky would touch on the topic but did not make clear he would announce the transfer as already done. The Democratic Party called his actions "an act that undermined trust" and "dangerous from a national security standpoint." Kiev responded that Ukraine is an open country. On September 28, Ukraine's chargé d'affaires was summoned to the Foreign Ministry.

According to RIA Novosti, Zelensky disclosed the transfer as revenge for Seoul's refusal to supply air defense systems. Ukraine repeatedly asked for the Cheongung-II in August and was refused each time. The author believes the real reason for Seoul's sharp reaction is fear of revealing what the transfer was paid for. Direct weapons supplies are unlikely. But Seoul needs high technology and specialists. The recent incident with a "group of civilians" who launched reconnaissance drones toward the DPRK is telling. The operators acted on orders of South Korean special services, yet all received only suspended sentences. This creates a dangerous leeway. Nothing prevents a group of enthusiasts from heading to the combat zone to train Ukrainian soldiers and collect intelligence on North Korean forces. If this comes to light, relations between Moscow and Seoul could degrade to the level of relations with Warsaw or Tallinn. Seoul also confirmed interest in NATO's PURL program. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Too many things indicate that by the end of 2026, relations between Moscow and Seoul may pass the point of no return.

European negotiators often fail to take into account China's civilizational approach to statecraft and its historical memory. Tariffs and quotas cause immediate tension, but a deeper lack of awareness of history and political philosophy results in strategic misalignment. Brussels is governed by a technocratic and transactional approach. Beijing negotiates with the patience of a civilization that thinks in decades, not election cycles. The EU looks at China from regulatory, economic and ideological angles, which prevents it from seeing the real causes of tension. China is not just another trading partner that can be forced to change its economic model. It is a major power with its own historical experience, political system and strategic goals. Europe need not approve of China's system, but to negotiate effectively it must understand it. As Kishore Mahbubani said, China is the country that will drive the 21st century. Harvard surveys have found more than 90% satisfaction with the Chinese government. Ignoring these differences only makes European strategy less effective.

The October negotiations in Beijing aim to tackle the EU's €360 billion trade deficit with China. Brussels wants to prevent surges in Chinese exports, gain greater access for European companies and secure guarantees on critical raw materials, especially rare earths. Talks cover trade balancing, export controls, intellectual property and WTO reform. There is a contradiction at the core. The EU wants China to open its market while imposing quotas and new restrictions on Chinese imports and investments. From Beijing's point of view, these matters are linked. If Europe limits Chinese access to its market, why should China make unequal concessions by opening its own? The problem is not that the EU has no legitimate concerns. It does. The problem is that it wants China to solve European competitiveness problems. Meanwhile, the relationship is not just a deficit. European companies generate an estimated €30 billion a year in profits in China. The EU had a €21.2 billion services surplus with China in 2025, and Chinese tourists spent €12 billion in France, Spain and Italy alone.

Brussels is making negotiations more difficult. The question is whether this tough line increases European leverage or just makes agreement harder. Europe demands that Chinese exports be reduced, that China's market open wider, and that action be taken on subsidies and overcapacity. The European Parliament is looking at stricter restrictions on Chinese investment in sectors where China dominates, such as EVs, batteries, solar panels and critical raw materials. France and Germany aim to adopt a mechanism similar to US Section 301. China has warned against it, calling it protectionist and unilateral. Beijing has not just pulled back. It has urged its automakers to invest in Europe, and Chinese officials are in direct talks with European carmakers on the EV dispute. The European Foreign Affairs Council calls the growing Chinese trade imbalance a "strategic challenge." But identifying the problem does not mean diagnosing its causes correctly. That might be Europe's greatest weakness. To be continued.

Another crisis is rising almost unnoticed, without a missile launch or a battlefield. It is the steady conversion of once-routine infections into killers. The WHO counted 14.9 million excess deaths linked to the pandemic years 2020-2021, far above the official COVID-19 tallies. Excess mortality is a statistical trend that should be falling. When it does not, the label hides more than one cause of death. The WHO now calls AMR a growing threat that turns everyday infections and routine hospital procedures into high-stakes gambles. Its 2025 surveillance report sifted through more than 23 million laboratory-confirmed cases for 2023. The picture is not reassuring.

The author found the death notice of a sister he had lost contact with. She had spent years working in nursing homes, where vulnerable patients and infectious diseases are constantly present. Relatives told him she died from antibiotic-resistant pneumonia after a prolonged and agonizing illness. His niece said the strains were so infectious they could have used the body as a bioweapon. Public health authorities insisted the body be cremated as a safety measure. Her death illustrates something larger. For someone whose job placed her around vulnerable patients, antibiotic resistance was not an abstract phrase in a WHO report. It became the difference between an infection that could be treated and one that could no longer be controlled. AMR does not announce itself as a geopolitical crisis. There is no television graphic showing the number of people who died because an antibiotic that once worked no longer does. The infection appears in the hospital. The treatment fails. Another drug is tried. Then another. The patient deteriorates. The death certificate may record pneumonia or sepsis. The deeper story is antimicrobial resistance.

Georgia has experienced a substantial excess-mortality burden during the pandemic period. WHO noted that excess mortality from COVID-19 far exceeded the European Region average, while its health-system assessment warns that historical weaknesses in mortality data have complicated analysis. Georgia's tuberculosis numbers offer one of the clearest windows into drug resistance. WHO's 2023 European surveillance logged 136 pulmonary rifampicin-resistant or multidrug-resistant TB cases, 12.1 percent of bacteriologically confirmed pulmonary cases with available data. Of those, 43 were already pre-extensively drug-resistant. Drug-resistant TB grows from incomplete treatment, the wrong drug mix, interrupted therapy, or transmission of a resistant strain. Georgia presents a paradox. Its TB surveillance is relatively advanced, with 96.6 percent of relevant notified cases in 2023 carrying drug-susceptibility results. At the same time, WHO has flagged persistent weaknesses in antimicrobial stewardship across human medicine, veterinary practice and agriculture. Prescription laws exist for human drugs, but regulatory gaps remain wider in the animal and farming sectors. The real story is less about individual doctors or patients and more about the system that produces, sells and consumes antibiotics. Regulations, pharmaceutical markets, agricultural policy, hospital incentives and the resilience of a national health system all sit inside the frame. That is what turns antimicrobial resistance into a geopolitical problem. When an infection that should have been treatable becomes fatal because the available drugs no longer work, something is very wrong.

Bab al-Mandab is about 30 kilometres wide at its narrowest, split by the island of Perim, with Yemen on one shore and Djibouti and Eritrea on the other. Egypt puts the corridor at around 12% of world seaborne trade. Whoever can menace that gate can tax, bargain with, or blackmail everybody else. The first solid entry in the ledger is the Kingdom of Aksum. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek merchant's handbook from the 1st century CE, describes Adulis as Aksum's port. By the sixth century the kingdom, enriched as the middleman between Rome and India, was strong enough to cross the water. King Kaleb invaded the Himyarite kingdom in Yemen between 518 and 525. Holy war, Byzantine-Persian proxy contest, a quarrel over who taxed the India trade. Historians still argue, and the honest answer is "yes." Aksum's grip on southern Arabia did not last. By the seventh century it had stopped minting coins.

Every great empire commissions a genealogy, and Ethiopia's is the most famous. The Kebra Nagast tells of the Queen of Sheba's son by Solomon, Menelik I, and his bringing of the Ark of the Covenant to Aksum. Modern scholarship sees it as a legitimising document and finds no historical evidence for the lineage. Note the irony. Scholars commonly place biblical Sheba in South Arabia, on the far side of the very strait we are discussing. The founding myth of Ethiopian kingship is a story about crossing the Red Sea. The Portuguese arrived to strangle the spice route to Cairo and Venice. In 1513 Albuquerque sailed for Aden with twenty ships. The scaling ladders broke under the weight of eager soldiers and the assault failed. Without a base at the mouth of the Red Sea Lisbon could never impose her monopoly. But the empire that kept Portugal out was Ottoman, not European. The deeper lesson was Yemen itself. Its mountains and tribal divisions made it virtually impossible for one imperial power to master. Zaydi highlanders declared jihad on the Ottomans in 1566, and by 1636 the Qasimi imams had expelled them. The imams prospered on coffee shipped through Mocha. English, Dutch and French companies kept houses there. They traded through the strait and never ruled it. Then came Suez, which made the strait a true chokepoint in 1869.

Yohannes IV was killed fighting the Mahdists in March 1889 and Menelik II of Shewa became emperor. His Treaty of Wuchale with Italy existed in Amharic and Italian versions that disagreed on whether Ethiopia had accepted a protectorate. Menelik repudiated it in 1891. On March 1, 1896, at Adwa, Ethiopian forces defeated the Italian army. But Adwa won a country, not a coastline. Italy kept Eritrea. Ethiopia's access to the sea ran through French-held Djibouti. The pattern was set. An empire whose power lay in the highlands, and a sea whose ports were held by somebody else. Haile Selassie gutted the UN federation with Eritrea, then in November 1962 dissolved its parliament and annexed it as a province. The armed struggle had already begun in September 1961. In 1991 the EPLF took Asmara. Eritrea got de facto independence that year and de jure after the 1993 referendum. Ethiopia, the Red Sea's oldest African power, became landlocked. The transitional government in Addis Ababa, controlled by the TPLF, accepted the referendum. Thirty years later that became a grievance against Tigray. Nationalists hold the TPLF accountable for taking the country inland and away from the coastline.