2025. The world has changed. And I am not just referring to the election of a new but old US president, nor to the increasing spread of armed conflicts at close range, almost touching our ‘first world’, the one where wars did no longer happen. We were all convinced of that, weren’t we? The events around us are just symptoms of a much deeper change. The divide between our merry lives and what happens globally has shrunk. We can no longer go to the office in the morning, thinking only about the project deadline and the coffee with the boss. Or the power games between colleagues. We have to think to international power games. And understand their roots and consequences.
When, paradoxically, globalisation seems on the verge of a step backwards, with the advance of protectionism, nationalism, tariffs and ethno-egoism, the interdependence of world balances and their interconnection with our daily lives is more than ever in the foreground. There is now no sector – politics, industry, science, technology, economics – that is not heavily influenced by what might happen in often forgotten corners of the planet. And perhaps, very soon, even beyond the Earth’s borders.
Whereas, in a past and less complex world, strategic business decisions could be made largely by taking into account factors limited to a specific field, today a technical and sectoral view is no longer sufficient. We need to be able to correlate every aspect and calculate the impact and risks of each.
Historical identities, geographic positions, individual and collective psychologies, cultural or mineral assets, social values and traditions, divergent millennial interests, and converging present interests, demography, cross-vetoes, untold priorities, innermost personal beliefs and motivations, or forgotten national wounds. Acknowledging not only each of these factors, but comprehending their causes and origins, and how one influences the other, in a play of cause and effect, is imperative in today’s geopolitical and even commercial reality. Even to position ourselves in respect to the potential and role of AI, which nothing else is than a product and a mirror of HI, human intelligence.
Whatever industry we operate in – from finance to chemicals, from aerospace to food production – there is always a stakeholder, a raw material, a customer, a supply chain whose efficiency, reliability or satisfaction depend on what happens in a remote corner of the world. The logics of productivity and profit as we have known them so far are no longer sufficient to guarantee long-term success.
Relations with governments and international institutions, trade treaties and foreign policies, fiscal and environmental regulations, energetic strategies. We have entered a context in which geopolitical factors, competitions between past and emerging powers, climate challenges, international sanctions, but also and above all those strictly human factors linked to the peculiarities of the populations that move within a particular context, can alter market dynamics.
Geopolitics forcefully enters economic and decision-making calculations.
No longer an oddity for enthusiasts or a fad for intellectuals. Today geopolitics is a crucial discipline for anyone who wants to navigate and succeed in an increasingly interconnected, unpredictable and complex world. It is not just a set of distant events or power tactics, but grasping the Other, beyond surface and stereotypes.
Understanding the communication code of another country is simply no longer enough. Ensuring cordial relations and constructive exchanges is a means, but not an end. We need to grasp the deepest reasons for every behaviour and every decision, to recognise the perspectives of every actor, individually and within departments, companies, nations, alliances, systems and contexts, each with its specific laws and pre-existing conditions, in order to gain a competitive advantage. To be able to set the right goals. And to achieve them. The world has changed.
