Javier Solana (Madrid, 1942) confronts the world of recent decades, from the fall of the Wall to the war in Ukraine, in Testigo de un tiempo incierto, for which he won the Espasa prize. A book in which geopolitics and memoirs are one thing for someone who was Secretary General of NATO and responsible for European foreign policy for a decade.
His book reaches the beginning of this month and, despite this, he has missed a new crisis, that of Gaza. Is the story sped up?
We are in a complicated moment. Our biggest concern was the war in Ukraine and now it has erupted very violently in the Middle East again. And not only is there a return to tension between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, but there are beginning to be movements in the region. If it gets messed up, we would have a serious situation. First, because of human suffering, and also the price of oil would evolve. For now, he hasn’t moved. A war between Israel and Hamas is for the poor and has no impact on the stock market. In fact, in Gaza it is a horror how the citizens live. As for Israel, it is in a very complicated situation, Netanyahu is a bad ruler and has been allying himself with the worst of Israel, those who have the least democratic values. Before this catastrophe came there was already a great unrest. When this is over I hope he will have to leave politics.
How do you get out of here?
There has been a lack of leadership. The Oslo Accords were a short-lived hope because Rabin was assassinated. For a Jew There is a strong current in Israel that wants the country to go from the river to the sea. And this is what members of the Israeli Government said before the Hamas attack. What coexistence can you have when at this time in the 21st century your leaders continue to say that Israel goes from the river to the sea? I am very sad, but it will have to go ahead, stopping the behavior that Israel is having. Biden has told them not to make the mistake they made after 9/11, when they got confused and went to war.
The solution is two states?
I have no doubt about it. And to let your guard down on that would be treason. Trump here had a bad political action on the Middle East with the Abraham agreements for the Arab countries to recognize Israel. He got it with Morocco, the Emirates. It’s a betrayal. The grand agreement is peace and two states by recognition.
Much of his book takes place in a unipolar world, in which the US was the only power. Did they miss the moment?
After the fall of the Wall Bush father managed very well the German reunification, the invasion of Kuwait… There were people who told him that Saddam should be charged and he said no. But those who wanted it after 9/11 pushed again. 11-S broke a possibility when a rapprochement between a Putin and a Bush who had only recently been presidents was believed to be feasible. September 11 kills everything. The USA is a country at war with liturgies and war speeches. There were very radical changes in the nuclear agreements to be able to do missile defense, which put the Russians in a very bad mood. From that year we have a coalition that did things it shouldn’t have done, the Iraq war was a nonsense, and the only thing that went well was in September, when it was decided that China would enter to the World Trade Organization, a move that will allow him to make the leap.
Was Europe wrong with Putin believing that economic interdependence was enough?
I have always advocated that interdependence helps peace. But for it to work leaders have to be credible and Putin was not. He wasn’t playing fair.
Speaking of the economy, the book mentions Biden’s new policy with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Is it a turning point for globalization, are we heading towards a world with strong industrial policies?
Industrial policy is back. And as it is proposed, each country will do its own thing and the international framework that we had achieved will be broken. With the IRA, the subsidies that the US will give so that everything is made in the US will put the EU in huge trouble. What used to be played on the global market is now subsidized by the State. And Europe does not have a State to subsidize. It is a decision that will make us Europeans think a lot about our behavior.
He says that the greatest challenge of the century will be the rivalry between China and the USA and recalls Thucydides’ trap: many times the struggle between the emerging power and the established power leads to war.
The most serious situation now is the state of the USA. A completely divided country, only the hatred or fear of China unites them. But I think there is no reason for a break, a decoupling between the economies of the West and China. It can be avoided. There will be difficulties in matters related to security. Artificial intelligence, chips, which are used for cleaning robots and drones. The control of dual-use technology. But trade between the US and China continues to rise. A war is stupidity: no one can win it.
