Tag: politics

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National interest

Especially in times of international conflicts, it is customary that politicians refer to “the national interest” as a justification for their actions beyond the state borders, commonly named foreign policy. There is a huge literature on the subject, in which the concept of the national interest is useful, (1) because it suggests some higher ranking political goal, (2) because it clarifies and prioritizes a country’s goals, particularly at times of military interventions and (3) because it “arouses the support necessary to move towards a realization of the goals” (Rosenau 1968, Int. Encycl. p.34).
A critical assessment of this concept in international relations should start with the democratic perspective that a country’s government is subject to regular elections, whereby the goals a previous majority had put forward, might substantially change as a new majority takes the lead. Continuation of the same foreign policies is not excluded, but at least subject to revision. In authoritarian regimes the definition of the national interest is probably more stable, because authoritarian leadership does not hesitate to define the national interest in “splendid isolation” from its people.
Overall, the concept appears to serve mainly communication purposes, both internally as well as towards the outside as in communicable foreign policy goals. Conflicts between countries can thus be named and become subject to diplomacy and international treaties. But we have to fill this with substance over and over again as new topics arise like climate change and global warming.

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Interconnected multipolarity

In a very long-term anthropological perspective on the balance of power on the globe, the period that mankind lived on this globe has been characterised by an unconnected multipolarity. People lived in their more or less isolated communities before the Egyptian, Roman, Chinese, Australian, African or Japanese empires and people of the world became connected through new means of transport and communication networks.
In the 21st century the world wide web has broad us closer together and suddenly we realize that unipolarity or bipolarity might be options again through the unipolar dominance in airspace and radio frequencies. Even if unconnected multipolarity has been by far the longest period of mankind, the new developments in international politics resemble more a world of interconnected multipolarity than an American dominated unipolar or bipolar world of the Cold War period until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Stephen Walt (2026) and Raja Mohan (2026) discuss the concept of multipolarity in the same issue of Foreign Affairs (Vol. 105 Nr.2). Whereas Walt emphasises the USA as a “predatory hegemon”, Mohan describes the USA as being tempted and actually currently going it alone in international politics.
The current military image of world politics seems to be dominated by unipolarity again, maybe just before the longer run realities of economic, demographic, financial, trade and productivity developments, already reflected already in such data, take the upper hand again. The spectrum of the unipolar, bipolar, multipolar world privots around multipolarity in the long run, even if bipolar or unipolar intermezzi are part of the historical evolution.
(Image: view of Obzorno-geografceskij globus, Moskau 1994, Stabi Berlin 2026-1)

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Chess without Queen

It is perfectly possible to play chess without a player having a queen on the chessboard. This certainly gives an advantage to the opponent, but in case of a lack of an adequate strategy or being overly confident to win, the advantage can be compensated by the party who does not have a queen in the arsenal of weapons. The paper by Lissner & Warden (2026, p.109) on the new way of war following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022-2-24 states that “nuclear weapons have not given Moscow the coercive leverage many assumed they would.” Nuclear weapons hit the civilian population without differentiation the hardest, just as much as taking nuclear power plants as strategic war targets would do. What we have seen so far in Russia’s strategy is to use civil infrastructures of water and heating as targets within Ukraine as part of a kind of psychological warfare against the Ukrainian civil population. The more committed Ukrainian soldiers, even with the lack of a nuclear weapon, seem to hold the line against the Russian aggressor that so far has restrained from the nuclear option, if the Tschernobyl disaster has not been a precursor of a weaponisation of nuclear infrastructure.

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Future Conflicts

Since 2014-2-27 Russia has occupied the Crimean peninsula. This invasion had started with an undercover mission of unmarked soldiers to take full control of Crimea about 3 weeks later. Russia did not officially declare a war, although the intentions were identical to a land grabbing war. The western world did not react much to this violation of international law. Apparently, this contributed to the next cynical “special operation” by the Russian army to fully invade Ukraine on 2022-2-24 in a failed “Blitzkrieg”, a rapid invasion, which attempted and failed to annex the whole of Ukraine. According to Lissner & Warden (2026) the Russian invasion of Ukraine bears 4 lessons for future conflicts: (1) the risk of using nuclear weapons is real, (2) in addition to nuclear options, prolonged and very destructive conventional wars remain an option, (3) escalation thresholds emerge and evolve over the duration of the conflict, (4) allies and partners in war keep adjusting their risk tolerance as well as escalation options. The authors argue from a US perspective and add a practical comment: “The USA cannot go this alone, but should coordinate closely with allies and partners in time before another conflict arises. Multilateralism seems a valid option and even more so as we move into a multipolar power play on the global scale propelled by AI.
(Image: Musée Orsay, Paris – Archer, Bogenspannende)

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Peace and war again

“If you want peace, prepare for war”. This is one of the famous citations from Vegetius an early Roman general. For centuries we have been aware that peace and war are not opposites in a broader sense. Preparation for war can resemble war, if a country’s economy is already heavily turning towards production of weapons and intensifies research in dual use technologies. Political terminologies that shift to a vocabulary using more belligerent language may also be interpreted as a early signs of a shift in balance between peace and and early warnings on war. 4 years of the war of Russia on Ukraine territory have left traces in our vocabulary as well as budgets devoted to the preparation of a defense in Europe.
More countries of the EU state openly what is in their “national interest”, as if they were ready to go to war (Charap & Haukkala 2026) to in case major elements of the national interest were endangered. In going back to Clausewitz’s writing, a long historical line can be drawn from the Crimean War(s) to Putin’s imperialist war of 2014 and 2022 trying to capture Ukrainian territory, irrespective of enormous human losses.
Another lesson from these historical events might be: Let’s not forget to prepare for peace during the hot conflict.

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External-Internal Threat

In a time perspective of at least since the German unification of 1990, we have to reconsider the perception of what constitutes an external versus an internal threat. Prior to the implosion of the Soviet Union and the Glasnost years, the external Russian threat has been transformed across the globe into more hybrid threats coming from internal forces which have been “instrumentalized” by external forces. In an essay by Valentine Faure (Le Monde 2026-2-21) this twist to internal politics has been described as a form of new forms of interference of external forces into European internal political, economic and social affairs. In fact the basic strategy is as old as the famous Trojan horse, but the strategy has been refined and to work over much longer time spans as well as in other scientific applications. Any form of powerful, interested party would rather use the soft power of persuasion than brutal force to reach political objectives. Corruption and buying votes, directly or indirectly, has become a legitimate way in this hybrid or open use of power from the inside of a society than through a more traditional external affairs strategy. The confrontation of the bipolar world made it easy to put emphasis on external military power. A multilateral as well as more multilayered international political arena precludes to some extent the bipolar confrontation as conflicts on several frontiers  increases risks exponentially. In search of other strategies it seems plausible to turn to hybrid as well as disguised external force. Europe and democratic systems in general are more vulnerable than autocratic states, because the belief in an open form of society is part of its DNA. Open societies shall have to sharpen their sensory systems to transformed external to internal threats.

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EU Presidencies Review

There is a turnover at the EU presidency every 6 months. A full cycle of all presidencies takes 13 and a half years as each presidency lasts the same length irrespective of country size. CY 2026 is the current one, where CY does not only stand for “see you” in smartphone slang, but for Cyprus in 2026. The procedure to determine a working program for the Council presidency is well established and unresolved matters keep coming back in regular time intervals. The big overarching topic in 2026 is EU autonomy facing up to new challenges of the multilateral world. In the EU presidencies small countries can showcase their concerns and demonstrate what their preferred topics and proposals of solutions are. It is also a chance to make people aware of why they have been eager to join a political, cultural and economic union in the first place. Already in the founding documents the issue of security and defense were addressed. They are again on the top of the agenda in the enlarged EU. The multi-ethnic and multi- religious experience of Cyprus, a country that has lived through multiple strategic dominations over centuries, can probably teach us a lot about how difficult it is to be autonomous if other more powerful countries have put an eye on your territory. Choose your allies wisely. (Image: exhibits Cyprus at BNF 2026, CY2026EU) 

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Rule and divide leadership

We have known the leadership style, which has been coined as “rule and divide”, at least since the Roman imperial period.  In conquered countries it was a strategy to rule by way of creating divides between peoples or regions within a conquered country. The struggle for power within a country is likely to avoid that a powerful opposition to the occupant can build up. What is well researched in the history of international politics, has also been applied to the realm of management strategies. Anthony Galluzzo demonstrates that the strategies of management often attempt to split the workforce in at least 2 different camps in order to better keep employees and their trade unions under some sort of control. For society as a whole, so-called dual labor market theories have hypothesized the existence of such management strategies since the 1980s. With the labor practices in food and grocery deliveries as well as in taxi services such management strategies are applied again. “Old wine in new bottles”, but still seems to sell and catch on. (Image: extract from Butler Charles, 1637, Monarchia faeminina)

 

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Multilateral world

In the relatively brave new world of 21st century, it is not only a question of how the super powers like the USA, China and Russia shall push their strategic goals, but also what role so-called „Middle Powers“ will play. Europe and the European Union will have to make up their minds, whether they want to belong to one or the group, individually or jointly. New as well as shifting alliances seem to be a realistic scenario. Coalitions of middle powers will be effective counterparts to the threat of domination by a single or joint brutal force of superpowers. The power of interference of middle powers in the confrontation of superpowers is considerably higher if they were to collaborate more effectively than with each of the superpowers previously in a simple 2 opponents game of chess, much more familiar to us so far. (Image: Game of chess with 4, 5 or 6 players on the same board, here adapted from chessboard for 4 players, source: greenchess.net webpage)

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Between micro and de-facto state

In political science we distinguish between small, micro-states and territories or regions that are defined as de-facto states. Björn Boman (2025) has put the wealthy states of Monaco, Lichtenstein and San Marino into the micro-states category. On the contrary, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Donetsk and Luhansk fall under the label of de-facto states with more controlled access as well as under Russian influence using brutal force to control the zone of Russian influence. Due to its size Ukraine as a whole has been able to resist the Russian forces to be degraded to a de-facto state only. The military and technical ingenuity of a well educated workforce allowed the Ukraine leadership to not only counter the Russian invasion, but also to mobilize enormous support from western democracies in form of weapons, financial and humanitarian assistance including millions of refugees over the last 4 years. Size of territory has entered the equation or balance whether to belong to a the micro- or de-facto state category. In the new multipolar international political arena “the sovereign state” has become a more hybrid concept as well. Micro-states have handled the difference between full internal sovereignty and only partial external sovereignty already for years, the new multipolar international arena is being transformed rapidly in this direction. Choose your camp or align with a sufficient number of countries to form an internal and external sovereign area.

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Utopian Antifascists

Next to the exhibition on “Global Fascism” in Berlin in 2025-12 there was a banner on the wall, which stated “Antifascism as Utopia” (see image below). This statement invites the question, whether an antithesis can serve as a positive utopian idea guiding large numbers of people. It is certainly necessary that all people who subscribe to democratic principles and human values should be able to unite under the banner of antifascism, but the ways to pursue this goal are manifold. This makes the claim of an utopian objective a bit more obvious and, at the same time, more plausible as a potentially overarching objective. The statement might well turn out to be the defining statement or key visual of the year 2026 with rising nationalist and in some places also fascist ideas and rhetoric. Thoughts and words might be only precursors of more such actions in the coming months. 

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Q Q Utopia

Projections into the future, the painting of a futuristic image or an utopian narrative can be based on a quantitative or a qualitative approach. A quantitative projection into the year 2100, for example, is form of creating an utopian vision of quantitative developments. Projecting the small reduction of working hours into a very distant future will eventually approach zero hours (tous sublime). Alternatively, utopian scenarios for qualitative characteristics of work and employment range from full health and safety or “cure yourself by work” (?really, “Arbeit macht frei”) to AI and robots designed to solve major laborious tasks and challenges for us. It is important to differentiate between the qualitative and quantitative forms of utopian visions. The time frames matter, too. In politics various combinations of utopian perspectives have frequently been combined. The human mind’s capability to project itself into the future explains our tendency to come up with utopian ideas or scenarios irrespective of our ability for rationality. We better acknowledge these human characteristics rather than insist on an either, or image of ourselves.  

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Positive negative Utopia

We have been used to distinguish between a positive or a negative utopia. The idea of a paradise is usually associated with a positive utopia, however, from the perspective of mankind being unable to live together without the idea of God being the ultimate arbitrator, this is more like a negative utopia. The industrial revolution and communism as the utopia to spread wealth equally across generations and all people, have been turned into negative utopia by dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. The fascist ideas of superiority of a race has also turned into negative horror and Nazi-terror. Hence, skepticism is in order, if either form of utopia is advocated. There are numerous examples of unintended or not explicitly stated consequences that have to be considered as well. (Image: Extract from Salvador Dali, Looming Danger Alarm, 1934, Neue Nationalgalerie, Stiftung Pietzsch)  

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Communist Utopia

Putin has not only killed thousands of his own people, but he he has also killed the communists’ utopia of a better world and future, if only private property would be replaced by a top down, one party rule of a leadership that pretends to act on behalf of the people. Young Russians have little choice than to follow orders, learn how to bribe superiors not to be sent to the killing fields or be sanctioned. Putin has put an end to the ideas of Glasnost and Perestroika in Russia and utopian ideas about communism as well. He must have sensed it during his time in Eastern Germany that without brutality the Soviet union will not survive for long. As soon as he came back to Russia he prepared the shameless abuse of his power and ideas about a law-based socialist system in favor of the return of the military state. Borders are for those who believe in a rule-based international legal system. Changed to this international legal framework are hard to believe by European nations, but have to be accepted as a new form of “Realpolitik” in the international arena. (Image: Graffiti in Brussels Mont des Arts 2022-3-1) 

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Peak Refugees

The number of refugees in the world has stabilized at a very high level. According to the data from the UN Refugee agency (UNHCR) until mid 2025 the number stands at 36.6 million people. With slight decreases in the last 2 years, the challenges remain at a high level. The 10 top countries hosting the largest numbers of refugees are Iran, Turkey, Columbia, Germany, Uganda, Pakistan, Chad, Peru, Poland and Ethiopia (compare Fig 4 of report). It is particularly remarkable that this list of countries is relatively little associated with a country’s level of average income. Humanitarian concerns and being a neighboring country play an important role. We all hope that we have witnessed peak refugees and that an assisted and safe return will be a feasible option for many of them eventually. Although we know that many people suffer from authoritarian regimes and, for many years, don’t have a return option in sight. (Image: Documentation Center on refugees in Berlin) 

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Good or bad

We have been taught by Shakespeare “to be or not to be, that is the question”. In political science we have pondered the question in a slightly augmented form. “to be good or bad, that is our question”. The basic image of women and men in society has been a subject throughout the history of ideas. For those who believe in the good nature of mankind, they tend to find reasons to believe that eventually mankind will find a way towards a peaceful cohabitation on our planet (there is no planet B yet for humans). On the other hand, each outbreak of violence and war are considered as a confirmation that mankind will always recur to some form of violence, even after extensive periods of peaceful cohabitation. According to the evidence presented by Meller, Michel, van Schaik, referring back to Kant, trade between people and nations is likely to prevent more violent relationships (p. 330). One of the major conclusions over the long term view of mankind is, that the periods of war have been far shorter and more rare than a focus on the last 3000 years seems to suggest. Maybe, “to be good or bad” is just a question of demographics of being too many at the same time in the same place.  Population growth and population density might be a powerful driver of “being good or bad”.  (Image: Delacroix, Last words of Marc Aurel)

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Generation Hope

The whole of Europe has good reasons to take a careful look at the stunning protests organized by the young generation in Bulgaria (Le Monde, 2025-12-13). With spectacular repeated demonstrations in the center of Sophia, the young people attempted to stop a government that is likely to sink further into corruption. It is this generation of young people that have experienced and/or lived in other European countries or in other Western-style democracies around the globe that have enough of corruption in politics and social systems more generally. The well-educated Bulgarian youth has managed to overthrow a government that had been subject to pressure from corrupt forced. It is not easy to get rid of corrupt politicians and powerful business interests as a system based on merits rather than ability to pay remain fragile in the first few years of such a transition. It needs a sizable “Generation Hope” as I would like to call these young enthusiasts of democracies. The message reaches well beyond Bulgaria and gives hope to all those whose political systems deteriorate into authoritarianism across the globe. It took 20 years to build this “Generation Hope” and mobile youth that takes home the messages and learnings from other democracies. Based on statistics from Eurostat we know about the strong in-migration from Turkey and Russia into Bulgaria. Youth is particularly likely to leave authoritarian regimes to seek a better future in democracies, for example as part of the Generation Hope” in Bulgaria. (Image: Cour constitutionel Paris) 

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Deep Fake Threat

Our Western democracies are aware that “deep fake videos”, radio, online-newspapers and most of all social media platforms are all around us already. However, more scientific voices alert us that this threat to our easy or comfortable way of life to consume information eventually threatens the survival of our democracies. Previously, interference in elections used to focus on rigged election procedures, but in the 21st century powerful other alternatives can do the dirty job to bias elections against the original intentions of the electorate. The widespread use of AI will exacerbate the already practiced ways to produce deep fakes. In a preparatory self-test of an AI-assisted chatbot I was surprised myself of the quality of the output. A person not very familiar with my original voice in a second language would assume that it is me who is being interviewed in person. Based on a fake news text, any form will be automatically translated into voice only and/or video based on basic visuals.
Statisticians used to joke some decades ago: “Don’t believe in any statistics, unless you faked it yourself.” This is meant to encourage people to be aware of dangers of the use of statistics to influence opinions or official decision-making, like in policy making of central banks, which might be based on biased accounting for shrinkflation, cheatflation or greedflation to name just a few,
Hence, the need to strengthen awareness, analytical skills and critical thinking should be high on the agenda to defend our democracies. There are not only external military threats, but additional ones masked as internal threats.
(Image:: mice as humans in living room 2 couch potatos 1 on rocking chair, tea time)

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Foul-smelling dictatorship

The animal world is full of interesting strategies of how to turn over a foul-smelling ruler or dictatorship. The ant queen of “lasius orientalis” infiltrates a colony of “lavius flavus” to spray the incumbent queen with a foul-smelling substance which turns the worker ants against their own queen and eventually kills the queen. This is a rather intelligent strategy to trick the defense system of rival colonies and prepare a takeover of a whole colony to install your own reign.
This may constitute a stark warning for democracies just as much as a threat to persistent dictatorships. In the age of the not so social media there is a lot of foul-smells produced. Beware of the risks to democracy as open societies are much easier to infiltrate than closed societies or dictatorships. (Link)

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Dynamic Equilibrium

The notion of a dynamic equilibrium is applied in several scientific disciplines. The search of the world wide web takes us first to the application in chemistry. The dynamic equilibrium denotes the state when reactants and products are continuously converted. Fascinating as a process, there are videos where you can watch the process evolve. Applications in economic or social theory are also common even if the time scales to observe such processes of dynamic equilibrium usually take longer to evolve than in chemistry of bubbles. In physics we ponder about dynamic equilibria in Newton’s view of gravitational forces between planets and the celestial system. With a more down to earth approach we might just admire the dynamic equilibrium of an artist on a rope, before we dive into the complex challenges of the new balance of power in international politics of the multipolar world. 

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Codes of Emperors

Even in the 21st century we spot the ancient codes of emperors. In Brussels the statue of King Albert, who ruled until 1933 and celebrated the first centenary of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1930, shows the Emperor riding a horse without saddle. This iconic position was started as a symbol of a powerful leadership by Marc Aurel and continued by Napoleon’s reign as well as several other ones.
The position on the elevated podium of the emperor on the horse, which further raises him beyond the level of the people, all contribute to the idealized perception of the king above the people. Such a vertical or hierarchical perspective on society or even mankind, including the colonial approaches of the emperors, are the lasting attributes of those times.  According to Els Witte et al. who wrote on the political history of Belgium, King Albert I was also named King Knight by some.
The portrayal and self-portrayal played an important role already centuries ago. No surprise that democracy has brought about an avalanche of idealized self-portraits or “selfies”.

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Political Economy 2025

As the global markets have moved from an international economic system based on competition to a world of protectionism based on arbitrary tariffs and restrictions, it feels strange to spot banners in Brussels in 2025-10 entitled “Competitive Europe Summit”. Participants at the conference appear to be “barking up the wrong tree”. In industries, and even more so in most services, access to markets is the necessary condition to embark on competition. No access, no competition. Tariffs or taxes are created to stifle competition.
All this has multiple reasons. One reason is to create an equal playing field among countries. Previously, we thought exchange rates of currencies and eventually purchasing power parities would shift following changes in competitiveness. This mainstream economic thinking has been disrupted through Putin’s war on Ukraine territory. The MAGA political economy narrative has impacted the competition between countries as well, (1) with its rhetoric and (2) back and forth changes in tariffs. Competition with countries which do not respect basic principles of fairness in competition can no longer be confronted with a mantra of a “competitive Europe”.
A more unified Europe could deal with the “politico-economic” fact that the global economy is much less concerned with the idea of competitiveness than in the last few decades of the last millennium (70s, 80s, 90s). Powerplay between nations maybe regarded as a kind of competition for dominance, but a sole focus on economic competition is grossly misleading nowadays after 3 years of the Russian aggression, at least with a focus on the short and middle distance run.

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Marc Aurel Book 6

Some passages of Book 6 can be understood like quotes of much later works, even like writings of the enlightenment period. Take this one: “If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance.” (para 21 in Penguin Classics version, also in Greek original and French translation).
The same passage in historic English: “If anybody shall reprove me, and shall make it apparent unto me, that in any either opinion or action of mine I do err, I will most gladly retract. For it is the truth that I seek after, by which I am sure that never any man was hurt; and as sure, that he is hurt that continueth in any error, or ignorance whatsoever.” (Para XX in Gutenberg.org online reader).
Why is this already an enlightened vision of truth? In the search for truth, he is open to criticism or doubt by others (maybe even irrespective of societal standing) and, moreover, ready to change his conviction and action. Religious doctrines of the time and many centuries after his writings would not have accepted such a doubtful mind who might change due to (scientific) reasons. Long before “Cogito ergo sum” (René Descartes, (1637), I think, therefore I am, of the early enlightenment, Marc Aurel might be summarized in this paragraph as “Cogito, ergo dubio”, I think, therefore I doubt – and I may change accordingly.
(Image: Ossip Zadkine, Forêt humaine, Musée Zadkine Paris)

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Marc Aurel Book 1

The reading of Marc Aurel’s Meditations in its Book 1 offers first of all his acknowledgments of people who had a lasting impact on him or offered learnings to him. He presented these learnings or take-home lessons as we call this nowadays in a style of “positive psychology”. This means writes about the positive influences and which kinds of positive behaviors he saw in living examples of others and which he felt were particularly worthy of general consideration. In philosophical retrospect we might read the book 1 as a list of “categorical imperatives” which would make a decent life feasible for all. His acknowledgments start with 1 line on his grandfather (decency and mild temper), 2 lines on his biological father (integrity and manliness), 3 lines on his mother (piety, generosity, avoidance of wrongdoing and simplicity of living), but 4 lines on his tutor, even more on other advisers, 20+ on his adoptive father, which is more than on “the gods”.  All these experiences impregnated him with a sense for a “ruler’s responsibility for the common good”. (p.8). The stoic virtue lies in the extensive list of positive contributions from others to make him the rather unique philosopher and emperor.

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Napoleon legacy

It is huge historical project to try to summarize the legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte. AI is by design less hesitant to come up with any length of a summary statement some with good references on which the statement is based. In combination with a visit at Fontainebleau and a first hand impression of the environment of the autocratic ruler, the remainders like the introduction of a Civil Code to guide also administrations to lawful conduct, we still see influences of this legal innovation in many other countries across the globe. The recognition of Jews as equal citizens and to allow equal access to property and many professions have been influential across Europe mostly in occupied territories. Military service for Jews in Napoleon’s army was another consequence, which spread into the Prussian army and the 1st world war. It is in the 21st century that we see shifts towards more authoritarian governance styles spreading again, we did not want to see this happen until Russia‘s war in Ukraine. (Image: La Chair de la forêt, Frénésie des Géants by  Wang Keping Fontainebleau 2025-8)

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Fontainebleau library

The “Galerie de Diane” in Fontainebleau has been built during Napoleon’s reign. It hosts the library with a large collection of books. The function of the books seems to be more to intimidate the persons passing by rather than ready for inspection. The globe at the entrance reflects the ambition of the ruler. The fact that you have to walk some stairs upwards increases the impression to be little compared to this universe of knowledge. It is great that libraries have flipped this perspective and today we study the period of Napoleon’s reign with our democratic values in mind. The top-down approach was the incarnation of Napoleon’s style of government. Despite the revival of such governance styles in the 21st century across the globe, they are unlikely to last for more years than Napoleon’s fate. A simple reason for this may be the only representative or intimidating role of knowledge in such forms of governance rather than an open mind approach. 

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Fontainebleau Throne

The French history is full of kings and emperors who have ruled the country. The Chateau Fontainebleau has the longest history of kings who lived there and held office, a pre-modern version of “home office”. The most remarkable and distinguished furniture of a king is the throne reserved for office hours. Napoleon created a special throne room at Fontainebleau which is also the only one preserved in its original form until today. It is just one of the home office rooms of the emperor. The antechambers, council room and study had to be passed before to reach the ear and audience of the emperor. The history of the home office and thrones have been intertwined ever since. 

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Korean Independence

The independence of a country is sometimes a long struggle. At particular points in time, a window of opportunity may open up, which allows to change the course of history. In many cases the opportunity to gain independence has been prepared for several decades, at least from 1919 onwards to come to fruition only after the end of the Pacific war, shortly after the Nazi-regime was defeated. The long and relentless preparation of the Korean Provisional Government ensured that a consensual constitution was ready to be adopted and elections to be held. The resulting division of Korea into 2 parts (South and North), just like East and West Germany, is rather long lived on historical time scales. For that matter, the hope of a peaceful unification needs to be reiterated again and again. The informative exhibition of the Korean Cultural Center to Belgium and the EU highlights the continued “Dream of Peace” which continues even after more than 100 years.

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History coined

It is an ambitious project to frame history of a country or continent according to the succession of coins. In the KBR such an attempt is currently on display in 2025. The history of a country in the center of Europe is reflected sometimes through different occupying forces who imposed their currency onto the occupied territories. The Greeks and Romans had an overriding impact on the development of coins in human history and society.  Precious metals were used as basis to embody lasting value into coins. The images on coins are also a way to reiterate the dominance of a new ruler or governance. From the Roman occupation there are nice specoin the KBR collection as Julius Caesar named one part of the 4 occupied territories “Belgica” beyond what we define as borders of Belgium in the 21st century. Control of your own currency means also to be able to produce unique pieces in your own foundries. The history of coins is also a history coined by those in power to enforce their political power onto the economy. (Image: KBR, The history of Belgium illustrated through coins, 2025).

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Permanently anxious

„There’s a set of forces that want us to be permanently anxious“, is the phrase chosen by Tony Cokes in the exhibit just outside the „Palais Populaire“ in Berlin in 2025-5. International politics and the economic upheaval caused by Trump’s tariffs contribute to the already existing other sources of anxiety like nuclear energy and warfare. Global warming causing more extreme weather events add more man-made reasons for anxiety. The next generations will have to foot the bills we have left to them unpaid. Our current shortsightedness increases anxieties which previous generations have not known of a similar kind or in that combination. 

Community building and solidarity are ways to overcome such overwhelming anxieties. Supranational organizations like the European Union have an even stronger role to play to reassure its people with credible signs of solidarity. We are not alone in the struggle to overcome the anxiety that is creeping up around us. We are certainly stronger together than individually dealing with unspecified fears. „We shall overcome …“