Palestine: Occupation, Settlements and Territorial Control
The occupation of Palestine as a laboratory of territorial control: illegal settlements, separation wall and fragmentation.
geopolitics of control
From Clay to Algorithm: Five Thousand Years of Recorded Power
Introduction Between 3400 and 3000 BCE, in Lower Mesopotamia, a civilization invented writing. The first clay tablets did not record poems or hymns: they recorded debts. This fact is not an archaeological curiosity. It is the first historical record of centralized power. In Sumer we find the first documented evidence of social control through debt, … Read more
The Middle East: The Chessboard of Control — Oil, Power, and the Great Game
An introduction to how global powers have fought to control the Middle East for over a century. Oil, debt, Sykes-Picot, and the Great Game.
The Marshall Plan in Spain — Late Aid with Strings Attached
Spain was excluded from the Marshall Plan for its Francoist regime. When US aid finally arrived in 1953, it came at the price of military bases.
The Plunder of Spanish Art — Systematic Looting of Cultural Heritage Under Pressure
From Napoleonic looting to the Mendizábal confiscations: how Spain lost thousands of artworks to foreign powers. A systematic cultural plunder.
The Disaster of Annual (1921) — 13,000 Dead and the Strategic Humiliation of Spain
Analysis of the Disaster of Annual, the worst defeat of the modern Spanish army. Was it incompetence or a designed humiliation to weaken Spain?
The Division of Power After Franco’s Death — The Pact of Forgetting and Recycled Elites
How Francoist elites recycled themselves as democrats, the crimes of the regime were forgotten, and a Transition that never looked back was secured.
The Assassination of Carrero Blanco — The Death of Franco’s Heir That Changed the Transition
On December 20, 1973, ETA killed Carrero Blanco with anti-tank mines. Was it a covert CIA operation to clear the path for Juan Carlos?
The Toxic Oil Syndrome — Spain’s Deadliest Mass Poisoning in Peacetime
Over 20,000 affected, more than 1,000 dead. Spain’s 1981 toxic oil syndrome was the worst mass poisoning in the country’s history. Negligence, fraud, or something more?
Spain’s Nuclear Plan — How the Country’s Energy Independence Was Truncated
Spain had uranium, its own nuclear technology and 7 planned plants. Why was the program that could have made it energy independent abandoned?