The Axis

¿Qué ocurre cuando un movimiento político que creía que la historia avanzaba en su dirección descubre que su protector puede ser políticamente mortal? Una derrota republicana en las elecciones de medio término en Estados Unidos no pondría fin a la presidencia de Trump ni revertiría automáticamente el giro hacia la derecha en América Latina. Pero sí podría debilitar el marco político, financiero y...

What happens when the fear of losing becomes so intense that the political opponent is no longer someone to defeat, but someone to remove? Trump’s remark about Iran being able to “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego may have been poorly phrased, but the language reveals something deeper. This analysis explores the meaning hidden inside those two words — take out — and asks whether political desper...

The American empire has long appeared solid: military bases, alliances, aircraft carriers, financial power, technological reach. But perhaps its real structure is more fragile than it seems. Like a spider web, it depends on countless threads — words such as victory, deterrence, leadership, security, and credibility — each helping sustain the meaning of American power. The war with Iran is beginnin...

Argentina está fortaleciendo su vínculo con Estados Unidos, reduciendo su dependencia de Chile y reactivando con más fuerza la cuestión de las Malvinas. Pero 1982 deja una advertencia difícil de ignorar: estar cerca de Washington no significa necesariamente que Washington vaya a adoptar los conflictos de Buenos Aires como propios. En este análisis examinamos el Estrecho de Magallanes, el nuevo equ...

After more than two decades, the last U.S. forces have left Iraq. But does the departure of American soldiers really mean the end of American power in the Middle East? This analysis looks beyond the military withdrawal to examine a deeper transformation: from occupation and permanent ground presence toward sanctions, financial leverage, intelligence networks, naval power and strategic partnerships...

Chile habla de multipolaridad, soberanía y autonomía estratégica en Naciones Unidas, pero al mismo tiempo se incorpora al Escudo de las Américas, una iniciativa de seguridad impulsada por Estados Unidos. ¿Son ambas decisiones compatibles o estamos viendo el inicio de una tensión más profunda en la política exterior chilena? En este análisis de The Axis exploramos esa paradoja: una política económi...

What happens when power encounters a reflection it does not like? Trump’s confrontation with the press and his confrontation with Iran are radically different in scale, but both reveal the same deeper problem: power does not always produce obedience. Journalists can resist, courts can intervene, and foreign states can refuse to submit. This analysis explores the distinction between force and autho...

Donald Trump has spent years attacking socialism. Yet his government intervenes in prices, protects industries, acquires stakes in private companies, uses tariffs strategically, supports farmers and now even proposes direct payments to Americans. So, is Trump becoming a socialist? Perhaps that is the wrong question. Behind the apparent contradiction lies a much larger transformation: after decades...

What if the monuments, gold, AI fantasies and politics of fear surrounding Donald Trump are not signs of strength, but ways of covering weakness? In “Golden Taps, Muddy Water,” The Axis examines how architecture, political spectacle and imaginary victories can create the appearance of greatness while deeper problems remain unresolved. The question is simple: when the house is deteriorating, do we...

Is Donald Trump's foreign policy madness, incompetence—or something deeper? As the United States struggles to convert military superiority over Iran into a decisive political outcome, China is presenting itself as an alternative centre of global influence. Washington can still bomb, sanction and threaten. But other countries are increasingly finding ways to resist, bypass or hedge against Ame...

What do Alfred Hitchcock’s blondes, Natalie Harp, Donald Trump, and tactical nuclear weapons have in common? Blondes, Nukes and Decadence explores a strange but revealing connection between image, power, and decline. Hitchcock showed how dangerous it can be when reality is forced to conform to fantasy. John Mearsheimer, from a very different angle, warns that renewed interest in tactical nuclear w...

Donald Trump’s warm relationship with Kim Jong Un, combined with his increasingly hostile treatment of traditional U.S. allies, reveals something deeper than an unconventional foreign policy. For decades, American power depended not only on military strength but on the belief that alliances, treaties and commitments would survive individual presidents. Trump is replacing that institutional logic w...

Donald Trump may be one of the most disruptive figures in modern American politics—but what if he is not the real problem? This analysis looks beyond Trump to the deeper forces that made his rise possible: declining institutional trust, economic and cultural fragmentation, resentment toward elites, and the disappearance of a shared vision of America’s future. Trump will eventually leave the politi...

Is Elon Musk really the story, or is he simply the latest symbol of a civilization searching for certainty? Inspired by a recent New York Times opinion video, this analysis goes beyond the man to explore why modern societies transform entrepreneurs into political and cultural icons. When trust in institutions weakens, individuals often become mirrors onto which we project our hopes, fears and anxi...

When empires begin to decline, their elites do not always try to save them. More often, they protect their wealth, negotiate with emerging powers and prepare private lifeboats for the world that comes next. From the Hellenistic kingdoms to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, history shows that the powerful can recognise institutional collapse while choosing adaptation over resistance. Could some...

Is Donald Trump simply an incompetent president, or does his politics follow a deeper and more destructive logic? Through Freud’s concept of the death drive, this analysis examines Trump’s compulsion to repeat: premature declarations of victory, collisions with reality, denial of failure and renewed escalation. From tariffs and mounting debt to the expanding war against Iran, Trump appears unable...

In “The Iranian Mirror: Trump’s War Against His Own Reflection,” The Axis examines the war against Iran as more than a military confrontation. Iran has become a mirror reflecting Trump’s own political methods: pride, unpredictability, escalation and resistance to humiliation. The United States may dominate the battlefield, but Tehran continues to deny Trump the symbolic submission he needs to decl...

The wars in Ukraine and the Persian Gulf appear to be separate conflicts, but what if they share the same underlying reality? In this episode of The Axis , we explore the emergence of an "empty centre" in international politics—a world in which no great power can fully impose a new global order. As authority becomes increasingly contested, wars no longer end with decisive victories. Inst...

A tribute to the United States on its 250th anniversary: not a sentimental celebration, but a symbolic reflection on a wounded republic. This episode explores America as promise, contradiction, empire, and unfinished sentence — from the Declaration of Independence to Lincoln, Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr., and the destructive nostalgia of MAGA. To admire America today is not to deny its crimes...

In this episode of The Axis , we look at the deeper lesson of the Iran war: the rise of Hormuz as a political actor. The Strait of Hormuz is no longer just a route for oil tankers. It has become a symbol of the new geography of power, where control is no longer only about territory, but about circulation, delay, risk, and uncertainty.

In this episode of The Axis , we examine why the U.S.–Iran “truce” should not be understood as real peace, but as an architecture of fear. The agreement may stop direct confrontation for now, but it does not resolve the deeper causes of the conflict: Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions, the Strait of Hormuz, Israel’s military freedom of action, and the limits of American power. What appears as diplo...

In this episode of The Axis , we ask a different question about the conflict in the Persian Gulf: not who is winning militarily, but who is winning symbolically. The United States may hold the stronger military hand, but Iran appears to be contesting something deeper: the rhythm, meaning, and political cost of the conflict. While Trump needs a visible victory—a deal, a signature, a scene of triump...

In his first Cuenta Pública , José Antonio Kast does more than report on the state of the nation: he constructs a political fantasy of order. Chile appears as a wounded body, damaged by disorder, crime, migration, economic stagnation, and institutional weakness. Against this image, the State returns as a paternal force promising reconstruction, discipline, security, and national rebirth. This colu...

In this episode of The Axis , we examine the U.S.–Iran oil crisis as a symptom of a deeper imperial fragility. The barrel of oil appears on market charts as a price, but behind that number lies a hidden architecture of sanctions, shadow fleets, military threats, diplomatic pauses, and strategic anxiety. The tentative ceasefire around the Strait of Hormuz does not signal true peace; it reveals a wo...

This week on The Axis , we examine the symbolic meaning behind the departures of Tulsi Gabbard, Pam Bondi, and Kristi Noem from the orbit of Donald Trump. Beyond the headlines, the column explores what these resignations reveal about the transformation of Trumpism itself: the shrinking of its anti-war faction, the growing centralization of power around the sovereign figure, and the evolution of th...