Diplomacy & Crisis News

The promise of frictionless money has matured into something far more consequential: a liquidity system powerful enough to reorder economies, and elusive enough to escape the laws meant to govern it.

Lorsque les mouvements sociaux piétinent, que l'austérité budgétaire domine le débat public, qu'un président français et une bureaucratie européenne voient dans le réarmement et la rhétorique guerrière les remèdes à leur folle impopularité, il est bon de se rappeler qu'en novembre-décembre 1995 (…) / France, Politique, Idées, Mouvement de contestation, Économie, Libéralisme

« Le Monde diplomatique » inaugure sur son site Internet un instrument d'un type particulier : un poste d'observation et d'analyse des résolutions votées au Conseil de sécurité et à l'Assemblée générale des Nations unies, de 1946 à nos jours. En quelques clics, chacun peut désormais comparer les (…) / Diplomatie, Relations internationales

At first glance, the comparison seems almost absurd. Mongolia, a vast country with enormous mineral wealth, stretching between two geopolitical giants, versus Belize, a small Central American state with limited territory, modest population and no strategic depth. By classical logic, Mongolia should be the stronger actor in economic sovereignty. Yet recent analytical measurements reveal a far more counterintuitive reality: Belize today demonstrates a higher level of practical economic sovereignty than Mongolia.   As an expert of the International Burke Institute and an active participant in projects aimed at strengthening national sovereignty, I encounter such paradoxes with increasing frequency. They reveal one of the central truths of the modern world: economic sovereignty is no longer a function of size, territory, or raw resources. It is a function of control, diversification, resilience and institutional discipline.   Mongolia is rich in coal, copper, gold and rare earth elements. Its underground wealth is undeniable. Yet much of its economic model remains structurally dependent on a narrow export base and on external demand, primarily from a single dominant market. This creates a classic dependency trap. When prices fluctuate or geopolitical pressure intensifies, Mongolia’s fiscal stability, currency strength and social balance become immediately vulnerable to external forces it does not control.   Belize, by contrast, lacks large-scale mineral reserves and does not command major industrial capacity. But over the past two decades it has built something far more decisive for modern sovereignty: a diversified economic structure that reduces exposure to single-source dependency. Tourism, financial services, agriculture, logistics and digital services form a balanced ecosystem. None of these sectors dominates absolutely, yet together they form a resilient economic architecture.   Economic sovereignty is not measured by how much a country exports, but by how freely it can decide under pressure. A state that earns billions from raw materials but cannot influence pricing, transportation routes or investment conditions is not fully sovereign in economic terms. It is economically active, but strategically constrained. This is where Mongolia’s vulnerability becomes evident. Its resources generate revenue, but not full control.   Belize’s advantage lies not in volume, but in flexibility. Its economy is small, but adaptive. External shocks do not collapse the entire system at once. Currency policy, fiscal regulation and sectoral balance provide room for maneuver. In moments of global turbulence, this flexibility becomes a strategic asset far more valuable than sheer scale.   At the International Burke Institute, where we are finalizing the comprehensive Sovereignty Index to be presented this December for all UN member states, economic sovereignty is assessed not by GDP alone, but by a deeper set of indicators. These include dependency ratios, trade concentration, fiscal autonomy, financial system resilience and the state’s capacity to absorb shocks without losing strategic autonomy. It is within this multidimensional framework that Belize unexpectedly outperforms Mongolia.   As someone directly engaged in both the analytical and practical dimensions of this work, I see a pattern repeating across regions. States that rely heavily on a narrow economic corridor — one commodity, one route, one partner — accumulate invisible vulnerabilities. Their economies may look strong in growth charts, but their sovereignty erodes silently through structural exposure. When disruption comes, decision-making becomes reactive rather than sovereign.   Belize followed a different logic. Instead of maximizing output from a single dominant resource, it invested in balancing multiple smaller sectors. This did not produce spectacular growth headlines. But it produced something far more durable: economic independence in critical moments. Sovereignty is not tested in times of prosperity. It is tested when options disappear.   Mongolia now faces the classic dilemma of many resource-rich states: how to convert natural wealth into strategic autonomy rather than long-term dependence. The answer lies not in extracting more, but in restructuring more. Without diversification, even the richest subsoil becomes a fragile foundation for sovereignty.   The Belize–Mongolia contrast illustrates a broader truth about the modern global system. Size no longer guarantees strength. Wealth no longer guarantees independence. What matters is the architecture of control. Who sets the terms of trade? Who controls capital flows? Who absorbs the first удар during a crisis?   In December, when the full Sovereignty Index is released, many governments will confront similar surprises. Some large states will discover hidden fragility. Some small ones will discover unexpected strength. And many will face an uncomfortable realization: economic sovereignty today is built not by scale, but by structure.   Belize did not become stronger than Mongolia by growing bigger. It became stronger by becoming smarter in how it organizes dependency and control. And in the modern world, that difference defines who truly holds economic sovereignty — and who merely appears to.

Le « patron des patrons » Patrick Martin s'inquiète d'un budget « suicidaire » ; l'élite économique fait de la surenchère. Mais les organisations patronales ont-elles jamais donné dans la nuance ? Elles s'y montrent à coup sûr moins enclines quand le capitalisme français se fissure, rattrapé par (…) / Fiscalité, France, Libéralisme, Économie, Entreprise, Travail

The stakes are high for Bangladesh's first election since the 2024 student-led uprising.

The plenum served as a primer for the bigger party congress that is yet to come.

China controls a staggering portion of the United States’ pharmaceutical supply chain – and that means U.S. access to medicine can be weaponized.

People in the West say they must avoid a new Cold War without realizing that they are already in one – and China is winning.

Retro-futuristic illustration of Château Frontenac Indo-Pacifique, surrounded by futuristic floating cities and airships(Artwork by ChatGPT, 2025)

Sea‑level rise is no longer a distant warning but an active force reshaping coastal geographies—threatening infrastructure, displacing communities, and exposing the limits of traditional urban planning. As these pressures intensify, global institutions are reimagining what future cities must become to withstand environmental volatility. Meanwhile, on a wholly separate track, populist political visions are revisiting the idea of new cities not out of climate necessity but out of a desire for mobility, opportunity, and a renewed appetite for frontier‑style experimentation. Yet both trajectories, for different reasons, could plausibly converge on the same notional theater: the Pacific Ocean, a vast expanse that some in Washington still, with a characteristically patriotic flourish, call “American lake.”

Against this evolving backdrop, UN‑Habitat’s floating‑city initiative steps in as the global institutional expression of these shifting ambitions—anchoring its efforts in the Indo‑Pacific, where the earliest practical attempts to build sustainable, resilient ocean‑based habitats are already unfolding. The concept first took formal shape in 2019, when more than 70 stakeholders gathered at UN Headquarters to evaluate floating cities not as speculative fiction but as viable responses to coastal vulnerability and housing scarcity. UN‑Habitat’s leadership emphasized that such innovation must benefit “all people,” underscoring inclusivity, affordability, and environmental responsibility.

On the other side sits an unexpectedly parallel vision from U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who in 2023 proposed constructing up to ten ‘Freedom Cities’ on unused federal land—futuristic settlements with advanced infrastructure, vertical take‑off vehicles, mass‑produced homes, and a bid to reopen the frontier of American development. His proposal reframed challenges of affordability, mobility, and industrial decline as opportunities for ambitious reinvention.

Despite their divergent motivations—UN‑Habitat driven by global equity and rising seas, Trump by economic dynamism and national aspiration—both frameworks share a foundational recognition: the static, land‑bound city is losing relevance. Their overlap hints at the emerging idea of ‘floating freedom cities,’ where Pacific Island sovereignty and American patriotism intersect in surprising ways. In this light, the question is no longer whether such visions belong to speculative futurism, but how—and how soon—they might materialize in the Indo‑Pacific’s high‑stakes environments. And even though the United States is not yet directly constructing floating cities, the diplomatic, industrial, and regional maneuvering surrounding them is already underway—quietly shaping the context into which the next phase of development will emerge.

 Current Development Status — Maldives vs UN‑Habitat’s Oceanix

Floating cities have moved decisively beyond theory, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Maldives—arguably the world’s most vulnerable proving ground for ocean‑based urbanism. A full floating settlement is already taking shape there, where rising seas threaten nearly 80 percent of national territory. As reported, the Maldives Floating City—developed with Dutch marine engineers—has been designed as a 200‑hectare lagoon community composed of nearly 5,000 coral‑patterned housing modules. Engineered to rise and fall with the tides, the platforms absorb storm surges while protecting surrounding reefs, transforming environmental volatility into structural resilience. Early phases project homes for approximately 20,000 residents, with units ranging from 1,000 to 1,500 square feet and supported by pontoons, canals, and solar‑powered utilities. The Maldivian initiative demonstrates that floating cities are not privileges reserved for advanced economies—they can serve small island nations confronting existential land loss in real time.

By comparions, UN‑Habitat’s Oceanix project—the world’s first sustainable floating‑city prototype—shows how rapidly the idea has shifted from architectural speculation to applied engineering. Designed to house 12,000 residents across three interconnected platforms spanning 15.5 acres, Oceanix carries an estimated construction cost between $200 million and $627 million. Its modular platforms integrate renewable‑energy systems, zero‑waste loops, on‑site food production, and resilient marine architecture capable of withstanding category‑5 hurricanes. Crucially, the entire structure is engineered to adapt to projected sea‑level rise of 1–2 feet over the next three decades, positioning Oceanix not only as a climate buffer but as an early expression of a new amphibious urban typology.

Beyond these flagship projects, the technologies enabling ocean‑based settlements signal a broader shift in how humans may inhabit marine environments. Very Large Floating Structures (VLFS), autonomous marine robotics, AI‑driven environmental monitoring, offshore solar‑wind hybrids, and advanced desalination collectively form the technical backbone of sustained ocean living. Rather than marking a break from existing practice, these systems extend the logic of maritime infrastructure, offshore energy, and ocean‑logistics networks already central to the Indo‑Pacific. Within this continuum, floating cities emerge as a provocative evolution in urban form: modular, mobile, ocean‑based population centers capable of expanding, repositioning, or replicating as new infrastructure is added. The Indo‑Pacific thus becomes not merely a testing ground but the region most likely to define the next stage of marine‑based urban development.

From Climate Sanctuary to a Plurality of Freedom Cities

Building on this trajectory, the next phase of floating‑city development is best seen as a natural extension of early prototypes. The Maldives and Oceanix projects demonstrate that floating settlements are maturing into credible, adaptive, and resilient urban forms. What remains is understanding how these models might evolve—sometimes aligned, sometimes divergent—to shape humanitarian, urban, and technological futures in parallel. In this sense, the three emerging functions of floating cities offer a conceptual bridge: they link the UN’s focus on inclusive, resilient development with the frontier‑driven ambition behind the Freedom Cities idea, making “floating freedom cities” a plausible meeting point between the two.

 a) Climate sanctuary with political agency: For UN member states and climate‑vulnerable communities, floating cities offer a humane alternative to forced climate migration. With climate refugees expected to appear in Australia as early as 2026, displacement pressures are no longer abstract. As rising seas erode the physical basis of sovereignty, small‑island nations face territorial, cultural, and political dislocation.

Floating freedom cities provide a third path—neither retreat nor erasure. They offer continuity of territory, culture, and governance even as coastlines vanish. Rather than treating displaced populations as burdens, these ocean‑based settlements enable communities to rebuild, reorganize, and retain political agency at sea. In this sense, floating cities operate not merely as emergency shelters but as platforms for preserving identity, autonomy, and nationhood.

b) An urban pressure valve—and a new frontier. In Trump’s Freedom Cities vision, the appeal lies in mobility, expansion, and architectural ambition. Floating cities mirror this impulse by extending urban space onto the water. For megacities in the Indo-Pacific, such as Manila, Jakarta, and Mumbai —already straining under intense density—floating districts act as modular spillover zones, expanding habitable space without displacement or coastal damage. The UN’s equity‑driven adaptation logic and Trump’s frontier‑expansion logic thus converge: both imagine cities growing outward into underused spaces. In doing so, floating freedom cities complement rather than compete with UN‑Habitat’s mission, becoming parallel laboratories for livability, affordability, and spatial innovation.

c) A plural, mobile tech‑industrial archipelago. Borrowing from the cinematic imagination of Mortal Engines, one can envision mobile cities roaming not as dystopian predators but as self‑contained civic organisms bearing industry, identity, and infrastructure. Transposed onto the ocean, multiple floating cities—each housing tens of thousands people—glide across open water and interlock into a shimmering mesh of shared energy grids, data links, and industrial platforms. In this optimistic reinterpretation, mobility becomes a tool of cooperation and specialization rather than conflict.

UN frameworks emphasize sustainability and marine stewardship, while Trump’s rhetoric highlights manufacturing revival and mobility. A floating freedom‑city network—multiple nodes rather than a single metropolis—can embody both visions: ocean‑cooled data centers, marine‑robotics yards, aquaculture grids, offshore‑energy labs, and floating logistics depots forming a distributed archipelago of economic activity. Such clusters could support populations in the low millions, blurring the boundaries between humanitarian refuge, industrial hub, and autonomous urban frontier.

Positioned along Indo‑Pacific maritime arteries, these nodes become not only strategic assets but strategic presences—civilian, economic, and humanitarian first, with strategic effects emerging from what they enable rather than what they threaten. Instead of resembling military bases, floating freedom‑city networks act as connective tissue: linking trade routes, supporting relief operations, extending digital infrastructure, and anchoring industrial capacity across open water. In the interplay between UN‑Habitat’s inclusive governance and Trump’s frontier‑urban ambition, these cities assume a plural identity—sanctuary, laboratory, and geopolitical signal at once. A floating frontier shaped not by fortification but by adaptability, mobility, and purpose, its influence carried by currents, commerce, and capability rather than hard power alone.

The NSS is likely to offer China short-term relief – but cause for long-term concern.

Chinese electric bus manufacturers are using their membership in the U.N. Global Compact to deflect scrutiny from European regulators. 

Far from celebrating an American retreat, Beijing’s strategists are reading the NSS as a blueprint for leaner – and potentially more dangerous – U.S. primacy.

The elections set for March 2026 will test whether the political energy unleashed by the youth uprising can truly break free from transactional politics.

With major powers like China and India asserting their ambitions in the Indian Ocean, France relies on partnerships with like-minded countries, including Mauritius, to maintain its influence.

Washington’s political message remains supportive, but its strategic priorities no longer clearly align with the long-term demands of the partnership.

How Takaichi's government addresses the implementation gap for existing laws will define whether her historic appointment translates into substantive progress for women's safety.

The real problem is not Britain’s lack of engagement with Beijing, but its shrinking leverage in a China-U.S. power dynamic that London has no power to shape.

The country's small, fragmented farms and climate pressures threaten food security and economic stability.

Since the 2016 death of the country’s first president, Islam Karimov, his successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has strived to present himself as a reformer forging a “New Uzbekistan."