- Brève introduction
- Ukraine: Zelensky proposes a direct summit and a ceasefire while Putin, from Saint Petersburg, rejects any truce
- Iran: the decapitated jihadist oligarchy devours itself while negotiating under duress and multiplying executions
- Lebanon and Gaza: Hezbollah derails the ceasefire agreed in Washington and denies Trump’s optimism
- United States: May employment figures today put to the test a stricter Federal Reserve under the leadership of its new president, Kevin Warsh
- Caribbean and Eastern Pacific: The US Navy intensifies its legitimate campaign against narcoterrorism, with Venezuela still in transition under trusteeship
- Indo-Pacific: Beijing strangles the Dongsha islets administered by Taiwan and confirms its gray zone expansionism
- Press review
- Editorial commentary
Brève introduction
The world is waking up today to this situation that I have been describing for months: that of several wars of varying intensity – protracted conflicts of low intensity but high destruction, that no one can win or afford to lose – which rage simultaneously, while diplomacy and violence advance in parallel without ever meeting. meet.
In Ukraine, President Zelensky reaches out to Putin with an open letter on the same day that the master of the Kremlin, from the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, once again rejects the very idea of a ceasefire.
In Lebanon, the conditional ceasefire negotiated in Washington was stillborn as soon as Hezbollah – which was not at the negotiating table – categorically rejected it; and in Gaza, the October truce is crumbling under daily bombardments.
In Tehran, the jihadist oligarchy beheaded on February 28 is torn over the question of whether or not to negotiate with Washington, while increasing the number of executions.
In the Eastern Atlantic and Pacific, the US Navy’s legitimate campaign against drug trafficking has left more than two hundred dead, with Venezuela still trapped in a transition under trusteeship.
And in the South China Sea, Beijing is strangling with an iron fist the islands that Taiwan administers in Dongsha, while the markets await American employment figures which will measure the firmness of a recently hardened Federal Reserve.
This analyst believes that the common thread of the day is not an isolated crisis, but the coincidence of three dynamics which feed each other.
- The first is the temptation of fait accompli as a method of acquiring territories or imposing realities, from Saint Petersburg to Dongsha.
- The second is the contained systemic fracture of regimes and truces that continue without being resolved, from Lebanon to Caracas.
- And the third, the most disappointing, is a political class of the 21st century – singularly European – incapable, once again, of taking seriously its own defense, its security and its destiny. Against this backdrop is projected, moreover, the shadow of an American foreign policy which oscillates between judicious pragmatism and transactional reversal, and of which it is necessary to distinguish, with precision, what is laudable and what is erratic.
Ukraine: Zelensky proposes a direct summit and a ceasefire while Putin, from Saint Petersburg, rejects any truce
Facts
On June 4, according to the Kyiv Post and the Kyiv Independent, President Volodymyr Zelensky published an unusual open letter addressed personally to Vladimir Putin, proposing a face-to-face meeting and declaring his readiness for a “complete ceasefire” for the duration of the negotiations. The letter was published just hours after long-range Ukrainian drones struck targets near St. Petersburg, in the middle of the opening of the city’s International Economic Forum (SPIEF), the annual showcase of Russian economic power.
From this same forum, during a meeting organized by the TASS agency with international media executives, Putin replied bluntly: no truce is necessary to begin talks – it is better, he declared, to end the war once and for all than to suspend the hostilities He also boasted of controlling the entire Luhansk region, more than 85% of Donetsk and almost 80% of Zaporizhia, in addition to having taken control of approximately 2,440 square kilometers in recent months; also estimated the reduction of Ukrainian forces at one hundred thousand men. He also insisted on the fact that Moscow will only sign with a “legitimate” interlocutor from kyiv, deliberately sowing doubt about Zelensky’s mandate.
At the same time, according to Euronews, the draft conclusions of the European Council – which meets on June 18 and 19 – propose to “step up” in mediation, but subordinate everything to Russia’s prior acceptance of an unconditional ceasefire. This proposal is pure absurdity, given that Moscow considers the European Union to be a power hostile to Russia and allied to Ukraine: the Kremlin will never accept Brussels playing a mediator role in the conflict. It is almost pathetic that the European Council is putting itself, of its own accord, in a position where it risks being humiliated once again by Russia.
Implications
The asymmetry of positions is total and revealing. Zelensky’s offer is addressed as much to Moscow as – above all – to Western chancelleries and the White House, to which he wants to present Ukraine as the reasonable party, the one which extends its hand while the aggressor rejects it. Putin, for his part, does not negotiate: he manages a fait accompli. His rhetoric on the “legitimacy” of the Ukrainian interlocutor is not legal, but instrumental, a lever to delegitimize Zelensky, divide his Western support and gain time while he advances, meter by meter, on the ground.
That the SPIEF served as a platform for this message is no coincidence: Putin wanted to project an image of economic normality and strategic solidity to the world, at the very moment when Ukrainian drones demonstrated that war could knock on the doors of his former imperial capital. And Europe, once again, is taking refuge behind the calendar: it is postponing until June 18 a decision which should already be a firm mandate. This is not neutrality; This is the umpteenth manifestation of this strategic myopia that I criticize so much.
Perspectives et scénarios
The most likely scenario in the short term – around 60% – is the continuation of a war of varying intensity, with diplomatic gestures that lead to nothing and a front line that evolves in slow motion. A second scenario, less likely but not negligible, is that of a fragile truce obtained under transactional pressure from President Trump. The underlying risk is precisely this: that such an armistice, far from bringing peace, de facto confirms conquest by force. And an armistice that rewards aggression is not peace: it is the seed of the next war, sown with the signature of the West.
Iran: the decapitated jihadist oligarchy devours itself while negotiating under duress and multiplying executions
Facts
After the death of Ali Khamenei during the attacks on February 28 and the brief break of the Interim Leadership Council, his son Mojtaba Khamenei has served as Supreme Guide since March 8. According to the briefing note from the library of the British House of Commons, the talks which began on April 8 – under the auspices of Pakistan – cover four main chapters: freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear and ballistic program, the reconstruction of the country and the lifting of sanctions.
The opposition organization NCRI reported, on June 4, a new, more virulent phase of the factional war between the ultras of the apparatus and the fragile coalition surrounding President Pezeshkian and the President of Parliament, Ghalibaf, around the possibility of a new nuclear agreement. What on the surface looks like a debate over diplomacy is, in reality, a struggle for power, resources and political survival. At the same time, the regime is increasing the number of executions of people arrested during the January riots: the secret hanging of Fathollah Avari on June 2 in Hamadan prison and that of two young people on June 1 are part of a daily wave of reprisals against participants in the demonstrations.
On the multilateral level, the Security Council report recalls that the dispute concerning the automatic reactivation of UN sanctions (snapback), triggered by the E3 – France, Germany and the United Kingdom – remains unresolved. This system is contested by Russia, China and Tehran itself, who maintain that the sanctions regime expired in October 2025. Legal ambiguity is, in itself, a battlefield.
Implications
We are faced with what I have called the paradox of decapitation, and it should be made clear, because it is often misinterpreted: the problem is not that the moderates were eliminated – there were none – but that the successor inherits the title, but not the arbitral authority of his father. Khamenei could impose internal discipline, settle disputes and force his peers to accept concessions; his son has neither the ideological weight, nor the clerical rank, nor the dominant personality to do so. The jihadist oligarchy found itself, in short, without a referee, and this is why its factions are tearing each other apart precisely at the moment when they most need unity to negotiate.
This is exactly the emptiness of “the day after” that I have pointed out, on many occasions, and that no one had anticipated: hitting the regime was necessary and right, but decapitating it without a plan to manage the resulting emptiness is a recipe for a prolonged instability. And mass executions are not a sign of strength, but of fear: a regime that hangs in secret, hiding dates and locations, is a regime that fears its own people more than its external enemies.
Perspectives et scénarios
Three scenarios open up. The first, a controlled capitulation (probability of around 35%), in which the negotiating wing extracts concessions in exchange for economic respite and the survival of the system. The second, a controlled implosion (around 25%), if the struggle between factions overflows the dikes of the apparatus. The third, most likely in the short term (around 40%), is a frozen stalemate, with a weakened, but not overthrown, terrorist state negotiating reluctantly and repressing relentlessly. In any case, the Strait of Hormuz will remain the chokepoint of global energy and, therefore, the true barometer of global risk.
Lebanon and Gaza: Hezbollah derails the ceasefire agreed in Washington and denies Trump’s optimism
Facts
After two days of direct talks conducted under the auspices of the United States at the State Department – the fourth round of this format – Israel and Lebanon reached a declaration on June 3 aimed at implementing a ceasefire demanding the “complete cessation” of Hezbollah fire and the withdrawal of its fighters from the southern Litani sector, as well as the creation of pilot zones in southern Lebanon where only the Lebanese army would exercise control, to the exclusion of any non-state actor The president. Lebanese leader Joseph Aoun called it a “last chance” for a global truce.
The optimism only lasted a few hours. On June 4, according to NPR, TIME and Al-Jazeera, the secretary general of Hezbollah – a terrorist organization – Naim Qassem categorically rejected the agreement, calling the negotiations “absurd, humiliating and insulting” and denouncing the fact that they only served “the objectives of the enemy”. The militia, which did not participate in the talks, subordinates everything to a “total” ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal. President Trump himself had affirmed that same day, according to The Times of Israel, that Hezbollah “did not reject” the offer: reality denied this before nightfall.
Added to this is the fact that an officer close to Aoun admitted to Middle East Eye that the text “lacks an implementation mechanism.” And information that touches us closely: during a mortar attack near Marjayoun, a Serbian peacekeeper from UNIFIL was killed and two others were injured, one Salvadoran and the other Spanish; this brings to seven the number of UNIFIL members killed since the resumption of the conflict in March.
In Gaza, despite the ceasefire in force since October, daily violence does not stop. The AFP reported on June 4 that at least eight people had been killed during Israeli dawn bombings on Gaza City, and that fifteen wounded had been treated at Al-Shifa hospital; according to the Gaza Health Ministry – under Hamas control – the number of victims since the start of the truce now exceeds 936, and more than half of the territory remains under Israeli military control. The National further confirms that talks scheduled for this week between Palestinian factions and the envoy tasked with implementing the US peace plan have been postponed.
Implications
A ceasefire without political architecture or verification mechanism is a contained systemic divide: it is managed, but not resolved. The Gordian knot remains the disarmament of Hezbollah, Tehran’s armed arm in the Levant and centerpiece of the network of Iranian proxies (intermediary organizations). The fact that the militia rejects the agreement confirms a disturbing truth: as long as Hezbollah will retain its weapons and its Iranian supervision, no Lebanese government will be able to guarantee anything, and the Lebanese state will remain hostage to a non-state actor better armed than its own army.
There is, moreover, a lesson to be learned about the method. President Trump announced progress that reality reduced to nothing in a few hours: this voluntarism, this tendency to take desire as fact, weakens the credibility of American mediation at the very moment when firmness and precision are most needed. And it is worth emphasizing the strategic link that the Iranian regime itself has established: Tehran has warned that it will not accept any ceasefire with Washington until there is one in Lebanon. The Lebanese path is therefore the real test to know whether the decline of the Iranian axis is reversible.
Perspectives et scénarios
The balance is precarious and a new escalation is plausible. If, against all odds, the Lebanese army managed to deploy in the pilot zones and Hezbollah ceded capabilities, we would witness the greatest decline in Iranian power in a generation; but Qassem’s categorical rejection means that such a scenario is unlikely today. The most likely is the extension of an intermittent truce, punctuated by bombings and reprisals, with UNIFIL paying a heavy price in human lives. The next day, once again, is not written.
United States: May employment figures today put to the test a stricter Federal Reserve under the leadership of its new president, Kevin Warsh
Facts
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the May employment report today at 8:30 a.m. Washington time. The Dow Jones consensus relayed by CNBC expects barely 80,000 jobs created – compared to 115,000 in April – while Bloomberg brings this figure to around 85,000 and other institutions are more pessimistic (Goldman Sachs, 60,000; Vanguard, 20,000). The unemployment rate should remain stable at around 4.3% and wages should increase by 0.3% per month. ADP’s private report, published on June 3, surprised on the rise with 122,000 jobs created, its best month since January 2025, with growth distributed for the first time between the different sectors.
The table, however, presents gray areas: the consulting firm Challenger recorded 97,006 announcements of layoffs in May, or 16% more than in April, with the technology sector and artificial intelligence in the lead as the most cited reason for the third consecutive month; and the closure of the Spirit airline on May 2 left some 17,000 workers jobless.
In the background, according to FXStreet, is the restrictive turn of the Federal Reserve under the leadership of its new president, Kevin Warsh, in the run-up to the meeting on June 16 and 17: the markets no longer rule out the central bank maintaining its rates – or even raising them – in blatant contradiction with the White House’s growth and tariffs program, and with inflation under pressure due to rising energy costs linked to the war in Iran.
Implications
A Federal Reserve that does not lower its rates – or threatens to raise them – under the leadership of Warsh toughens global financial conditions and collides head-on with the tariff protectionism of President Trump, which I do not support: obstacles to international free trade contradict the best liberal heritage, that of the great President Reagan, the best tenant of the White House of the second half of the 20th century. The appointment of a hawk like Warsh reestablishes, however, a monetary orthodoxy which should be welcomed in the face of the temptation of financial repression.
The effect reverberates, as always, beyond American borders: on emerging economies, which are seeing their dollar debt rise; on the greenback itself, which is strengthening; and on the overall cost of credit. Geoeconomics, once again, dominates, and today’s figures will be interpreted less for their value than for what they reveal about the underground struggle between a central bank which is regaining its orthodox independence and an executive power impatient to grow.
Perspectives et scénarios
A low number will reinforce the caution of the Federal Reserve without forcing an immediate reduction; a strong figure, after ADP’s warning, will fuel the theory of an increase in July or September. But the background information is not the one-off figure, but the change in monetary regime towards rigor and the growing – and probably public – friction between the Federal Reserve and the White House, which will mark the second half of the year.
Caribbean and Eastern Pacific: The US Navy intensifies its legitimate campaign against narcoterrorism, with Venezuela still in transition under trusteeship
Facts
According to the Associated Press, CBS and NBC, the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) carried out a new attack on June 3 in the Eastern Pacific against a boat suspected of drug trafficking, killing two people; it is the fifth in almost a week and brings to more than 207 the number of people killed since September as part of “Operation Southern Spear”, described by President Trump as an “armed conflict” against the cartels designated as terrorist organizations. These operations are led by General Francis Donovan, who met last week with Cuban military officials near the Guantanamo base.
The context remains Venezuela. Nicolás Maduro having been captured on January 3 and incarcerated in a Brooklyn prison while awaiting his trial, his vice-president Delcy RodrÃguez serves as interim president while his brother Jorge presides over the National Assembly, in a transition supervised by Washington which, for the moment, has left the Chavista apparatus intact: soldiers, judges and security apparatus remain in their posts. In the US Congress, meanwhile, doubts are growing about the legality of maritime attacks, as the Pentagon does not provide public evidence regarding the ships’ cargo.
Implications
Let me be clear: I unreservedly support the strategic objective of dismantling the immense mafia organization that is Chavismo and stifling the narcoterrorism which is poisoning our societies. The campaign is, in its objective, legitimate and necessary, and the encirclement of the continent’s narco-dictatorships – Caracas, Havana and Managua – is good news that I welcome without reservation.
The only caveat that needs to be expressed is not in substance, but in form: a clear legal framework and adequate supervision by Congress would shield the operation against challenges and make it stronger, not weaker. Firmness, yes; but the firmness of a liberal democracy is best exercised when the seams of the rule of law are well sewn.
The major problem, however, is not on the high seas, but in Miraflores: leaving the sinister Rodriguez brothers in charge of Caracas is simply leaving the problem half-resolved. It is not enough to decapitate Chavismo if its apparatus remains intact; it would be repeating, on a Caribbean scale, the error of the “morning after” that I deplore so much in the Middle East.
Perspectives et scénarios
The maritime campaign will continue, with its toll increasing and its legal proceedings intensifying. In Venezuela, the transition will remain frozen as long as the RodrÃguez clan retains control of the state apparatus and weapons, and as long as a credible path does not open towards free elections where the democratic opposition – with MarÃa Corina Machado at its head – will be able to truly introduce yourself. Cuba and Nicaragua are watching, and should fear: the region’s pendulum is finally swinging against tyrannies.
Indo-Pacific: Beijing strangles the Dongsha islets administered by Taiwan and confirms its gray zone expansionism
Facts
At the end of May, according to the Global Taiwan Institute, a Chinese coast guard ship entered the restricted waters of the island of Dongsha, administered by Taipe, forcing the Taiwanese coast guard to react. It is the sixth incursion this year, involving four Chinese ships, in a series of sustained pressures that in January included the overflight of a reconnaissance drone and part of years of harassment: oil exploration platforms, illegal fishing fleets and supply blockages aerial.
All this follows the Trump-Xi summit from May 13 to 15, which left more uncertainty than certainty about the American commitment to Taipei. The CISS think tank at Tsinghua University, in its annual report, places tensions in the Taiwan Strait at the forefront of external risks for Beijing by 2026 and warns against a possible “connection of the three seas” – that of East China, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea – likely to trigger chain reactions, as well as an expansion of the US strategy of technological containment.
Implications
It is the salami tactic, this advance into the gray zone which erodes sovereignties without crossing the threshold of open war: each incursion, taken in isolation, seems minor; but cumulatively, they reshape the status quo. Faced with this, the West applies the doctrine of “small garden, high fence” – selective restrictions on critical technologies – in a rivalry that should be named precisely: it is a systemic competition between an established power and another on the rise, with incompatible models, this that Graham T. Allison called the Thucydides Trap; it is not, and should not be assimilated to, the Cold War, the categories of which only confuse the analysis.
It is also appropriate to recall two truths which structure this entire part. The first: China has transactional partners, never real allies – and Russia and Iran are, for Beijing, partners, not allies. The second: its decisive lever remains the control of strategic raw materials and, particularly, rare earths, where it dominates production and, above all, global refining capacity. He who controls the supply chain controls the century.
Perspectives et scénarios
Most likely is continued gradual harassment of Dongsha and other friction points, calibrated so as not to provoke a major response: pressure, not war. The big variable is American political uncertainty in the face of the midterm elections in November, which Beijing will analyze closely to gauge Washington’s firmness. Vigilance here does not tolerate any relaxation.
Press review
The major Anglo-Saxon press – The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Times of London, The Telegraph and The Guardian – opens today with employment figures and the restrictive turn of the Federal Reserve, and devotes a large space to the breakdown of the ceasefire in Lebanon and the deterioration of truce in Gaza. The channels CNN, Fox News, CBS, CNBC and the Bloomberg agency highlight the Southern Command’s campaign against drug trafficking boats and the standoff between the White House and the Federal Reserve.
The French press —Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, La Croix, Le Point, L’Express and the channels LCI, BFM and France Info— and the German press —FAZ, Die Welt, Die Zeit— focus on Ukraine and the European summit of June 18 and 19, with the usual skeptical tone as to the capacity real commitment of the Union to “taking the lead”. The Italian Corriere della Sera and L’Osservatore Romano emphasize the humanitarian dimension of Gaza and Lebanon.
The Arab press – Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, Asharq Al-Awsat, Arab News, Gulf News, An-Nahar and L’Orient-Le Jour – focuses its coverage on Hezbollah’s rejection of the deal and the victims in Gaza, while the Israeli press – The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel Hayom – puts the emphasis on the tensions between Trump and Netanyahu and the refusal of the General Staff of a cease-fire in Lebanon.
On the Russian side, TASS and Russia Today shamelessly amplify Putin’s maximalist speech from St. Petersburg – territorial advances, Ukrainian losses and delegitimization of Kiev – a propaganda exercise that should be read with the caution it deserves and cross-checked with independent sources such as the Kyiv Post or the Kyiv Independent.
The Asian press – South China Morning Post, China Daily, WION, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Yomiuri Shimbun and The Straits Times – emphasizes Chinese pressure on Taiwan and the framework of American “technological contention”. The agencies – Reuters, AFP, AP and DPA – and the major analysis centers – RUSI, IISS, CSIS, IFRI and The Economist Intelligence Unit – support, as every day, the factual and analytical framework of the day.
There are days when the disorder of the world takes care of itself, and this is one of them. Three lessons run through it right through.
The first is dictated by Putin from St. Petersburg: the fait accompli imposes itself as the grammar of international relations, and anyone who believes that an armistice rewarding conquest will bring peace is indulging in wishful thinking (a vain illusion, a desire taken for reality).
The second is dictated by Tehran – and confirmed by Hezbollah in Lebanon –: hitting the jihadist oligarchy was necessary and right, I defended it at the time and I support it today, but the total absence of a plan for the post-war period is the original sin of this entire operation, and the paradox of beheading, with a Mojtaba Khamenei deprived of the authority of his father and a Shiite militia which refuses to lay down its arms, will cost us dearly.
The third lesson, as negative as the other two, comes to us from Europe, which postpones until June 18 what should already be a firm position, and which has the naivety to offer itself as mediator in the face of a Russia which considers it a belligerent party: umpteenth confirmation of a continent incapable of taking its own defense, its security and its destiny seriously.
I am, it bears repeating, an Atlanticist at heart and a convinced Europeanist, and it is from this point of view that I write. This is why I applaud American foreign policy when it is pragmatic and guided by the prudence of Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the diplomatic successes of the last year are not the least: from Cambodia and Thailand to Armenia and Azerbaijan —, and I criticize it, on the other hand, when it becomes erratic and when it is dominated by excess and exuberance The customs duties that stifle free trade, or the constant changes of position on issues as crucial as the conflict with Iran or the premature announcement of progress in Lebanon that reality denies in a few hours, are blatant examples of this drift. maximalism: this is the requirement.
Faced with the narco-dictatorships of Caracas, Havana or Managua, faced with Chinese expansionism and faced with Russian aggression, the response can be neither European lukewarmness nor transactional caprice, but the serene firmness of someone who knows what he is defending. I count, like so many other times, on the fact that the system and the common sense of those around the president will ultimately prevail. Otherwise, we will continue to manage the fractures instead of closing them, and history, which does not forgive strategic laziness, will make us pay the price.
