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Author

Andrés Ortega

Writer, analyst and journalist

Andrés Ortega is an independent writer. He has been twice (1994 to 1996, and 2008 to 2011), director of the Department of Analysis and Studies (Policy Unit) in the President of the Government’s Office (Spain).

He was a long time commentator and editorial writer for El País, the highest-circulation daily newspaper in Spain. He has also served as the paper’s London and Brussels correspondent.

From 2004 to 2008, he was the director of Foreign Policy magazine’s Spanish edition. He is also director of the Observatorio de las Ideas, a publication on ideas’ mining. From 2014 to 2022 he was Senior Research Fellow at Royal Elcano Institute, Spain’s main think tank in international affairs, in charge of technological transformations and global governance. He writes regularly in Política Exterior, Agenda Pública and El Diario.

He holds a degree in political science from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Master’s degree in international relations from London School of Economics.

Among his publications are “La imparable marcha de los robots” (2017), “La fuerza de los pocos” (2007) and “La Razón de Europa” (1994). His first novel, “Sin alma” was published in Spain in 2012. He is presently writing another novel.

Articles by Andrés Ortega

That Cold January 20, 2025

Living in a world where Xi and even Putin still stand tall and U.S. and European interests over how to deal with Russia and China differ significantly.

April 17, 2022

The New Cold War Era

How Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine are altering many previously long-held assumptions. Being criminal – and monstrous -- is what Russia’s presumed “greatness” has been reduced to.

March 10, 2022

Why China Weighs in on Ukraine

China’s goal isn’t cuddling up to Russia. It is preventing NATO from interfering in the Indo-Pacific.

February 11, 2022

Facing the Possibility of a Long Pandemic

While scientists cannot predict how Covid-19 will end, the virus has transformed life as we know it and will continue to do so for decades to come.

January 19, 2022

Putin: Master of Hybrid Wars?

All wars are hybrid, but war -- and the notion of hybrid -- have changed.

December 9, 2021

Biden Vs. Xi: The Global Battle for Restoring Domestic Economic Balance

How the fight against inequality at home unites -- and separates -- Biden and Xi Jinping. And who seems to have the upper hand.

November 3, 2021

Wars of the Three Spheres: The West, the East and the Metaverse

Are we really capable of negotiating our collective future?

October 11, 2021

Re-Globalization, With Hiccups

A new era of globalization is dawning, but it is accompanied by serious challenges.

June 3, 2021

Myanmar and the Oppressive Side of the Digital Revolution

Surveillance technology devices from the West and the East have become essential tools for seeing through a coup d’état in the digital age.

March 23, 2021

Immunizing the World: Can We Do It?

Global governance on immunization against COVID 19 has failed quite badly so far. The West will experience a blowback.

February 24, 2021

A Different World for Joe Biden

Four years after Joe Biden concluded his tenure as Vice President of the United States, as U.S. President he encounters a very different world.

December 22, 2020

QAnon: Conspiracy as a Quasi-Religion

QAnon is much more than a marginal phenomenon, as much as most rational people would wish otherwise.

September 30, 2020

India-China: Welcome to the TikTok Wars

We live in an age where apps wars between major nations have geo-technological fallout.

July 26, 2020

Multilateralism Has Lost Its Way

Collective intelligence is needed to build a new multilateralism for the 21st century.

July 8, 2020

Geopolitics After COVID 19: Conflict or Cooperation?

In absolute terms, all states or groups of states around the globe are going to emerge weakened from the 2020 coronavirus crisis.

June 21, 2020

COVID 19: How to Fight the Infodemic Wars

Beyond containing the COVID 19 virus, we must also contain the “infodemic” -- the glut of misinformation from various sources. What does that take?

March 31, 2020

The Deglobalization Virus?

The coronavirus crisis has become the third great globalization shock of this still relatively new century -- after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the fall of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

March 18, 2020

Europe´s Sovereignty Fever

There are big questions about the viability of the EU in the era of IT dominating technological innovation as well as in an era dominated once again by geopolitics.

March 8, 2020

The 2010s: The Decade of Disillusion

The decade that has just ended, the 2010s, was marked by the crisis that began in 2007-08, and it was accompanied by the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

January 11, 2020

Europeanism Vs. Euroskepticism

More than any other, these EU elections are a battleground to determine the future direction of the European project.

May 24, 2019

India: A Connected Power

India has achieved massive technological advances which are transforming its society. The current elections are evidence of this.

May 11, 2019

Toward a People-Centered Globalization?

After the Yellow Vests challenged Macron in France, is there a way out of the conundrum for the G20 nations?

December 12, 2018

“Yellow Vests”: The First Rebellion Against the Ecological Transition

Previous rebellions in France were against the markets and globalization. The Yellow Vest rebellion is against a change in our way of life.

December 5, 2018

US: Massaging Unemployment Numbers

Many European countries would like to grow jobs at the same rate as the U.S. A look behind the official U.S. statistics.

October 25, 2018

If the UK Stays…

Evaluating the prospects of “No Brexit.”

October 5, 2018

The Europeanization of the Anti-Europeans

The big prize being eyed by the anti-European and xenophobic parties are the elections to the European Parliament next May.

September 17, 2018

An Outbreak of Ethics in Silicon Valley?

The companies and employees of the firms that are creating AI-based surveillance technologies are no longer on the side-lines.

August 4, 2018

Trade Wars and the Clash of Perceptions

Trump sees China as a wealthy country with many poor people, while China sees itself as a poor country with wealthy people.

June 21, 2018

Trump and the Dangerous Politics of Humiliation

Donald Trump’s foreign policy of humiliation is liable to have dire consequences, not least for the interests of the U.S. itself.

May 21, 2018

Steven Pinker: Promoting a New Global Optimism

In showing that the world has never been less violent, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker is at the forefront of the new outbreak of global optimism.

May 13, 2018

The Decline of the West

This summer will mark the centenary of the appearance of the first volume of Oswald Spengler’s influential The Decline of the West.

April 17, 2018

The (Silent) Revolution of Muslim Women

Since 2000, 50 million women in predominantly-Muslim countries have entered the labor market.

April 2, 2018

Facebook and the Global Battle to Sway Minds

Can we protect our societies against "psychographic advertising" – manipulative technologies that stifle democracy?

March 30, 2018

Europe Knows Where It Doesn’t Want to Go

As Germany and Italy decide the shape of their future governments, the EU is making slow progress. It is abandoning lofty schemes and determined to focus on people’s real problems.

March 2, 2018

The Narrowing Gap Between Nuclear and Conventional Weapons

Is Russia in breach of the 1986 INF Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, agreed by Reagan and Gorbachev? This would be dangerous.

February 21, 2018

Disinformation Campaigns and Public Mistrust

Disinformation needs to be tackled by a troika – individual members of the public, the social media companies and governments.

December 9, 2017

Social Media in China: The Great Distraction

Worried about social media helping to create popular movements, China runs an elaborate system of censorship and manipulation.

October 18, 2017

Will There Be a Kurdish State?

Terrorism, oil, the crisis in Iraq, the Syrian civil war and geopolitics all weigh against the birth of a new Kurdish state.

October 4, 2017

Maduroism and the Destruction of Venezuela

Venezuela’s “Bolivarian Revolution” has been an even more pronounced failure under Maduro than under Chavez.

October 2, 2017

Painful Coexistence

How do we deal with, and cope with, Jihadi terrorism?

September 6, 2017

The Destabilizing Effect of Cheap Oil

The fall in the value of oil has far reaching knock-on effects.

July 5, 2017

Back to the Global Vertical

With the decline of the middle classes, social classes are back on the global agenda. That is politically dangerous.

June 18, 2017

California Yes, United States No

How Trump matters less in a world of sub-country level governance.

June 15, 2017

The Tale of the Two Spains

The financial crisis has split Spain into two: a Spain that works and one that doesn't.

November 12, 2012