HIKMA SUMMIT
OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

In 2003, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and four partners launched Palantir Technologies with seed funding from the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel. Their explicit mission : build a platform to help intelligence agencies integrate and analyze complex data sets for counter-terrorism efforts. Two decades later, CEO Dr. Alex Karp frames this legacy differently: "Palantir was founded on the belief that the United States, its allies, and partners should harness the most advanced technical capabilities for their defense and prosperity."

However, we, as US allies, should face the tragic question in regard to our American “saviour” : can digital sovereignty exist when critical infrastructure relies on foreign technology ?

“To pick a side is always wiser than trying to be neutral”, as Nicolò Machiavelli once said in “The Prince” (1513), referring to those that prefer to stay aside from disputes thinking they would rather benefit from it. Accordingly, in the previous centuries, neutrality was seen as an act of cowardice, but the paradigm seems to have changed in the contemporary era, as neutrality is regarded as a wise geopolitical asset.
This article offers a well-rounded vision of the Oman’s strategy of neutrality applied to critical crises involving its neighbouring countries and the international actors that exert a direct influence in the Middle East: it will specifically try to compare advantages and drawbacks of Oman’s longstanding foreign policy techniques, commonly used to safeguard a general balance of power.

The global landscape is undergoing a profound transformation and is increasingly shaped by the search for more resilient and efficient supply chains. The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the fragmentation of the international system have exposed the fragility of supply chains optimized for efficiency but not designed to withstand crises. Recent crises have shown that building fast and cheap trade routes is not enough, because they must also be robust, meaning able to withstand wars, pandemics, and instability. Having alternative routes and avoiding dependence on a single supplier have become strategic priorities for all major powers, thus developing a new side of international cooperation.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, located in Western Asia, borders Syria and Iraq to the northeast, Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Saudi Arabia to the south. Despite being situated in one of the world’s most volatile regions, Jordan has maintained a reputation for relative stability. This raises a key question: how has Jordan managed to remain stable amid regional turmoil?
Part of the answer lies in its normalization agreements with Israel, particularly in the governance of transboundary resources such as water and energy. While often framed as pragmatic and cooperative, these arrangements reveal deeper dynamics of dependency, asymmetry, and political constraint.

Subsea cables have quietly become one of the most important pieces of strategic infrastructure on the planet. They carry intercontinental internet traffic across more than 1.3 million kilometres of cable and handle global data flows and daily financial transactions. Power cables on the seabed are just as critical: they connect offshore wind, wave and tidal farms to onshore grids and interconnect national power systems, directly affecting security of energy supply in Europe. The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (JRC) now treats subsea cables, both data and power, as a single critical nervous system for the EU’s economy, society and defence. When that nervous system is cut, even briefly, the effects cascade through everything from payments and logistics to intelligence sharing and military command and control. How to ensure security in such a complex environment?

The killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, widely known as “El Mencho”, one of the most powerful narcotrafficking leaders in the world, has triggered a new wave of violence in Mexico. His death has intensified clashes among drug cartels, challenged State territorial control, and affected Mexico’s geopolitical relations, especially with the US.