Donald Trump
Florence Gaub, NATO’s ‘futurist’: ‘You Can Slide Into A World War Even If Nobody Wants It’
She defines herself as NATO’s “futurist.” Florence Gaub (Munich, 48) heads the Research Division at the NATO Defense College in Rome. A Franco-German political scientist specializing in foresight, she studies trends and scenarios to anticipate future crises. She is the author of The Future. A User’s Guide, to be published in English next month by Hurst. This interview was conducted in mid-February in Paris and completed on March 2, two days after the start of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.
Question. You specialize in forecasting crises. Did you see this latest one coming?
Answer. This war has been brewing since at least the early 2000s, when the Iranian nuclear program was first discovered. When the source of a conflict is not resolved and material capability coincides with the will to act, war is always just a matter of time.
Q. You say your family history explains your vocation.
A. My German grandfather was a Luftwaffe pilot. My French grandfather was in the Resistance against the Nazis. From an early age, I was aware of what war was and that the two countries I came from had been enemies. I was struck that this still weighed so heavily 30 years later. My career stems from there: I wanted to understand how a society digests a war, how it rebuilds itself, and above all, what can be done to ensure it does not happen again.
Q. You joined NATO at just 31.
A. Yes, I was very young. The position required 10 years of experience, but they were looking for someone who spoke English, French, and Arabic, held a doctorate, and knew the Middle East well. There were not many such profiles. I suppose they would have preferred an older gentleman, but they ended up with me.
Q. You don’t fit the classic profile of a defense expert. You draw inspiration from science fiction, publish futuristic comics, and employ humor. How do you fit into a place like NATO?
A. I’m not the norm, either in the way I think or in the way I look. But that hasn’t worked against me. Military personnel tend to be very practical: if an idea can help solve a problem, they will listen. In the EU, where I worked for six years, there was a more ideological component. NATO is more pragmatic: its goal is security. That gives me greater intellectual freedom.
Q. Why do you define yourself with such an unorthodox term as “futurist”?
A. Many people dislike it, but it’s the simplest way to explain what I do. My job is to think about what kinds of conflict or catastrophe could occur in the near future. I study trends, weak signals, and cause-and-effect relationships. The question is always the same: what should we do today to avoid one scenario or tip the balance toward another?
Q. What time horizon do you work with?
A. At NATO there are teams working on a six-month horizon and others looking 20 years ahead. I am in the middle range: between two and five years. I combine method and intuition. I analyze long-term trends, such as demographics or the climate crisis, alongside more volatile ones, such as politics. You have to take risks when proposing possibilities. An overly cautious scenario is never useful: you must always consider what might go off-script.
Q. Are you often wrong?
A. Of course, sometimes. What matters is not always being right, but understanding where and why you were wrong.
Q. Does your ego suffer when you fail?
A. There is a brief moment, yes. Over the years, I have learned to date my ideas, not marry them. You must have flexible relationships with your hypotheses and let them go when they are no longer useful.
Q. In recent years, what major crisis did you fail to see coming?
A. Greenland, without a doubt. It was a blind spot. There were signs, but I wasn’t looking there. One must learn to admit that.
I saw the war in Ukraine coming, but I don’t consider it a success. If you see something and fail to convince those who should be listening, you have failed
Q. And the invasion of Ukraine, which many European specialists did not believe would happen?
A. I saw it coming, but not because I was especially brilliant — rather because I had good contacts who saw it clearly. I would arrive at the office convinced that the war would begin that day, while my superiors treated me as if I were overreacting. That is why I don’t consider it a success. If you see something and fail to convince those who should be listening, you have failed.
Q. And the genocide in Gaza?
A. I wasn’t surprised that the conflict resurfaced. The first rule is that a conflict never disappears: it shifts, changes form, and returns until someone finds a solution. What did surprise me was the degree of violence Israel has exercised.
Q. Is it harder today to predict the future than previously?
A. I’m not sure that’s it. What has become more difficult is making decisions. Leaders today have an immense amount of information, moving at great speed and not always reliable. That is one of the great problems of our time.
Q. Despite spending your days imagining crises and catastrophes, you say you are optimistic. Can you explain that?
A. The more you think about the worst-case scenarios, the more you see the ways out. Our job is not to say, “Everything is going to go wrong.” What is useful is showing that there is always room to maneuver, even in terrible situations. Sometimes I read a report and think: “Shit, we’re screwed.” But even then, thinking in terms of options gives you the capacity to act and brings you back to optimism.
Q. Where are the flashpoints that interest you today?
A. The Arctic, space, the maritime sphere, and everything related to disinformation, cyberattacks, and infrastructure sabotage. Military history shows that we tend to get the location of conflicts right and get almost everything else wrong: when they break out, how long they last, and what technology they are fought with. We must prepare for every surprise.
Many wars do not begin with bombs or tanks, but with a failure of communication
Q. Many people fear that artificial intelligence is the great danger of our time. You don’t see it that way.
A. It worries me, but it is not the greatest risk. AI still poses, above all, a regulatory problem. What frightens me most is something else: that we stop talking to one another across rival countries, that we lose the ability to understand how the other side thinks. We are losing strategic empathy. And that is where the real danger begins. Many wars do not start with bombs or tanks, but with a failure of communication.
Q. Is the risk of a third world war becoming increasingly apparent?
A. Yes, but not for the reasons people think. It’s not that someone one day presses the button for war; rather, you can slide into a conflict of this kind without anyone wanting it: an accident, a misreading, a verbal escalation, decisions taken under pressure. Very often, a line gets crossed that nobody wanted to cross. That is why investing in defense is as important as investing in diplomacy.
Q. What has changed since Trump returned to the White House?
A. He is a leader who uses surprise as a method. His strength lies in offering a vision of the future, even if it is entirely illiberal. Far-right movements succeed because they promise a rupture. Traditional parties, by contrast, limit themselves to managing the present. The former imagine a different future, while the latter promise that everything will remain the same as it is now — an idea almost no one believes and that no longer mobilizes the public. They have not understood that the future is a strategic idea.
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Benjamin Netanyahu
Israel Urges Iranians To Rise Up And Overthrow The Regime After Trump Declares The War ‘very Complete’
Israel has intensified its appeals to Iranians to overthrow the Iranian regime — implicitly acknowledging its limited ability to topple it without an internal uprising.
The calls were made after U.S. President Donald Trump said the war in the Middle East is “very complete, preet much.” On Tuesday, the U.S. and Israeli military fact carried out their heaviest bombardments yet, after indications that Trump might be preparing to declare the conflict over. That, at least, is what global markets appeared to be betting on throughout the day, with Brent crude stabilizing around $92 after nearing $120 the day before.
“We are not looking for an endless war,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.
Iranian authorities, meanwhile, are maintaining an increasingly defiant tone. The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, has gone the furthest, urging Trump to “watch out”, warning that he could “be eliminated.”
After blocking shipments through the Strait of Hormuz — a route that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has also declared that it will block oil exports to the Gulf unless the attacks stop. It has added that Iran, not the United States or Israel, will decide when the war ends. Trump said if this happens, Iran “will be hit by the United States of America 20 times harder than they have been hit thus far.”
The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, also used language that reflects a certain shift in tone. This change follows the after the initial triumphalism in Washington and Jerusalem after the strike that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Monday to support the appointment of his son, Mojtaba, as the new supreme leader, in a show of strength by the regime. Qalibaf contradicted the U.S. president by stressing that Tehran is not seeking a ceasefire, but rather intends to “strike the aggressor in the mouth” so that it “will never think of attacking our beloved Iran again.”
Failed plans
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview that the United States and Israel believed they would achieve “a quick and decisive victory” and bring about regime change “in a matter of two or three days,” but that “the option plan A was a failure, and now they are trying other plans, but all of them have failed as well.”
At least one of those approaches does not appear to be working: the “unconditional surrender” demanded by Trump, who will ultimately decide when the war ends, despite public statements from both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming they are acting in coordination
Another strategy — the popular uprising called for by Netanyahu — has also not yet materialized. Israel has been increasingly explicit that its objective is not only military (destroying Iran’s missiles and nuclear program) but also political: to bury the Islamic Republic nearly half a century after its founding. Netanyahu has described this as a long‑held dream that he can now pursue, with Trump in the White House and after weakening the militias supported by Iran.
On Tuesday, following Trump’s remarks about the imminent end of the war, Netanyahu placed responsibility for the regime’s downfall on the Iranian people. “Ultimately, it depends on them,” he said, urging Iranians to seize power and take to the streets despite the bombings and the bloody repression of protests earlier this year. “Our aspiration is to bring the Iranian people to throw off the yoke of tyranny
Our aspiration is for the Iranian people to free themselves from the yoke of tyranny […] There is no doubt that through the actions taken so far we are breaking their bones,” he said during a visit to the National Center for Emergency Health Operations.
Meanwhile, Mossad — Israel’s well‑known foreign intelligence service — posted a message on its Persian‑language Telegram channel urging the population to provide information and join its campaign. “Only one more step remains. Join people like you who have made the right decision. With us, a safe and better future in the new Iran awaits you and your family. Contact us through the secure channel,” the message reads.
Israel has also received its first diplomatic visit since the start of the war on February 28. The visitor was German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, representing one of the European countries that has most closely aligned itself with Israel and the United States. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had previously sided with Trump when the U.S. president called Spain a “terrible” ally within NATO and threatened to cut all trade relations.
Wadephul said at a press conference in Jerusalem that Germany’s priorities regarding Iran are the “verifiable” end not only of its “military nuclear program,” but also of its “ballistic missile program,” and that it must “stop posing a threat to its neighbors.”
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