Samir Abdelmalak

It was a phrase my late mother used to repeat to us from the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, more than fifty years ago. To her, it was not merely financial advice, but the expression of an early awareness of danger and of the need to prepare for difficult days. She had also known the tragedy of famine through the stories passed down by her father, whose two brothers had emigrated in search of a livelihood and remained out of contact for a long time, while he stayed behind to care for his parents… At the same time, my mother was influenced by Raymond Eddé’s reformist ideas and by his concerns over Israel’s expansionist ambitions. She would particularly recall his warning in 1969 against signing the Cairo Agreement, fearing that it could provide Israel with a pretext to expand its occupation of southern Lebanon, within the broader framework of what he saw as Israel’s long-standing expansionist ambitions.

The Middle East is undergoing unprecedented transformations that are reshaping the region’s security and power landscape. After years of open wars and proxy conflicts, the region is gradually moving toward a new approach built on strengthening the nation-state, reducing the influence of non-state armed organizations, and rebuilding military and security institutions as the sole guarantor of stability. Against this backdrop, Lebanon has a rare opportunity to rethink its defense architecture in a manner that reflects these regional changes while safeguarding its national interests. Over the decades, Hezbollah has accumulated advanced military and technological expertise in command, intelligence, drones, electronic warfare, communications, and logistics. This expertise represents valuable human capital that should not be allowed to go to waste. Instead, within the framework of the state’s legitimate authority, it should be integrated into the Lebanese Armed Forces and the country’s security institutions, thereby strengthening state sovereignty instead of perpetuating divided authority over national security.

Major crises reveal a simple truth: no country can endure when loyalties that transcend it remain stronger than the sense of belonging to it. Nations that overcome adversity are those that make national identity the common ground uniting all their citizens, regardless of their political, religious, or cultural affiliations. The nation does not erase diversity. It provides the framework that protects it. That lesson has become particularly clear in Iran’s recent evolution, where national and patriotic discourse has gained renewed momentum by embracing groups that, until recently, had been regarded as lying outside the circle of political loyalty. The authorities have come to understand that existential challenges require widening the circle of belonging, for a state’s strength is measured not only by the cohesion of its governing institutions, but also by its ability to embrace society in all its diversity.

Nuclear weaponry is no longer a mere military instrument. It has become the symbol of a deeper question, that of state security in a world where the effectiveness of international guarantees keeps eroding. The war in Ukraine, the persistent tension surrounding Iran, and North Korea’s survival despite its isolation all bring the same question back to the forefront: how can states still protect themselves within an increasingly unstable international order? Ukraine, or the Lesson of Abandoning Deterrence Ukraine represents the most debated case. Having relinquished its nuclear arsenal in exchange for international security guarantees, it found itself confronted with the Russian invasion. Since then, the question has resurfaced with even greater force: do political guarantees alone suffice to protect states against major threats?

The world today seems caught between the fever of the World Cup and the social media posts of American President Donald Trump, with all the immediate repercussions these carry for the violent swings in oil and gold prices, and for the considerable profits reaped by the speculations tied to them. Yet this media “noise” conceals behind it shifts that are deeper and more consequential, manifest in the redrawing of the network of regional and international alliances, driven by the accelerating fallout from the confrontation underway between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran and its ramifications on the other.

In an era when crises and challenges are multiplying, we read each day articles, studies and analyses focused primarily on describing the current reality and examining its political, economic and social dimensions. Yet, despite the importance of understanding the present, excessive focus on diagnosing the situation has locked us into circular thinking: we turn endlessly around the same observations and the same deadlocks, without genuinely advancing towards serious reflection on the future of Lebanon, on that of its citizens, and consequently on that of society and the State. Launching national reflection circles… with positivity