Publications /
Policy Brief

Back
Covid-19 : va-t-on vers une guerre sans canons ?
Authors
Taoufik Marrakchi
August 10, 2020

Entre les Etats Unis et la Chine, la crise du nouveau Coronavirus est un sujet qui avive les tensions augurant d’une guerre sans canons où l’enjeu n’étant ni territorial ni idéologique, mais économique. Très virulent à l’égard de la Chine, bien avant cette crise, le locataire de la Maison Blanche la menace de sanctions économiques et pousse vers son isolement sur la scène internationale en vue de contenir son influence. En contradiction de la célèbre Maxime de Deng Xiao Ping “hide your strength and bide your time”, la Chine de Xi Jinping est un acteur qui se veut incontournable sur l’échiquier mondial et dont la volonté de suprématie, à géométrie variable, est de moins en moins masquée.

Dans cette guerre, le théâtre d’opérations verrait la confrontation de deux alliances stratégiques antagonistes. D’une part, l’alliance transatlantique, dirigée par les Etats-Unis et soutenue par d’autres pays alliés, tels que l’Australie, la Nouvelle Zélande et les Etats du Golfe. D’autre part, une coalition plus discrète, mais non moins présente, serait composée de la Chine, de la Russie, de l’Iran, de la Corée du Nord, ainsi que de l’ensemble des Etats, anciennement satellites de la Russie, désormais affidés à la Chine, en Asie centrale et du Sud-est.

Quels sont les enjeux, les acteurs et les facteurs de cette guerre ? Quels sont les objectifs et les stratégies adoptés par chaque coalition ? Quel est l’impact de cette confrontation sur l’économie chinoise et sur le devenir de son modèle politique ? C’est à ces interrogations que le présent Policy Brief a pour ambition d’apporter des éléments d’éclairage.

RELATED CONTENT

  • January 23, 2026
    The post-1945 international order, an architecture born of war-weariness and colonial twilight, is now a majestic but empty shell. Its foundational promise—a universal system of rules administered impartially—has been hollowed out by decades of selective enforcement, instrumentalized law, and a chasm between the rhetorical ideals of its custodians and their geopolitical practice. This is not a temporary dysfunction, but a systemic failure of legitimacy. From the invasion of Iraq und ...
  • Authors
    January 21, 2026
    In response to developing countries’ dissatisfaction with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) of $300 billion, which was decided at the Twenty-Ninth Conference Of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the COP29 and COP30 presidencies promised to develop a roadmap to achieve $1.3 trillion in external climate finance that developing countries need, and to present it at COP30 in Belém, Brazil[1]. The two pre ...
  • January 21, 2026
    The Policy Center for the New South hosted a seminar on January 16, 2026, titled “Crisis or Opportunity? Multilateralism in a Polycentric World.”The discussion addressed the growing strain on global cooperation amid overlapping financial, climate, security, and technological shocks, occ...
  • Authors
    Stephan Klingebiel
    Andy Sumner
    January 9, 2026
    Global cooperation is under stress. It hardly requires detailed analysis: the international system is in a profound crisis, when seen from many Northern vantage points. What if we see the same turbulence but from a different vantage point? For many in the Global South the current period signals risk, but also opportunity. That the same events could spark a sense of crisis in one group but opportunity in another is nothing new. However, the sheer scale, speed, and scope of recen ...
  • January 09, 2026
    This episode explores the Trump administration’s confrontational stance toward Venezuela, including sanctions and military posturing and evaluates their effectiveness in undermining Madur ...
  • January 6, 2026
    La création de l’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) symbolise une rupture politique et géostratégique majeure, appuyée sur un discours souverainiste et anti-occidental. Deux ans après, Mali, Burkina Faso et Niger peinent à assurer leur intégrité territoriale, à stabiliser leur sécurité intérieure et à bâtir une gouvernance solide. L’intégrité territoriale est un problème commun aux trois États, car dans ces pays, la cohésion de l’État et le contrôle du territoire sont directement men ...
  • Authors
    January 5, 2026
    The candidate could not have been more controversial—or more celebrated. Born in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, once ruled by Idi Amin, who famously declared himself “Conqueror of the British Empire” and “King of Scotland,” Zohran Kwama Mamdani, 34, is of Indian descent. His father is an academic, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, his mother, Mira Nair, is an influential filmmaker. Zohran arrived in the USA on a visa at age seven. No doubt the agents of the feared ...
  • Authors
    Niccola Milnes
    December 30, 2025
    Fuel access has become a strategic pressure point across Mali and its neighbors. In 2025, Jama’t Nusrat al Islam wal- Muslimeen (JNIM) shifted from sporadic interdictions to a deliberate fuel-blockade strategy intended to pressure Bamako without holding territory. By selectively constraining movement along the Sikasso–Kayes–Bamako corridor, the group turned fuel scarcity into a tool of coercion, governance, and narrative control—shaping behavior in the capital while remaining largel ...
  • Authors
    December 18, 2025
    The return of President Donald Trump to the White House at the start of 2025 was expected to signal an American retreat from international engagement, especially in regions of traditional security interest, such as southern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. To the surprise of many observers around the Mediterranean, and perhaps to the dismay of some in the Trump administration’s ideological orbit, this has not happened. If anything, the second half of 2025 has seen a high d ...