THE POWER OF THE POWERLESS Iran, Asymmetric Proliferation, and the New Geopolitics 2026–2030 VOLUME 1

These lines are being written at a rarely documented stage in world history: the period immediately following a major war between a revisionist regional power (Iran) and a Western coalition (the United States and Israel), which was overlapped, on a smaller scale but with a systemic impact, by an American intervention in the Western Hemisphere (Venezuela). Between January and April 2026, the main tenets of the post-Cold War order were put to the test, and the outcome, in this author's view, is not an unequivocal victory for either of the opposing blocs; rather, it confirms an interregnum— in the Gramscian sense of the term—where the old is dying but the new has not yet managed to be born. The idea of bringing together, in a single, comprehensive project, an analysis of Iran's strategy, access denial doctrines, the proliferation of radiological weapons, the emergence of the BRICS+ bloc, and the transformation of the global financial architecture slowly matured over the years 2023 to 2025. The author thus had the privilege of following, in near real time, the evolution of the rhetoric and strategic practices of Tehran, the Pentagon, the CSIS, the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic..