The Ides of March herald the Era of Mars

Cornelius Adebahr argues that, at last, Germany appears to have understood what is at stake. 

Much as the assassination of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 BC became a turning point for the Roman Empire, this month’s events mark a watershed in modern times. From the demasking of the US President’s self-serving and order-breaking agenda to China’s advances on artificial intelligence and Europe’s still timid steps towards some sort of sovereignty – this is a time when history is made.

If March marked the start of the new year back then (and the spring equinox still does in many cultures today, hence eid-e nowruz mobarak!), the current month appears to be the beginning of a new era. One dominated by Mars, the Roman god of war (and the month’s eponym), which will make the past decades since the fall of the Berlin wall look like a period of Venus – at least for much of Europe and, more broadly, the West.

At last, Germany appears to have understood what is at stake. On March 18, 35 years to the day after the first free election in East Germany paved the way for unification (and, coincidentally, 177 years after the country’s first democratic revolution was crushed by the monarchy), the Bundestag voted in favour of a huge debt-financed arms-and-infrastructure package. Much more than the “Zeitenwende” boldly declared three days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this is a sign that the continent’s central (and global middle) power is upping its game in support of European self-reliance. 

And in no way prematurely, as the US president’s phone call with his Russian counterpart a couple of hours later underlined. In it, Donald “the dealmaker” was bested by his supposed pal, Vladimir “siloviki” Putin: Not only couldn’t Trump make peace within 24 hours as he had promised on the campaign trail; he even failed to get the Kremlin’s mastermind to agree to a mere 30-day ceasefire. Instead, Putin reiterated his maximalist demands, among them the end of Western military and intelligence support for Ukraine and, hidden among the reference to the “root causes” of the conflict, regime change in Kyiv. Alas, Israel’s resumption of military strikes on Gaza earlier that same day indicates how little the ceasefire negotiated in January – after Trump tried some bullying and duly took credit – holds. 

Even before this momentous 18th March 2025, global developments have pointed to a future full of strife and disruption rather than peaceful coexistence: 

• With the dismantling of democratic structures, including the state bureaucracy, at home and recurring threats of the use of force against sovereign nations around the world as well as imposing an array of on-off sanctions on its closest trade partners, the Trump administration has shed any semblance of being a ‘normal, if also disruptive’ presidency.
• After Chinese company DeepSeek stunned the world – and crashed tech stocks – with a cheap-but-powerful AI model that threatens to upend the money-driven advantage of US-dominated Big Tech, now a China-based firm released the world’s first general AI agent Manus, throwing other developer’s caution vis-à-vis this potentially unchecked tool in the wind.
• As the World Meteorological Organisation’s latest global climate report shows that we’re about to enter a period of planetary instability, as oceans warm and rise while sea ice and glaciers melt, but too few politicians care – with enormous consequences for human habitats, sparking migration flows and violent conflict. 

PS: Käthe Kollwitz’ pietà, part of Germany’s official memorial site for the victims of war and tyranny’ in Berlin, remains breath-taking in the way it shows the suffering and struggle of the world. While the artist dedicated the sculpture to her own son, who was killed in World War I, the Neue Wache ensemble also offers hope by letting the light get through… 

Dr Cornelius Adebahr is an independent political analyst and entrepreneur based in Berlin, focusing on European foreign and security policy, including digitisation and citizens’ engagement. He is the interim executive director of ISD Germany, the Berlin-based EU-focused arm of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) in London which works to counter disinformation, extremism, and foreign influence operations that threaten democracy. He is an associate fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), an associated researcher at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in Rome, and a member of the European Commission’s experts’ network, Team Europe Direct. Moreover, he is an adjunct faculty at the Hertie School in Berlin and has taught at international universities, including the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and the Faculty of World Studies at Tehran University.

Photo by Pixabay