The Hybrid era of the “Return of History”: Systemic Chaos, Gray Zones, and Connectivity

While the events of the past fifteen years confirm that it is necessary, rather than simply legitimate, to recognize that "history is back," it is also essential to define how we understand the "return of history." That is, should we conceive history as a return to the nineteenth-century logic of power politics? Alternatively, should we view it as a return to the bipolar logic of the Cold War? Or, finally, should we view the return of history as leading us toward a premodern-like world? Although each of these hypotheses captures some element of global transformation, it is likely that each overlooks important aspects of the hybrid era we are experiencing. In this article, I suggest that to reconstruct the physiognomy of the new "regime of war" (Hardt & Mezzadra, 2024), it is necessary to recognize that old and new elements combine, drawing a hybrid picture that increasingly challenges the classical distinction between war and peace.