New decade set to bring growing divisions, tensions

What is becoming more likely is another defining 9/11-type event of geopolitical violence

AS A new decade begins, the first century of the new millennium will already be a fifth over. The past 10 years have seen the world’s most powerful states increasingly at loggerheads, with rising political divisions in almost every country. The next may well see at least some of those trends produce a crisis, perhaps even a major turning point in global affairs.

While the last decade has arguably been defined largely by trends and series of events – the Arab Spring, the rise of Trump, Brexit and nationalism, growing strains between the West, Russia and China – the first decade of the century is remembered much more for its twin shocks, 9/11 and the 2008 financial crash.

The next decade may well see another financial shock of similar, perhaps even greater, magnitude – hitting a world in many ways less prepared or co-ordinated to ride it out.

What is also becoming more likely, however, is another defining 9/11-type event of geopolitical violence, possibly involving nuclear force or some other form of mass destruction, perhaps even a devastating cyberattack that kills large numbers through crippling critical national infrastructure such as water supplies or power plants.

Like 9/11, that could come from a non-state actor – but it could also be an act of state-on-state violence at a time of growing international tension, potentially igniting a devastating wider conflict.

Politics looks set to become more idiosyncratic and unpredictable. In the short-term at least, populist forces – whether pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong or leftist, right-wing and environmental movements in the West – are unlikely to go away. Raised geopolitical tensions will also flow through into international business and markets – as the US-China trade war and headwinds faced by China’s Huawei already show. So, too, will the growing strains between governments and the world’s largest tech firms – Google, Facebook, Amazon and others.

That will be supercharged by technological change, perhaps in the form of electric vehicles and other robots that could throw millions out of work.

Next year’s US election will set much of the tone for the coming decade. An unexpected defeat for President Donald Trump might be seen as the beginning of the end for a new generation of democratic, often rightwing populists that includes India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.

But what seems at least as likely for now is that even amid impeachment proceedings against him, whoever emerges from the fractured Democratic field will be unable to defeat Trump.

In Europe, the two elections that will set the tone will be Germany’s federal elections in 2021 and France’s presidential vote the following year. The greatest question will be how well the far right performs.

The coming decade looks set to see a further escalation of many of the proxy confrontations that have driven the bloodiest wars of recent years, particularly Syria, Yemen and Ukraine.

The first two decades of the century have proved different from what many expected. The next looks at least as unpredictable.