For a confusing, complex and uncertain 2023.
Ricardo Angoso
The war in Ukraine, the British crisis exacerbated by an irresponsible Brexit, the rise of populism around the world, the long and unexpected pandemic, the authoritarian drift of Russia, Turkey and China and the rise of India, along with other not so unexpected, they once again show the world that we are going through a difficult period that is not predictable.
1.The United Kingdom will enter a serious crisis. It is not that the United Kingdom is going to enter a crisis, it is that it has already been for years. The presidents of government follow one another, the Conservative Party is a box of shackles, Labor appears as the first political force in all the polls, prices are through the roof, social tension is evident… The British executive seems like a sort of cabin of the Marx brothers (by the actors, not by the philosopher) for weeks and faces a serious economic crisis, characterized by hyperinflation, the drop in exports, protest strikes due to the acute social crisis, low productivity and deterioration of public services. From once being a model, the United Kingdom has become the chronically ill of the continent at the mercy of the muddy Brexit.
2. Politics once again takes its place against the markets. The pandemic, which really almost occupied us for three long years, allocating enormous resources against it in all countries, once again put the State at the center of politics, that is, it restored its leading role, both in capitalist countries and in the States. United, as socialists, as was the case with China, and without its intervention it would have been impossible to return to normality.
3.The pandemic accelerated inequality globally. It is evident, as the NGO Oxfam pointed out, that with the pandemic, social inequality increased even more, both between the different countries, fueling the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries, and in terms of class within them. We added several periods of capital accumulation after several crises and this process had as its main consequence that human development, measured by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in its list of the Human Development Index (IDH), will determine in a recent report that 9 out of ten countries in the world registered a setback in recent years.
4.The Ukraine crisis is here to stay. Russia thought that the war in Ukraine would be a military parade and that in a few days its troops would be in kyiv imposing the pax russa, but the Ukrainian resistance, the rejection of the West to its intervention and the almost unanimous condemnation of the world to it, along with their own shortcomings, it got in their way. Now, involved in a conflict that is a veritable endless labyrinth and fueled by European countries that do not stop arming the Ukrainians, Russia, if the conflict turns into a war of attrition, could enter one of the most uncertain periods and critics of its history. This war is going long.
5.The discredit of the elites is increasing globally. The pandemic crisis, and its more than poor management in terms of health and social inequality, is taking its toll and the effects are already beginning to be felt. “The discredit of the social elites propelled populism to levels that had not been seen since, in 1929, the previous Great Recession paved the way for the greatest massacre in human history,” the analyst Enric González rightly pointed out and, clearly, he he was referring to the Second World War promoted by Hitler. The Davos Forum, with so many unpresentable looking the other way, while the global Titanic heads towards an iceberg, is the clear demonstration that the caste that governs us is indecent and insensitive towards our ills.
6.Populism continues to succeed on the left and the right. One only has to look at what has happened in Europe, the United States and Latin America in recent years. The two most classic cases are Podemos from Spain and Hermanos from Italy, who have achieved notable successes and reached the government, breaking the balance within our political systems. Not to mention apologetic candidates who, on all continents and latitudes, are successful, the most paradigmatic cases being those of Trump, Bolsonaro and the Mexican AMLO, all of them, by the way, deniers of the pandemic and infected after covid-19. .
7.Latin America does not raise its head. This continent continues without finding its way and consolidating a solid integration project -and not ideological- that allows it to exercise a certain leadership, channel a global project and play on the international scene as a truly important player with a common strategy and a project concluded. Diluted in secular caudillismos, rampant corruption, structural social inequality, mediocre economic growth and a populism that muddies all politics, the Latin American continent seems to have no fix.
8.There are only four powers in the world. The Ukraine crisis, which has reopened a new period of the Cold War, has put on the table that there are only four determining powers: the United States, the European Union (EU), Russia and China. The rest of the international players play in the minor leagues and although others raise their heads, such as India, their leadership is still not decisive and they continue to be secondary players.
9.Neoliberalism was called into question during the covid-19 pandemic. The long crisis of the pandemic called into question neoliberalism, by revitalizing the role of States in resolving it and in developing an anti-crisis plan with vaccines that proved to be effective, reasonably efficient, and at costs that, without the action of the administrations, it would have been impossible to develop. Countries without a State or very precarious, where the market rules, such as Africa and some in Latin America, have failed in their fight against covid-19, demonstrating the fallacies of neoliberal discourse in times of storm.
10. The European Union (EU) and NATO emerge revitalized after the Ukraine crisis. Although buried by some of their detractors, both institutions have shown themselves to be absolutely necessary to deal with the war in Ukraine. If the fifth article of the Washington Treaty, which shields all NATO partners with mutual defense, did not exist, who would have stopped Russia from attacking the Baltic countries or Poland? Nobody, absolutely nobody. As far as the EU is concerned, why is it so reviled if there are more than a dozen countries that want to join it and with each passing day the list advances?
11. The United States has already won the war in Ukraine. Without having put a soldier on the ground and without having to endure the avalanche of refugees that Europe is suffering, the United States has come to lead the free world, with NATO at the helm, gaining prestige on the international scene against Russia and its economy. it continues to appear buoyant and on the rise in the face of a world in decomposition and crisis. Its leadership on the global scene was left almost in a hegemonic position on the planet, while China, after its failure in its strategy against covid-19 and an economic crisis that is already looming on its doorstep, hides its tail and awaits better times.
12.India, emerging and in competition with China in Asia. Despite the fact that nobody shows its successes in many areas and its role as a power is sometimes disdained, India now appears as the great Asian giant, growing at 7% per year; enjoying good prices and access to the Russian energy market under optimal conditions, which increases its global competitiveness; and having the possibility of having commercial relations with the whole world without the restrictions of the embargo on Russia, including here the United States, a theoretically “friendly” country, and China.
13.Democracy is no longer in fashion, authoritarianism advances. The cases of Venezuela, Turkey, Belarus, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua and Russia itself show clearly that democracy is no longer in fashion and that even the free world has gotten used to living with non-democratic regimes. and even to do business with them and treat them as equal partners without demanding changes and that they respect human rights. They mobilize businesses more, and even seek a certain peaceful coexistence with these countries for the sake of false security, than the demand for freedoms and fundamental rights for their long-suffering subjects.
14. The permanent tension will continue in Asia and Taiwan, in the spotlight. The permanent rearmament of North Korea, including its nuclear program and its constant challenges to its neighbors, and the periodic Chinese maneuvers in the waters of Taiwan, to show its superiority and that the island belongs to it, have caused the United States’ allies in the region, such as South Korea, Japan and Taiwan itself, become militarized in the face of increased instability and foreseeable threats, in clear allusion to China. Taiwan will continue to be the epicenter of instability and insecurity on the Asian continent and will be the point of friction between the United States and the Asian giant, but the question arises if, if necessary and China invades the island, would the Americans do something for defending it or, simply, would they be simple spectators as they have done in Ukraine?
