Growing political and international divides to be 2010s’ legacy
At the very least, politics looks set to become more idiosyncratic and unpredictable in the next decade
London — 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 on Earth. 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 past 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 of 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 much less prepared or co-ordinated to ride it out...
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