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This century’s major battles are upon us. Can we act before it’s too late?

By:   []

Date: 2021-11

To mark the milestone of 1,000 columns over 20 years for openDemocracy, the previous column in this series looked back to the first, which argued against going to war in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks and predicted a long conflict to come.

Some 18 months later in April 2003, and two weeks into the Iraq war, another column argued that terminating the Saddam Hussein regime would lead to a drawn-out war and create deep instability across the Middle East.

The articles may have seemed thoroughly misjudged to some at the time but have turned out to be on the right track. Both were written in the context of a wider view of global security that cited three factors that were going to determine the nature of international conflict in the coming decades. These were an increasing rich/poor divide, environmental limits to growth and a global defence culture that prioritised military responses to challenges.

None of these elements were new but my book, ‘Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century’, published in 2000 after being written in the late 1990s, had aimed to go further by integrating the trends into a broader overview.

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One conclusion was that the combination of these trends would lead to resentment, anger, loss of hope and the risk of violent revolts from the margins. These problems could not be countered by military control, and had to be addressed at source. I pointed out that a fairer and more environmentally sustainable economic system was needed, coupled with a transformed security paradigm that prioritised conflict prevention.

Obscene wealth increases inequality

Two decades on, this thinking has stood the test of time well, which raises the valid question as to what predictions could be made for the next 20 years, at least going by current trends.

On the economy, firstly, the neoliberal model that came to the fore at the end of the 1970s remains largely in place. Chinese authoritarian capitalism is pursuing a parallel path, and transnational corporations may incorporate a degree of multi-stakeholder initiatives, if rarely engaging in democratic change. Countries affected by COVID-19 may even take state-level economic actions, with increased public spending.

These economic trends typically benefit private sectors most, and the overall neoliberal system remains largely in place. As this continues, the wealthy accrue funds that can only be described as obscenely excessive, as shown by the world’s 2,189 billionaires increasing their wealth by 27.5% from April to July last year during the first surge of the pandemic.

There is plenty of bright new thinking coming to the fore in many countries as think tanks and gifted economists advocate for more just economic systems. And the fact that at least 12% of humanity is a member of one of the three milliom cooperatives worldwide is promising. Even so, wealthy elites across the world are deeply resistant to change. 'Tax the rich' has not yet become a general mantra – but that may be only a matter of time.

With environmental sustainability, on the other hand, there has been substantial progress. Public awareness has risen markedly in many countries, aided by impressive new campaigns, and the repeated experience of extreme weather events is at last having an impact on public opinion. Meanwhile, the technology of decarbonising economies has come on apace, especially in the field of renewables such as wind and solar power.
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