A panel of experts at the Amicus breakfast warned that Western democracies needed to display more unity. Emily Moore reports
WHITHER the world in 2024? Are we facing a global crisis or are we just going through “a bit of a storm”?
These may sound like simple questions but the answers, as the panellists at last week’s Amicus geopolitical breakfast briefing found, are anything but simple.
In a whistlestop tour through world economies, societal shifts and the ever-increasing need for strong leadership, the Lieutenant-Governor, Vice-Admiral Jerry Kyd, economist Michael Oliver and Amicus chief executive General Sir Peter Wall, reflected on a “new-world order”, the “growing dependency of individuals on government” and the “geopolitical contest between Eurasian autocracies and Western democracies”.
The autocracies coming in for particular attention were an “under-performing” China, “frustrated” Russia, “vice-like” Iran and “irrational” North Korea.
“China was meant to have achieved the biggest economy in the world by now, eclipsing the US,” said the panel. “Now, it looks increasingly unlikely that that will happen any time soon, which has led to a lot of frustration in the country, which is being channelled towards external activity around the world.”
Despite this, the panellists said that the “clock was ticking for [Chinese president] Xi Jinping”.
“He wants Taiwan but he is looking at Russia’s experiences in Ukraine and wondering whether his military forces are strong enough to succeed,” they reflected. “Russia, meanwhile, is frustrated and is flexing its muscles in an attempt to regain some of the control it had in the post-Cold-War era.
“Then you’ve got Iran, not as strong a regime in terms of internal support but with a vice-like group, with the Ayatollahs exercising power over the Middle East and keen to defuse the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”
North Korea, they continued, was “probably the least rational of all the players but also not the most powerful”.
With other countries in the global south “non-aligned but leaning away from Western ideals”, the picture is anything but clear. And it has the potential to become even more muddied this year, with 70 nations, representing 49% of the global population, due to go to the polls in 2024.
“In many cases, the centre ground is being surrendered to slightly more extreme views,” they noted before focusing on the political and economic situation in the West.
“What is happening to Western political and economic mojo?” they asked. “We have reached a point where people have become almost too dependent on governments for support, a situation which is accompanied by an attitude that values are a divine right and will never need to be fought for. As a result, our economic mojo has declined, as people depend on subsidies and political interventions, which is why we are in a level-to-low productivity-growth scenario.”
And Western nations’ mojo and values may also, the panel reflected, be a contributory factor to countries’ power on the world stage.
“While the US remains the pre-eminent superpower, autocracies are definitely pushing back and the question now is whether Western governments have the balls to say no and back up these words, where required, with state power,” they said. “As the world becomes more competitive and more conflicted, strong leadership will become even more important.”
Crucial to this, the panel added, was collaboration and realism.
“Our ability to solve problems is undermined by the internal distractions of polarised politics within political parties, let alone between parties,” one said. “What has happened in Jersey over the past week or so is specific to the Island but is a microcosm of what is going on generally in the West.
“Until we get a set of political organisations – whether that’s the Council of Ministers here, a cohesive Labour Party in the UK or something in the Democrat/Republican space in the UK – where people have a solidified sense of purpose and subordinate internal ideas and passions for something which is collectively more responsible and deliverable, we will never get over the suffering we have now.”
One area in which the panel agreed the West needed to show some authority was in protecting its maritime trade, something which has come under fire in recent days.
“We have seen Houthis attacking ships in the Red Sea and this action highlights the importance of sea power in keeping the world’s economy running,” they said. “The ability to police the seas and exercise sea power where required is becoming more important than ever because if you dominate the sea – something which China is trying to do – you dominate trade and then you dominate the planet. If you attack a ship, you should expect retaliation and, if we don’t retaliate, we look diminished.”
