Macrotrends in the world ahead

The pandemic and the Russian aggression against Ukraine force us, due to its disruptive nature, to reconsider many prospective exercises about what the world to come is going to be like.

It is common opinion to say that both events mark a before and after and that nothing will ever be the same again. It is a half-truth, rooted in “adamism”. Each generation tends to believe that what happens to them means starting from scratch. And there are events that have undoubtedly changed the course of humanity. Great wars and invasions or devastating pandemics are among them. From a Eurocentric perspective, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Discovery of America or the industrial and bourgeois revolutions are clear examples. Also colonialism (and decolonization) or the two world wars. Without a doubt, the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union or, more recently, the emergence of China as a great global superpower.

Obviously, disruptive technologies also mark transcendental transformations: from the domain of fire, the wheel or those that allow great navigations, passing through the industrial revolutions that have allowed Western hegemony in recent centuries. And, more recently, nuclear and digital technologies.

In addition, of course, each country can point to events that have changed the course of its history and that, in certain cases, have affected the whole: from the French or Russian revolutions to the great monotheistic religions born in what we now call the Middle East. Without forgetting, recently, the attacks of September 11 or the European construction, to give two very different examples. And, of course, climate change and environmental degradation, which can substantially alter the future of generations to come.

Finally, we must remember the enormous influence of the great thinkers, from Confucius to Plato, from Descartes, Kant or Hegel to Marx, and of the great scientists, from Galileo to Newton and many others.

All these events and characters have marked the historical evolution and have transcended and have been projected for a long time afterwards. It is worth, then, this superficial reminder to place things in their context.

«The pandemic and the war in Ukraine are being very serious, but, unless it leads to a nuclear conflagration of incalculable consequences, its effects may be limited in historical terms»

Neither the Covid-19 pandemic nor the Russian invasion of Ukraine have that magnitude. They have been and are being very serious in human, economic and social terms, but, unless this leads to a nuclear conflagration of incalculable consequences, its effects may be limited in historical terms, without obviously underestimating its seriousness. In fact, it is worth asking whether or not the great macro-trends that had been marking the lives of human beings since before both events have changed. The answer is that they remain the same, although they have been altered not only in a circumstantial way, but also in some of their structural characteristics.

We can cite four very clear ones: globalization, digitization, the energy transition and the shift in the geopolitical axis of gravity from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. They come from before, continue now and will continue when we consider the pandemic under control or the invasion and war in Ukraine ends.

Let’s go by parts. Globalization is a very controversial concept and one that has become a significant area of ​​political debate. We are not referring to the globalizing events of the past (from the Silk Road to the Manila Galleon), but to the generalization of free trade and financial flows as a result of the consolidation of liberal multilateralism that emerged since the end of the Second World War. and that has its clearest concretion in the institutions born of Breton Woods.

Together with the digital revolution and the progressive convergence of productivities, globalization has allowed enormous increases in global wealth, the reduction of poverty and the massive generation of new middle classes or the improvement of well-being indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality rates or literacy. It has meant integration into the global system and participation in global value chains for countries that were not part of the West. The most paradigmatic example is the entry of China (enthusiastically supported by the West) into the World Trade Organization.

Hyperglobalization has allowed great increases in economic efficiency, both from the supply and demand sides, and has made possible policies to drastically reduce inventories, technologies just in time and huge shifts in both production and consumption. However, it is true that it has fostered a post-Western world in which a large part of the social agents of developed countries have seen losses not only in relative weight, but even in a reduction in income in real terms for many of them. Not without political consequences: the appearance of anti-globalizing populisms that defend a return to protectionism, barriers to immigration or that question cosmopolitanism to return to the defense of primitive identities are a clear example of these consequences. And, therefore, the crisis of representative democracies based on the limits to political power against the rights and freedoms of citizens.

“Today safety is as important as efficiency. The world is still global, but reality has set certain limits for us»

The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have revealed the limits of this hyperglobalization. Disruptions in global value chains, bottlenecks in supplies, levels of dependency (and vulnerability) on raw materials or essential intermediate components caused, first, by the shock of supply that the pandemic has brought about and, later, due to the use of energy as a weapon of war, they lead us to a certain decoupling in a global world, but compartmentalized, where concepts such as security of supplies, strategic reserves, industrial policy or geopolitical alliances are once again in full force. Is he just in case: safety is as important as efficiency. The world is still global, but reality has set certain limits for us.

As for digitization, a true disruptive revolution, it has changed economic and social relations (also political) in a very profound way. There is no way back. The future is inevitably digital and the great struggle of this century is once again focused on technology and dominance in areas such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of things, Big Data, the blockchain or the cloud. And recent events have not changed the course of that process. In any case (the pandemic), they have accelerated its implementation.

On the energy and environmental transition, there is hardly any debate about what (decarbonise the planet and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible to reduce global warming, and fight for the environment and biodiversity, particularly in seas and oceans ), but a (already prior) debate about when and how has intensified. That is, considering the costs of the transition and the limits imposed by our growth model based until now on energy from fossil resources. The terms and the diversification of energy sources are conditioned by the existing reality. The war has returned to Europe the debate on the use of gas or nuclear energy or even on the use of coal for emergency situations such as the ones we are experiencing. It is a debate that goes beyond the situation, that will depend on the starting points in each country and in each region of the planet, and that will occupy us for the next few decades. It was going to happen anyway, beyond some events that force us to anticipate it.

“Much of what is happening around the Russian invasion of Ukraine must also be read in an Indo-Pacific key”

Finally, the other great macrotrend is the one that derives from the irreversible shift of the geopolitical center of gravity from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. For economic, commercial, demographic or technological reasons. And that is reflected in the explicit struggle for global hegemony between the United States and China, which obviously implies a clear military and collective security component. Something we have been talking about since the end of the last century. Despite now turning Europe’s attention back to criminal Russian aggression, that shift is not going to change its course. In fact, much of what is happening must also be read in that key. One only needs to think about the situation in Taiwan and the claim of its sovereignty by China.

We are therefore moving towards a global world (with limits), digitized, in energy transition and with a new imperfect bipolarity centered on the Indo-Pacific. Nothing very different from what was already happening. Logically, the present and the short term condition our vision of things. But, in historical perspective, you have to look at the big trends and those go beyond the situation.

Another thing is that all this forces us to consider what values ​​we want to be predominant in this world that is coming to us. A future based on the freedom and dignity of people, with a sustainable environment, in which technology is not an instrument for domination and in which geopolitical tensions do not lead us to situations that put our very existence at risk. . Or an alternative future based on totalitarian authoritarianism and the use of force outside International Law.

Another debate that should not ignore the fact that vital problems such as climate change, pandemics or free trade can only be tackled through collaboration.

A difficult and uncertain world. It is in our hands that they have a shared future.