The geopolitical risks we face today stem from solutions to earlier excesses
The International Monetary Fund recently raised a note of caution about India’s rising public debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio as part of a standard process of assessing country risks. Today, there is a burgeoning cottage industry of storied institutions that are compiling lists of risks arising not for specific countries, but at a global level across the domains of economics, politics, geopolitics and society.
The World Economic Forum has referred to the current concatenation of hazards as a ‘polycrisis,’ a situation “where disparate crises interact such that the overall impact far exceeds the sum of each part." However, the literature, rich as it is, fails to recognize that current risks have deep historical roots and that they have been in the making for well over 70 years. This cognitive gap acts as a barrier, preventing us from seeing the present juncture in the correct perspective and formulating an appropriate response.
The geopolitical risks that have arisen in the face of an aggressive China flexing its muscle and the Ukraine war are well appreciated. However, the fact that these risks are directly a result of the self-serving policies of the US is not acknowledged.
In 1972, in the midst of the Cold War, US president Richard Nixon fashioned a détente with China to exploit the wedge in Sino-Soviet relations arising from their differing ideological perspectives on Communism. The US’s economic engagement with China was also an attempt to mitigate its dependence on Japan and the East Asian economies that had shot into prominence in the 50s and 60s.
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