Paul Moorcraft
7 January 2009
column
Johannesburg — AL-QAEDA had better hurry up if it wants to bring about the destruction of the west before the west implodes. The end-timers, waving Nostradamus or the Book of Revelation, predict the final signs of imminent Armageddon.
Top scientists such as Richard Dawkins even talk of the end of human evolution - though the Neanderthal behaviour of some western politicians suggests that the human species still has a long way to go.
Globalisation brought cheap goodies from Asia, but interconnectedness has also toppled financial dominoes worldwide. And the financial crisis will get worse this year. Comparisons with the 1930s depression are valid. The collapse started in 1929 and hit bottom in 1933. Even then another shorter slump followed; only a world war jump-started the US economy. Pessimists foretell the rise of neo-Nazism throughout Europe in the coming slump.
In 2009, war is not the answer: the US military machine is seriously overstretched. Washington will start to bring the legions home. Six months ago, we were told that the Russian bear was re-igniting the Cold War. But capital flight from Moscow following the Georgian war, the credit crunch and fall in oil prices mean no more Mr Tough Guy for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, though he still might do something stupid, such as reclaim the Crimea, thus putting the Ukraine and Nato on a war footing.
No honeymoon period for Barack Obama: his in-tray groans. Yet Americans believe that he will save the country and the capitalist system. In last year's elections his race was seen as a unifying factor, while paradoxically Hillary Clinton's gender was considered divisive. Obama promised change to the US and the world. His team, however, consists of recycled has-beens from the Bill Clinton era, along with some of Bush's security experts. This is continuity as much as change.
A US ministry of all the talents makes sense. But Hillary may undermine the president. Or Bill may go walkabout: he clearly has trouble in the trouser department, though a dalliance with Sarah Palin is highly unlikely.
The US will withdraw some of its troops from Iraq this year. The war there has cost $700bn, the same as the economic recovery package at home. Afghanistan will be Obama's nemesis, however. Within two years, the Nato coalition there will have collapsed, leaving the US and a very begrudging British contingent to prop up the fiction of centralised rule in Kabul. For centuries, local warlords have always hated any kind of central rule, especially if it is backed by the guns of infidels -- British, Russian or American.
How quickly the west withdraws depends partly on whether Pakistan disintegrates. Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world as far as Islamic extremism is concerned. India certainly thinks so and may go to war with Pakistan this year, but it will be a conventional struggle -- the nuclear sword will be brandished but not used.
Iran will continue to become a dominant regional power, whether or not President Dinner Jacket (as George Bush dubbed him) is removed. Iran will judge itself a success if it is not bombed by the US or Israel, though a Democrat in the White House, and Israel's current preoccupation with Gaza, may mean a delay in removing Iran's nuclear arsenal.
Washington will be preoccupied by economic woes. Who will pay for the trillion-dollar bail-out of banks and motor corporations? Eventually US taxpayers, or their children; right now by borrowing from foreigners. The dollar, like imperial Austria's Maria Theresa dollar, will decline as a central reserve currency. Why should sensible investors in the Gulf or Asia continue to trust in dollar-denominated instruments, when it is clear that US politicians and economists are not fit to run a burger bar? The Chinese could make political use of their vast dollar reserves, but they will be very careful as to how they unload them.
Britain is potentially worse off than the US. Prime Minister Gordon Brown caused some of the mess, but is he the man to fix it? He says so, but his rhetoric is like suggesting al-Qaeda rebuilds the World Trade Center. A national crisis government of all parties will be formed in the UK in the next 18 months, with the Queen abdicating in favour of her grandson.
Western capitalism is sick, but not dead. The multipolarity of reserve currencies will also mean an increasing multipolarity of political and military power. But don't expect this to be reflected in a bigger, more democratic United Nations Security Council too soon.
There is no such thing as a free crunch, but the depression will bring some good news.
Now largely nationalised, British bankers -- the new collective term is "wunch of bankers" -- will be unlikely to get their fat-cat bonuses, after they had privatised their previous gains and socialised their current losses. The downfall of the masters of the universe permits a greener world. What is bad for the economy is mostly good for the environment. The European Union will make real strides in agreeing to curb carbon emissions. Top executives will be ditching their private jets; the middle classes are being forced to abandon their rural retreats in France; and the great unwashed will have to take their beach holidays in Blackpool, not Benidorm.
Flights over- seas and, increasingly, cars at home will become a luxury as they were 50 years ago in Britain. The surviving big car companies will invest heavily, at last, in effective small electric cars to help ease the end of the turbo-charged lifestyle. BMWs give way to bicycles. McDonald's becomes trendy.
Mass unemployment will haunt Britain, but at least that also includes estate agents. The sharp drop in house prices in the UK banishes crowing at dinner parties, when middle-class salaries were less than the monthly increase in their house prices. The bubble was bound to burst -- now first-time house-buyers have a chance, if they have saved. Credit for mortgages and everything else will be tight for years. Expect public bonfires of credit cards.
The UK bishops praise this nemesis of greed: where people spend far too much time working long hours at jobs they hate to buy things they don't really need. Families, with more leisure, spend more time at home playing Monopoly, not shopping frenetically in malls. Parks and libraries will be properly utilised.
Eventually the depression will ease, in maybe two to three years. But the war goes on. British intelligence still worries about a "dirty bomb" -- high-explosives mixed with radiated material. Planted in the City of London it could cause mass effect without mass casualties, as the buildings could be off-limits for decades. Even a conventional major Islamist bombing will foment a popular backlash: mosques will burn in the UK.
Nevertheless, Islamist terrorism has not struck again in the US since 2001. Despite leaving office as the most despised president in living memory, Bush may be rehabilitated. Iraq may yet become a democracy of sorts. Bush also helped to reshape Nato. His successor, despite his dreams, will have to relearn that the US, while needing to work more closely with allies, still requires hard power.
Wishful thinking might include the implosion of North Korea, and a reunification with the south. If we are being optimistic, let's suggest that a cure for the common cold is found; the cure for cancer will take another decade or two.
And Africa? Obama, part-Kenyan, may have more effect on the continent's woes, though African leaders tend to dislike patronising Afro-Americans. Obama's intelligence and charm may win through, however. He will understand that the west cannot lecture Africa and pledge "an end to world poverty" when it can't even regulate a subprime mortgage market.
Congo will get worse, so will Somalia. But the threat of muscular "humanitarian" intervention by Commonwealth-led forces (with British staff officers and medical teams), allied with key states such as Botswana, will prompt senior Zimbabwean officers to dethrone Robert Mugabe. He will go into exile in Asia. In Sudan, President Omar el-Bashir will escape his summons to The Hague for trial. (Moves to indict Bush and Tony Blair for war crimes at the same venue will fail, though that will not prevent rumours of the Pope considering a future beatification of the blessed Tony.)
Chinese and Indian investment in Africa will continue but at a slower rate. The rapid expansion of cellphones, especially after the addition of east Africa to the global fibre-optic system in 2009-10, and new links in the west coast of Africa, will speed the decline of central despotism.
And democracy might be invigorated in SA if the Congress of the People continues to grow. In the unlikely event that President Kgalema Motlanthe proves to be much more popular than he appears now, he might even derail Jacob Zuma's gravy train.
So not all is gloom for 2009. Enjoy the new year.
Prof Moorcraft is the director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis, London.
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