Next year’s global challenges are the most daunting in decades. Biden must prepare for them

Brace yourself for 2022, a year of living dangerously.

 
Many of the world’s most profound gains of the post-World War II era will be tested. The security of Europe and Asia, the resilience of democratic governance, the advance of open markets, the sanctity of individual rights, and the certainty of human progress all are in the balance.

Never in the thirty years since the Cold War’s end has a US president entered a new year confronting such an explosive brew of geopolitical and domestic political uncertainty. They are intertwined like a Gordian knot that only bold action can untangle.

The convergence of these external and internal perils, amid deep US political divisiveness and international diffidence, raises the difficulty level for any effective response.

Then layer onto all that the most disturbing rise of inflation in three decades and the persistent torment of COVID-19. Add to that the certainty that all these issues will drive an even greater wedge between rich and poor countries and peoples. Increased global volatility seems inevitable.

All that said, these are the three external factors that should concern us most immediately in 2022: A revanchist Russia is bent on keeping Ukraine within its grasp; China, similarly, is escalating its threats to Taiwan’s independence (don’t fool yourself that Ukrainian and Taiwanese freedoms can be separated); and Iran is so rapidly moving toward nuclear-weapons breakout capability that Israel may be forced to respond.

 
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Πηγή: atlanticcouncil.org