In January 2018 I attempted to summarise some significant
elements in Homo Sapiens continuing and quite rapid evolution during 2017(see: https://bit.ly/2QbHVx2
).
During 2018, I think it’s safe to say that America remained
at the top of the pile in terms of politics thanks to the wonderful President
Trump. And in the UK, the political
soap-opera called Brexit has caused me to adopt a Pavlovian deafness leading to
the changing of the radio or TV channel, whenever the topic comes up.
So, the same question as in previous years; how to summarise
2018?
I think one word works reasonably well: Disruption.
As with last year’s summary, we have to start with America.
America
Having recently read Fire
and Fury, Inside the Trump Whitehouse by Michael Wolff, it’s fairly clear
that, during the first 9 months, a bunch of rank amateurs unexpectedly found
themselves in charge of the world’s largest economy. In the meantime most of the President’s
“advisors” have either been fired or resigned whilst the President continues
his disruptive themes trying to demolish the previous administrations
successes, build his beloved wall along the Mexican border and wield the
baseball bat to the Paris Climate Agreement, Iranian Nuclear Treaty, NAFTA plus
almost everything Chinese. Not to
mention the antics with North Korea.
Not surprisingly the Republicans lost ground in the 2018 November
mid-term election meaning they will have to work even harder to achieve any
meaningful legislation; something that was unlikely, before the mid-terms, due
to the dysfunction in the White House.
Should we feel sorry for the White House staff that are
responsible for crafting policies and getting the President to understand,
promote and sign them off? Yes and
no. As I mentioned in last year’s
summary, in American business culture, subordinates always do what the Boss
wants. This means the White House will likely
continue to be very disruptive with staff coming and going on a regular basis,
because the adage is true: old dogs rarely learn new tricks. Plus, the allure of “power”, or working with
the president, overwhelms sanity as Tillerson, Mattis, Sessions and even Spicer
now probably concur. If Wolff’s account
is anywhere near the truth, the corruption of power is rampant in the White
House.
What does this mean for 2019? The most-likely answer is: More of the same,
but the level of disruption may have peaked in 2018. However, it could easily continue at a high
plateau as the mess with China, Iran and immigration, continues bubbling away. There might be an endlessly replenishing
queue of people keen to work for the President; however, these are unlikely to
be the people the Federal Government actually needs.
On balance American politics is still backwards-looking but
some people consider the hugely disruptive effects being long overdue. Time will tell whether the extensive fall-out
from President Trump’s policies end up with a positive or negative balance
sheet. If President Trump does not
continue in the White House after 2020, the next President will probably need
the entire term to deal with the mess of the current administration.
As the ongoing investigation into Russian influence on the
2016 Presidential election continues to indict aides, politicians and lawyers
who have worked with the President; it’s important to understand that
corruption is widespread in American politics and business.
France
Sadly and perhaps not surprisingly President Macron’s
disruption of French politics appears to have been de-railed in 2018, largely
it would appear due to his own character plus his and his party’s political
inexperience. After decades of
socialism, the list of reforms is extensive and almost always means someone
pays more tax or gets less benefits, or both.
Which your average French person is not going to be happy with; having
had many benefits for a long time.
In 2017, the highlight was that France decided they had had
enough of useless socialist politicians and voted for a new, inexperienced
party and president. But it would appear
they didn’t vote to move away from the well-entrenched socialist system. This is not surprising.
What will be interesting to see in 2019, is if President
Macron can regain control and continue the reform programme. I suspect he will turn out to be the
equivalent of a commercial break in-between the well-established socialist
culture. There’s not a lot of time left
until the next election in 2022, when the next episode of (reformed?) socialist
politics could resume its place at the Élysée Palace. So, 2019 will almost certainly be a pivotal
year for President Macron; will he sink or swim?
United Kingdom
The UK has, as most people are aware,
been almost totally consumed by the divorce process from the European
Union. Tedious is an
understatement. The media have
crystal-ball gazed, speculated and hyped the minutiae, driven by the three main
factions; so-called Brexiteers, Remainers and the befuddled Labour Party.
The EU did a sterling job setting
out their requirements, whilst the Conservative Party were dismal; a political
failure at completely the wrong time.
Can it get worse? Yes it can, as
events leading up to the divorce date at the end of March 2019, will likely
demonstrate.
The Prime Minister, Theresa May,
can be applauded for being extremely thick skinned and dogged; however, the disjointed
approach, lack of buy-in from her own party (let alone anyone else) and current
game of chicken with the EU, is probably the worst negotiating process
possible.
But, it is currently (as of Jan19) very
clear the Prime Minister's strategy is to run the clock down towards a No-Deal
Brexit.
Having (consciously?) lost the vote
on her EU agreed plan, which generated huge angst with the media going into
over-drive. Then she won the very stupid
Labour Party-sponsored No-Confidence Vote (with the media at fever pitch again).
Mrs May's strategy is quite clear: Show
the EU the choice is to re-negotiate the Northern Ireland Backstop, or divorce
with No Deal.
I find it highly amusing the UK politicians and media folk appear not to understand that the UK’s success, in
this hugely significant negotiation, relies on maintaining the threat of No
Deal, in order to force a compromise.
All those people
trying to remove the Government’s ability to leave without a deal are actually
pulling the carpet from under the country!
As with the majority of big
negotiations, as it gets closer to the end March 2019 deadline, I expect both
sides to focus on avoiding the No Deal worst case scenario. The most-likely outcome is a joint compromise
on the Northern Ireland backstop. Consequently,
the first quarter of 2019 is likely to be even more painful than the whole of
2018!
Could the UK have negotiated the divorce
more effectively? Of course, but this
presupposes there are suitably qualified people with an effective management
system focussed on achieving the best outcome for the country (not oneself or
one’s party). In modern British politics
there are two people who potentially could have negotiated effectively: Winston
Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. None of the current class have the expertise,
presence or personality. Some, like
Boris Johnson, seem to think they do; when it’s very clear, they don’t!
In an ideal world, a coalition
approach would probably have been more effective in achieving Brexit; where
party loyalties were suspended with an agreed political consensus on the best
possible outcome for the country. In the
current populist and partisan era, the likelihood of such an approach, in the
UK, is effectively zero.
As Brexit is going to be all
consuming, probably until the end of March; it’s difficult to see what else the
UK will achieve in 2019; maybe nothing!
If the divorce gets postponed beyond March, I will seriously consider
moving to an isolated island in NW Scotland.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s progress towards a
21st Century, respected market economy has been de-railed mainly by
inexperience, but also by criminality.
Like in France, changing a well-established, ingrained national culture
is hugely difficult and has probably been under-estimated by their young
leader.
It’s reported that the large young
population support the reforms, which is not surprising as having the ability
to drive, go to a cinema and not be harassed by the religious police were
freedoms most western countries enjoyed as far back as the early part of the 20th
century.
The planned IPO of Aramco appears
to have stalled, foreign direct investment is static or declining as a result
of uncertainty, plus the war in Yemen continues to get a bad press; let alone
murdering a citizen in their consulate in Turkey.
2018 could be described as one
small (social) step forward and three significant steps backwards. It’s hard to think Saudi Arabia could have a
worse year than 2018.
Russia
Russia continues to be the
blinkered bad boy. It’s been reported
the underlying theme is that Russia needs to be respected and that to achieve
this Russia needs to be feared. Hence
the recent announcement they have developed a supersonic(?) nuclear missile
which can penetrate known defence systems.
What a fantastic use of limited economic resources! The government continues to live in the past
and bullies its neighbours to try to show who is the most important country in
the region. Most of the world moved on
from this self-centred paranoia after the Korean War, but not Russia.
The school-boy bully mentality
continues with Ukraine. It would be
interesting to understand how meddling in Ukraine results in Ukraine becoming
pro-Russia. Or, after the failed
assassination attempt on the Skripals in the UK, how Russia can expect to
receive any respect from modern democratic nations (except perhaps from a
misguided American President).
If you were to ask Russians in a
referendum to choose between the current government’s policies or free-market,
liberal policies (say like the UK); older people would likely support the
current “make Russia Great Again” (see the connection?) and younger people
would support the “normal”, non-corrupt, democratic model. Russia hasn’t fully transitioned away from
the Soviet Union, which means The West still needs to maintain a degree of
containment until a competent, brave leader attempts to dismantle the corrupt
political and business systems. Don’t
hold your breath.
As The West deferred too much to
China in terms of its commercial strategy, more pressure is probably required
in order to constrain Russia’s economic development; in order to facilitate
change.
China
Thanks to President Trump’s trade
war, China has been forced to re-evaluate its commercial strategy with trading
partners and domestic businesses. This
is welcome, because China had its cake and ate it all, whilst fleecing foreign
businesses who wanted to tap into their vast market. And hoovering up as much intellectual
property as possible. We tend to forget
that China is in-effect a Communist dictatorship with state industries as well
as (relatively) free market businesses.
The Communist Party considers
constraining personal and business freedoms essential to maintain control,
whereas the real reason is simply to maintain power. China’s totally ridiculous claim to vast
areas of the South China Sea, with rest of the World’s acquiescence, allowed
them to construct military bases. Maybe
America has simply resourced sufficient ICBMs to knock-out each of the sites
whilst continuing regular freedom of navigation activities?
Some of the attitudes emanating
from Beijing have similarities to those emanating from Moscow, albeit they are
completely different cultures, with China continuing to grow its economy,
whilst Russia struggles.
Venezuela
What a mess! Dictatorship, corruption, economic
miss-management, failing infrastructure, food & medicine shortages, etc.
And this horrendous situation is quietly supported by
Russia, China, Cuba and North Korea amongst others.
The interesting news, as I write this, is that a legitimate leader
has emerged and ordinary people no longer support the illegitimate dictator. Let’s hope the Army make the right decision,
otherwise there could be a lot of bloodshed.
So Venezuela’s awful 2018 will hopefully evolve into a
better 2019, with the removal of Maduro.
But, the task of re-building the country is huge and the political culture
and institutions are largely missing.
Not a promising situation.
Wrap Up
In Germany the beginning of the end of Mrs Merkel’s long term in
power, started. Amongst her many
successes were a couple of significant political failures; the mass immigration
episode and closing down nuclear power generation.
2018 saw increasing populism and disruption to the extent that
countries such as China and Russia were able to sit back and watch the disarray
which, of course, would not be possible in those countries.
In the past I’ve used the word decadence to summarise the state of
certain democracies. In 2018 and likely in
2019, dysfunction, disruption and populism continue to be the themes in
democracies whilst pseudo and non-democracies remain relatively stable;
ensuring (in their view dangerous) freedoms are suppressed.
Do give your own thoughts on my assessment in the comment section below.
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