Introducing the axis of upheaval

Article written by Niall Ferguson, Professor of History at Harvard University, published by The Times on March 14th, 2009 (as underlined by Borjabrela)

In 2002 George W. Bush warned of an Axis of Evil that was assisting terrorists, acquiring weapons of mass destruction, and "arming to threaten the peace of the world". According to President Bush, the Axis of Evil had three members: Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

Barack Obama faces a larger and potentially more troubling axis: an axis of upheaval. What unites them is not so much their wicked intentions as their instability, which the global financial crisis only makes worse every day.

When Mr Bush's speechwriters coined the phrase Axis of Evil, they were drawing a parallel with the wartime alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan. The axis of upheaval, by contrast, is more reminiscent of the decade before the outbreak of the Second World War, when the Great Depression unleashed a wave of global political crises.

There is good reason to fear that the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression could have comparable consequences for the international system.

Three factors made the location and timing of lethal organised violence more or less predictable in the last century. The first was ethnic disintegration: violence was wordst in areas where majorities lived uneasily side by side with religious or linguistic minorities. The second factor was empires in decline: when imperial rule crumbled, battles for power were most bloody. The third was economic volatility: the greater the magnitude and frequency of economic shocks, the more likely conflict was.

In at least one of the world's regions - the greater Middle East - two of these three factors have been present for som time.

Now the third variable, economic volatility, has returned. The "Great Moderation" has been obliterated by a financial chain reaction now triggering collapses in asset prices, production and trade around the world.

It won't be as bad as the Great Depression that began in 1929 because governments worldwide are trying to repress this new depression with policies undreamt of 80 years ago, but Depression Lite will cause a substantial increase in unemployment and a painful decline in incomes. Such pain nearly always has geopolitical consequences.

There are some parts of the world where upheaval is the norm: Congo, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Mexico, Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan. As the global crisis snuffs out what little remains of economic activity, events have fanned the flames of Islamist radicalism: rising unemployment means more frustrated young men with nothing better to do than to fantasise about jihad. Expect also gains for sabre-rattling nationalists.

History suggests that it is precisely when such regimes feel insecure that they are most likely to take foreign policy risks. Vladimir Putin declared at Davos, "Provoking military-political conflicts is also a convenient way of deflecting people's attention from mounting social and economic problems".

The most likely recruits to radical Islamist organisations are not the millions of dirt-poor slumdogs but the relatively well-off educated twentysomethings who have glimpsed prosperity only to have their hopes dashed.

The crisis of globalisation is bringing trouble to parts of the world we thought had been made safe for democracy. The financial crisis is proving to be most sever among the newly industrialised countries of Asia: South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. Of the three, Thailand is the most politically vulnerable.

Eastern European countries, many of which were formerly Communist, are paying the price of a reckless borrowing binge: Latvia, Ukraine. The Soviet Union may be gone, but it has left a legacy of Russian minorities all over Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Adding economic volatility to the mix of ethnic disintegration and post-imperial conflict is a recipe for upheaval.

The problem is that, as in the 1930s, most countries are looking inward, grappling with the domestic consequences of the economic crisis and paying little attention to the wider world crisis. This is true even of the US.

The US gross federal debt is going to balloon to 100 per cent of GBP within ten years. For US foreign policy, this implies that resources available for policing the world are certain to be reduced.

Economic volatility, plus ethnic disintegration, plus empires in decline: that combination is about the most lethal in geopolitics. We now have al three. The age of upheaval starts here.

I find this article interesting and accurate. I hope you find it the same.

Love and Freedom.