International experts are commenting on the events taking place over the last few years. In particular, President and CEO of Atlantic Council Frederik Kempe believes that we are nearing another race between the world's biggest superpowers.
At this point international investors are concerned about the escalating economic tensions between the USA and China. However, as for international observers, they should not be distracted from studying a new reality, which is round the corner and has been created over a pretty long period.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, one of the biggest challenges today is getting back to the global race with Russia and China. The expert assumes that this is a major problem rather than a challenge since quite a lot has changed since the previous race between the USSR and the USA.
The situation has really changed and the new race seems to be taking place under a completely different set of conditions and in a completely different environment. Essentially, the political forces are now undergoing a stress test within the scope of a zero-sum game. On the other hand, the confrontation is going on within the scope of a global system full of close inner ties, much tighter and more complicated than those seen during the cold war in the last century. The specifics of this confrontation could be seen a couple of months ago, when China participated in the military exercise arranged by Russia. Chances are, the USA uses the trade conflict with China to hint at the existing problem of the alliance between Russia and China.
At the same time, Donald Trump seems to be trying to resist the rising global pressure coming form China. This problem made the USA make up with the European Union in terms of their trade relations. On top of that, President Trump is close to signing an energy agreement with the Philippines. Even though it may seem that those events have nothing to do with each other, Mr. Kempe thinks these are the links of a single chain. When chained together, all of them prove that a new era is round the corner.
The new environment is building amid a range of key factors, including the economic competition between democracies and their adversaries. Nationalist and populism are also affecting the situation, not to mention the technological achievements (including artificial intelligence) seen over the last decade.
Under such circumstances, all major political decisions matter a lot because they may have major consequences further down the road. Yet, it's really hard to predict the consequences amid a constantly changing global environment. It holds especially true for the decisions made by the political powers of Russia, China, and the USA.
