Strategy&Future

Following Mike Pence’s 2018 Hudson Institute speech, the wider narrative around China began to change — just as it started to become clear how much of China’s wealth had been ploughed back into infrastructure and the military. India hosted the world’s biggest ever elections (and its computer programmers came in for some criticism). The US withdrew its troops from Syrian Kurdistan (and set its sights on space). And in Wuhan, China, rumours emerged of a potential new SARS outbreak. This was 2019…

The Last 21 Years: Year (2)018

In the last seven years of the Obama Presidency (2010-2016), the Dow Jones had risen from 11,500 to 19,500, an average of just over 1,000 points every year. In President Trump’s first year, the increase was nearly 5,000 points, on course for a February 2020 peak of 29,500 points. The seven best performers of 2017 were Boeing (+89.4%), Caterpillar (+69.9%), VISA (+46.1%), Apple (+46.1%), Walmart (+42.9%), McDonalds (+41.4%) and Home Depot (+41.4%).

The Euromaidan protests in Kyiv started on 21st November 2013 after President Viktor Yanukovich announced Ukraine’s suspension of an association agreement with the EU, meaning the East European country would instead seek closer ties with Moscow. This was a post-colour revolution.

Some years are more memorable than others: the terror attacks of 2001, the Iraq invasion of 2003, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the birth of the smartphone era in 2007, the financial crisis of 2008, the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011, the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbas in 2014. And although we might not have thought so at first, 2016 would turn out to be another “one of those years”!

2015 was the year of the European Migrant Crisis, when makeshift refugee camps in Greek Islands off the coast of Turkey began filling up with families (and young men) fleeing the ongoing Syrian Civil War. It was on 31st August that Angela Merkel uttered the famous words: “Wir haben so vieles geschafft – wir schaffen das.”

Barack Obama’s (second) inauguration speech on 21st January 2013 contained this rather hopeful line: “A decade of war is now ending.” What he meant was that it had been nearly a decade since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. But as the situation in neighbouring Syria was now beginning to show, an alternative reality in which the Iraq invasion had never taken place might not have been so calm and peaceful.

The Last 21 Years: (2)012

The Last 21 Years: (2)011

On 4th January 2010, the Burj Khalifa opened in Dubai. At 828 metres, it was the world’s tallest building. In fact, all of the world’s seven-tallest buildings were now located in Asia: Taipei 101 (508 metres, 2004); World Financial Center, Shanghai (492 metres, 2008); International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong (484 metres, 2010); Petronas Towers 1 and 2, Kuala Lumpur (452 metres, 1998); and Zifeng Tower, Nanjing (450 metres, 2010). “We are entering a completely new era of world history,” said Kishore Mahbubani at a lecture at the St. Gallen Symposium. “You’re seeing the end of what I call Western domination of world history but I hasten to add that the end of Western domination of world history is not the end of the West.

The phrase “up in the air” perfectly captures the world at the beginning of 2009 (and, arguably, ever since). So, we have this from Cambridge English Dictionary: “If a matter is up in the air, it is uncertain, often because other matters have to be decided first.” This from Collins Dictionary: “If you say that a decision or a situation is up in the air, you mean that it has not yet been completely settled or planned.” And this from the Macmillan Dictionary: “if a plan is up in the air, you have not yet decided what will happen.”

“The numbers tell us this was a debate between change and experience, and change won.” CNN’s Bill Schneider was referring to the Iowa Democratic Primary on 3rd January 2008 won by Barack Obama (38%), followed by John Edwards 30% and Hillary Clinton 29%. On the Republican side, the winner was Mike Huckabee (34%), followed by Mitt Romney (25%), Fred Thompson (13%), John McCain (13%) and Ron Paul (10%). “People really are more important than the purse,” said Huckabee (in reference to Romney’s well-funded campaign), “and what a great lesson for America to learn.” But there was still a long way to go in both races.