As we begin a new year, here is a basic overview of global politics.
World Powers
If a country is truly a world power, it must be in the top 10% for GDP, Population, and military strength. For pure power, I’m going to leave out the question of whether a country is Democratic or not. Only six countries are in the top tenth percentile on these three metrics. These are the democracies of Germany, Japan, the United States, and India, and the authoritarian regimes of Russia and China.
Germany, Japan, and the United States perform well regarding press freedom, corruption perceptions, and The Economist Democracy Index. India struggles with corruption and press freedom. Russia and China perform horribly on all three metrics as corrupt, authoritarian regimes.
When looking at only countries, the United States is undeniably the most powerful country in the world. Our economy dwarfs China, and we have far better foreign relations than they do. The probability of a revolution in the United States is 0, while there is still a possibility in China, given the corruption in their society.
If we look at the European Union as a bloc, it is the only other global power.
Japan is still a world power. Germany is the most powerful country in Europe.
If we ignore military expenditure, we see Mexico, Indonesia, and Brazil are large economies. Their \press freedom scores are average, and they struggle with corruption, but are democracies.
There is a wide array of democracies to which the United States and our allies can extend closer relations worldwide. Most of these countries are members of the OECD, which does much good worldwide. We can and should further leverage the OECD to improve the world in the future. I will discuss this in depth below.
In terms of authoritarian regimes which Russia and China can reach out to, most of them are poor. The others are all petrostates which maintain cordial relations with the United States and Europe because we buy their oil. Given the isolation of Iran, it is the only other authoritarian regime of note with the military expenditure to make a real difference worldwide. The others and China are too constrained by trade to be a real threat to democracy. Russia is the only country with an economic situation to be a real global threat to peace outside of proxy wars like in Syria.
Other countries are regional threats, but none besides Russia have the economic, diplomatic, political, and military capability to be a global menace. The US is constrained by our democratic institutions most of the time, to the point where we are hesitant even to send aid to Ukraine.
China will likely not change any time soon, and they have a domestic balance of power.
Russia will see a tumultuous time domestically when they lose their Invasion of Ukraine. The United States and NATO should speed this up by sending as much aid to Ukraine as we are sending to Israel.
United States
The United States is the preeminent world power today. We will have our elections in November, which will likely be a close race. The current forecasts show Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania will be the swing states in the upcoming year. Whoever wins Wisconsin will be President.
This is where I am becoming worried. After Trump’s failed presidency, Biden should have a slam-dunk victory. But his polling numbers are very poor, and they have been since the Afghanistan withdrawal. He sometimes fails to get over 50% of the polling sample against Donald Trump in Illinois. Michigan is a toss-up. The problem is the candidates. He even sometimes loses in polling against Ron DeSantis.
The Senate elections are also a toss-up. Democrats must pick up Arizona while keeping Montana and Ohio to maintain control of the Senate, assuming Biden wins reelection. Republicans will keep the seat in West Virginia. Florida needs more polling, as there is only one poll so far, which showed the Democrat ahead by 1%. We might be able to win in Florida.
Given everything Trump has said and done, this election should be a landslide for Democrats.
Biden needs a big win soon, and that can come as either making clear progress in Ukraine by allowing them to strike Russian military bases in Russia. It could also come through a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and transferring Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.
European Union and NATO
The European is the only other place aside from the United States with the population and GDP to rival the United States. Their GDP has continued to be stagnant since 2008. Besides that, their economy is strong.
There will be a European Parliamentary election in June and national elections in Belgium, Croatia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Moldova, San Marino, and Slovakia.
No big swings are expected, according to the latest polling in the EU for the EU Parliament. EPP will continue to be the largest party. Assuming no major upsets, France will continue to be mostly represented by the National Rally, and Germany will likely continue to give the most seats to CDU. Currently, there is a very slim center-right-right wing majority in parliament. The Left, Renew, S&D, and Greens have 351 seats out of 705. Polling shows no signs of any massive changes in parliament.
The European Council has slightly more left-of-center politicians than Parliament as a percentage of the total, with Germany, Bulgaria, and France having left-of-center heads of government. At the same time, their delegation to parliament is majority right wing. other countries mostly match their parliamentary representation.
Despite Austrian opposition, the European Union is working toward letting Romania and Bulgaria into Schengen. The sooner the borders can be fully opened, the better.
I don’t anticipate any groundbreaking changes in Europe this year.
NATO
NATO will continue the way it is. We will hopefully increase aid to Ukraine so they can win the war this year.
Rest of the World
India will have a general election in April and May. Modi is leading in the polls.
Mexico will have an election this year. MORENA’s candidate will likely win.
Many smaller countries will have elections this year as well.
Six countries are applying for membership in the OECD. I don’t know if any will be accepted by the end of the year. I put the odds at 50/50. Expanding the OECD is a righteous goal. Getting better information on what is happening in an economy allows politicians to make better decisions, which helps improve everything. I want OECD membership to come with trade and travel benefits. Start with free trade, a collective security system, and eliminating visas. Eventually, it built towards a single market and elimination of customs between member states by expanding Schengen to OECD members as they met acquis. This is a very long-term but worthy goal. For now, we need to expand OECD membership to all democracies worldwide to improve their statistics departments, which significantly helps development by implementing best practices.
A bunch of authoritarian regimes joined BRICS on Monday. This is not important because they do not have a unified foreign policy. No other BRICS member voted in Russia’s favor in UN General Assembly Resolution ES-11/1 regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Their economies are mostly low-income, and all new joiners are authoritarian regimes. BRICS is not a major force in the world, and they never will be.
Current conflicts
The two largest ongoing conflicts today are the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the War in Gaza. Other large wars are in Myanmar, which saw a collapse of its democratic government a few years ago, terrorism in the Maghreb, and the ongoing Civil War in Sudan.
The wars in Sudan and Burma are due to unstable local governments and are highly unlikely to spill across international borders.
The Gaza War is spilling into Lebanon and Syria now. If Russia wins in Ukraine, it will not be their last invasion of a sovereign territory. The sooner the Palestinian people can be granted citizenship in a recognized state, either of Israel or recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state, and Russia leaves Ukraine, the better. Those are the only solutions to these conflicts. All other paths only lead to more war in the future.
The Syrian Civil War, Mexican Drug War, Yemeni Civil War, and other smaller conflicts continue to brew across the world. The Syrian and Yemeni Civil Wars are proxy wars. These are due to Saudi Arabia and Iran being authoritarian regimes and Russia being involved in Syria propping up Bashar al-Assad. Removing Putin from power will significantly help the Syrian Civil War come to a close. The Yemeni Civil War and the terrorism in the Maghreb will be solved by eliminating financial support from terrorist organizations.
There are solutions to every war in the world today, but some people in power do not want a realistic solution that will lead to peace and freedom because it threatens their power.
Economics
The United States Yield curve remains inverted. Despite this, the economy continues to chug along. We will have a recession someday. No one knows when that will happen.
Unemployment remains low, and the economy is good right now. However, real median household income has declined since 2019 in the United States because of oil price inflation. GDP growth has been positive since the COVID-19 recession.
Regarding global economic output, I expect a continuation of the status quo regarding growth.
Climate change remains the biggest threat to the global economy.