2016 in review: five things we learnt this year
Andrew Dorman
As 2016 comes to an end five factors stand out which will have a profound effect on events in 2017 and beyond.
Lesson 1: Out of touch elites
The various votes in Europe and the United States over the course of 2016 have demonstrated how out of touch the West’s political elites are from their electorates. The British vote to leave the European Union, the election of Donald Trump as the 45th US President and the nomination of Francois Fillon as the Gaullist candidate for the 2017 French election all came as a surprise, running counter to the opinion polls. The one to watch in 2017 will be the French presidential election in May. Far Right candidate Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning this, potentially resulting in a French vote to leave the EU which would make Brexit an irrelevance.
Lesson 2: Post-truth politics
We have now entered a ‘post-truth’ world. While many concepts and ideas have always been contested, this year we we have witnessed the phenomenon of individuals increasingly drawing their information from sources that reinforce their own perceptions. The impact of digital media, particularly the social media echo chamber, should not be underestimated here. A recent survey of the US electorate showed disagreements between Trump and non-Trump supporters over basic statistics which previously had been agreed. Thus, the non-Trump supporters believe that US unemployment fell during the Obama years while the Dow Jones Stock Exchange rose. Trump supporters believe the reverse is true and that unemployment increased as the Dow Jones fell. A similar dispute is emerging over mass voter fraud and Russian interference in the election. If this trend continues 2017 could be a bumper year for conspiracy theories.
Lesson 3: Globalization rejected
Third, there has been a rise in opposition to the forces of globalization, and the existing political order. This has been played out with ever-growing opposition to immigration and free trade agreements. The European dream of ever greater political and economic union is now often viewed as a fantasy, particularly among those who have felt marginalised. This has been evident in the form of rising nationalist populism, opposition to trade deals, and support for individuals and parties who portray themselves as ‘anti-establishment’. 2017 may well see increasing rather than decreasing protectionism and the election of more radical anti-establishment leaders and governments.
Lesson 4: Trump ignores convention
As the US prepares for a Trump presidency, it is already clear that Trump does not feel constrained either by existing US policy or the conventional way of going about things. Thus, in speaking to the Taiwanese president Trump broke with 40 years of US policy and caused anger in China. Similarly, Trump’s questioning of the NATO Article 5 commitment during the election campaign left a number of US allies distraught, frantically scrambling to engage with the Trump administration and seeking reassurance about their existing relationships. At a minimum, it looks inevitable that a Trump administration will at best be more unpredictable. At worst we might see an unpicking of the existing world order.
Lesson 5: Inter-state war imminent?
The potential for inter-state war appears to be on the rise once again. The year closes with images of the fall of Aleppo, while the war in Yemen continues. The member states of NATO have already highlighted their concerns about Russian involvement in Ukraine and Syria, and there are serious fears about Russia seizing the Baltic States. Tensions between Pakistan and India are once more on the rise and it is not clear that any conflict would be contained to the conventional level. Fresh images of China’s military deployment on various man-made islands in the South China Sea have emerged. The question to ask about 2017 is not whether there will be an inter-state war but rather where will it be and how much of it will be fought overtly as opposed to via proxies, the internet, and other non-conventional means including the use of special forces.
Conclusion
These five factors all challenge the existing western establishment and the way in which international systems currently operate. Individually and collectively they will continue to pose significant challenges to policy-makers and at this point we still have little sense of their true scope and scale. If the lessons of 2016 tell us anything it is that the pace of change appears to have increased, leaving individuals, societies and nations struggling to adapt. One thing is for sure: 100 years after the revolutions in Russia that resulted in the collapse of the Tsarist empire and its replacement by the Soviet Union, major change again looks to be on the cards for the world as we currently know it.
Andrew Dorman is the Commissioning Editor of International Affairs. He is also a Professor of International Security at King’s College, London.
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