Two Visions of The Future: A new global disorder or the noose of nationalism?

New world disorder

The swift and chaotic shift in both domestic and especially foreign policy under Donald Trump has rendered forecasts from just three months ago echoes of a bygone world. At first glance, this fate could have befallen the large-scale Global Foresight survey, which is conducted annually by the Atlantic Council to capture current perceptions of the direction in which the world and the international system are moving and what they might look like in a decade. The survey of over 350 renowned experts was conducted at the end of 2024 – after Trump’s victory but before his team began the chaotic implementation of their MAGA plans. However, it is uncertain whether the current level of revolutionary change will persist. Revolutionary agendas, Trump’s included, often undergo a phase of normalisation, where much of the hastily declared transformation is either reversed or left unrealised.

The survey primarily reflects how perceptions of the world’s trajectory shifted in 2024. Last year’s edition, while capturing growing anxieties within the expert community – such as fears of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation in response to Moscow’s nuclear blackmail – still depicted the future as relatively balanced and not devoid of hope (→ Re:Russia: Gloomy With A Glimpse of Sunshine). The majority of experts believed that by 2034, the US would remain the global leader, Israel would normalise relations with Saudi Arabia, Vladimir Putin would exit the political stage, and Ukraine would likely reclaim the territories occupied in 2022 and join the EU and NATO – nearly half of those surveyed held this view. The new survey, however, paints a much more troubling and chaotic picture.

First, Trump’s victory, despite his promises of a new era of American greatness, led experts to significantly downgrade their expectations of US global influence. Confidence that the US will remain the dominant military power in ten years fell by 10 percentage points (from 81% to 71%) compared to last year's forecast. Confidence in US technological leadership dropped by 5 points (from 63% to 58%). Most strikingly, the percentage of those who believe the US will be able to maintain its security alliances in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East plummeted by 18 points (from 79% to 61%). At the same time, the share of experts predicting that Europe will achieve 'strategic autonomy' within the decade rose from 32% to 48% – one of the few positive shifts in the forecast.

The weakening of the US and the collective power of the West – exemplified by its inability to effectively counter Putin’s aggression in Ukraine – alongside Trump’s return, forms the central theme of the 2024 forecasts: an expectation of instability and imbalance in the global order. Last year, a quarter of respondents identified 'war between major powers' as a key threat. This year, 40% of experts now believe a new world war could occur within the next decade. The percentage of those expecting China to attempt to seize Taiwan has jumped from 50% to 65%, making it a near-consensus view. Similarly, expectations of an armed conflict between Russia and NATO have surged, from 23% two years ago, to 29% last year, to 45% today. Once a peripheral concern, this scenario has now become central to global risk assessments.

The sense of instability is also reflected in a sharp decline in the number of experts confident that nuclear weapons will not be used within the next decade – falling by 11 points, from 63% to 52%. However, the perceived leading actor in a potential nuclear catastrophe has changed. Last year, experts identified terrorist groups as the most likely nuclear aggressor (20%), followed by North Korea (15%) and Russia (14%). Now, the fear of terrorist-led nuclear attacks remains nearly unchanged (19%), but Russia (26%) and North Korea (24%) have surged to the top of the list of nuclear threats. These fears have significantly increased global concerns about the risk of a nuclear Armageddon. Additionally, the share of experts considering Israel’s use of nuclear weapons plausible has doubled over the past year, from 6% to 12%. The perception that new nuclear states will emerge within the next decade has also strengthened, with nearly 90% of experts now expecting this. As in previous years, over 70% predict Iran will obtain nuclear weapons, while confidence that Saudi Arabia will follow suit has risen to over 40%. Notably, the probability of South Korea acquiring nuclear status has surged from 25% to 40%.

This bleak outlook is compounded by pessimistic assessments of global democracy. 47% of experts foresee the current 'democratic recession' worsening into a 'democratic depression', while 65% predict that media freedom will continue to decline worldwide. Expectations regarding the outcome of the war in Ukraine have also shifted dramatically in Russia’s favor. Now, nearly half of experts (47%) predict that the war will end under terms favorable to the Kremlin. At the same time, Russia remains the leading candidate for state collapse due to internal instability, though the percentage of experts expecting such an outcome has declined only slightly, from 35% to 30%. In other words, in the eyes of roughly a third of experts, success in Ukraine will not make Russia more stable internally.

The noose of nationalism

It is easy to see that the forecasts of Atlantic Council experts are strongly influenced by current agendas and largely project them into the future. A contrasting example is the global ten-year forecast by the RANE Network (Risk Assistance Network and Exchange), a risk analysis company that acquired Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting), one of the most well-known strategic analysis and forecasting centres, in 2020. The RANE ten-year forecast is an attempt to look beyond the inertia of current trends, whose mechanical extension is the basis of most predictive exercises, and to trace the internal logic and time horizons of processes that provoke today’s apocalyptic expectations.

The main vector, as RANE analysts write, remains unchanged from their 2020 forecast: resistance to the ideals of unchecked globalisation will become even more pronounced, while the assertion of national and local interests will clash with trends of regionalism and globalism. No major power will have the capability (or often even the desire) to shape the international system unilaterally, but a new bloc-based confrontation will not emerge either. The erosion of multilateral systems created after 1945 and strengthened during and after the Cold War will continue. The behavior of major powers will be determined by national interests, and their unilateral actions (read: appetite for border changes) are coming back into vogue. Disagreements within old blocs (for example, between the US and Europe) will become as significant as competition between traditional rival blocs. The United States will largely focus on its internal social and economic dynamics and defending its unilateral interests abroad (the Trumpist agenda). Medium and smaller powers will seek to maneuver between larger ones, using regional and allied blocs to gain advantages and mitigate the consequences of great power actions. Overall, this picture resonates with the one drawn by political scientists associated with the European Council on Foreign Relations (→ Ash, Krastev, Leonard: The World à la Carte).

In short, for companies and organisations, long-term expectations of a predictable regulatory environment should be replaced with shorter-term plans adapted to an unpredictable and volatile environment, experts argue. Economic nationalism, informational nationalism, and plain nationalism will lead to a radical restructuring of the global landscape to which most of us have grown accustomed over the past three decades.

However, as these trends deepen toward the end of the forecasted period (2025–2035), we may see the beginning of a trend reversal – though not before significant destruction of existing structures and models occurs. Despite political and economic upheavals and concerns about China, a realisation that national economic and strategic power depends on external factors will prompt a shift in the US position: Washington will seek to revive multilateral cooperation, particularly within North America, ease tensions with Europe, and strengthen ties with other key maritime powers (Australia, Japan, the UK, and potentially India).

In Europe, the collapse of the traditional liberal consensus and the crystallisation of national conservatism within a changing geopolitical context will paradoxically accelerate European integration. However, this will be accompanied by the erosion of some progressive aspects of the 'European idea'; Europe, like others, will focus more on addressing short-term and more limited objectives. NATO will remain the core of European security, but the unreliability of the US will drive efforts to build a more robust European defence force.

RANE experts anticipate that China will emerge from a period of internal preoccupation and take a more active role in security issues within its immediate neighborhood and key countries abroad. At the same time, it will face serious social challenges domestically. Japan will sharply increase its geopolitical role in the Pacific region as the primary counterweight to China, in cooperation with Australia and New Zealand, both of which will remain reliable US allies (based on their shared interest in containing China).

Ultimately, unlike two-thirds of Atlantic Council experts, RANE experts do not expect a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan within the next decade (unless significant changes occur in US military and political dynamics). Instead, China is likely to continue expanding its military presence around Taiwan and increasing pressure on it (including limited blockades). This strategy will lead to the gradual relocation of critical Taiwanese manufacturing capacities abroad and diminish Taiwan’s so-called 'silicon shield' (as Taiwan is currently the undisputed global leader in semiconductor production).

This is where the logic of RANE experts diverges from that of most Atlantic Council experts. The latter see the weakening of the global order (due to changes in the West’s role) as a threat of chaos and ungovernability, whereas the former see it as a process of 'nationalisation' of interests, in which the role of rules and broad alliances weakens, but major players have no interest in plunging the world into large-scale conflicts. While competition for resources will become the central focus of global powers, it is more likely to take the form of a Cold War-style competition – 'locking in' spheres of influence – rather than direct warfare. In other words, the disintegration of the 'Western-dominated world' will not lead to catastrophe but rather to a worrisome yet non-apocalyptic period of searching for a new balance, during which the world will navigate a kind of loop of nationalism.

Many trends that may appear to be reversing in the short term – such as the energy transition – will ultimately continue in the long run, albeit at a slower pace. As a result, while petroleum products will still cover about three-quarters of global demand for automotive transport, overall oil demand will decline by more than 10–15 million barrels compared to previous forecasts.

RANE experts predict that in the coming years, a settlement will be reached to end the war in Ukraine, potentially granting Moscow additional territory and reopening opportunities for it to restore economic ties with the West. However, this will not necessarily strengthen Russia’s influence. On the contrary, after the shock it has experienced, Russia’s economy and technological sector are unlikely to recover: the country will increasingly fall behind its main competitors, while the effects of its demographic crisis will manifest earlier and more severely than in its neighboring states. But the key question of the decade will be the life cycle of the Russian autocrat. Putin’s death or incapacitation could trigger a power struggle in Moscow and a weakening of centralised control (even if only temporarily) in Russia’s more remote regions. China, and possibly even Japan, may attempt to take advantage of this situation.

Expectations based on the inertia of the present moment often push us toward either linear conclusions or simple reversals – flipping a negative into a positive when changes occur. For example, Russia’s early failures in the war with Ukraine initially led to expectations of its collapse, while its current battlefield and diplomatic gains now prompt forecasts of its long-term strengthening. However, both assumptions are likely to be wrong. Similarly, the weakening of the Euro-Atlantic bloc does not necessarily lead to global war, and a conservative turn does not inevitably lead to fascism.