The following article on Foreign Policy website gave the predictions of 12 leading thinkers from around the world concerning the global order after the pandemic.
These are the main predictions in the authors’ own words that I gleaned from the article :
- The pandemic will strengthen the state and reinforce nationalism. Governments of all types will adopt emergency measures to manage the crisis, and many will be loath to relinquish these new powers when the crisis is over.
- The coronavirus pandemic could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of economic globalization.
- The COVID-19 pandemic will not fundamentally alter global economic directions. It will only accelerate a change that had already begun: a move away from U.S.-centric globalization to a more China-centric globalization.
- Given the economic damage and social collapse that is unfolding, it is hard to see anything other than a reinforcement of the movement toward nationalism, great-power rivalry, strategic decoupling, and the like.
- COVID-19 is undermining the basic tenets of global manufacturing. Companies will now rethink and shrink the multi-step, multi-country supply chains that dominate production today. Governments will intervene forcing what they consider strategic industries to have domestic backup plans and reserves. Profitability will fall, but supply stability should rise.
- Given the scale of financial market losses the world has experienced since February, companies are likely to come out of this pandemic decidedly gun-shy about the just-in-time model and about globally dispersed production. The result could be a dramatic new stage in global capitalism, in which supply chains are brought closer to home and filled with redundancies to protect against future disruption. That may cut into companies’ near-term profits but render the entire system more resilient.
- I would expect many countries will have difficulty recovering from the crisis, with state weakness and failed states becoming an even more prevalent feature of the world.
If failed states and partial deglobalisation are a reality after the pandemic, let Christendom in each country discern how it will affect them and prepare to weather it. Because not all will be living in cities that make their living by the sea. Rev 18:17. Or living in cities that are major manufacturing hubs. Rev 18:15.
Zeph 2:3
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s anger.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/20/world-order-after-coroanvirus-pandemic/