Bremmer - Geopolitical recession and COVID-19

Ian Bremmer, President and Founder of EURASIA Group, offers insight on the rise of nationalism/isolationism and the geopolitical recession that emerged from it. The SAP produced video, "What's happening in the world," which features Bremmer is an eye-opening explanation of why intergovernmental cooperation has declined and why this fracture is likely making the COVID-19 pandemic more dangerous and why economies around the world are shuddering.

Having begun after WWII, globalization (the transfer of commodities, products, people, and currency around the globe) accelerated until the recent rise of populist/nationalist politicians in numerous countries, including the four largest democracies in the world - U.S.A., India, Indonesia, and Brazil. The result of this retreat from globalization moved the language of politics from win/win at the zenith of cooperation to the win/lose antagonism that is so often witnessed in current news.

There are few examples that more convincingly demonstrate the decline of governmental cooperation than the cross-border response to the pandemic of COVID-19. As the U.S.A. and China point fingers at each other, the virus spreads and more and more people die. In past cross-border crises, even countries that typically would not cooperate put their differences aside in the name of protecting humanity. So the finger pointing continues, perhaps the result of politicians covering for their own ineptitude, while gaps in knowledge and expertise widen. The Chinese likely knew of the dangers of COVID-19 yet demurred from sounding the alarm as its own citizens criticized politicians for mishandling the early stages of the spread of the virus. U.S.A. politicians likely had reason to worry but chose to deny the potential for COVID-19 to significantly take hold in North America.

Bremmer's point is that we now face a breakdown which results in a lack of transparency, less efficiency and cooperation, and disruption of the supply chain coherence on which we used to be able to rely. We didn't know COVID-19 could be this bad because China lacked trust in the U.S.A., because the U.S.A. wasn't listening, and because both countries were waiting to pounce on any evidence of misdeeds. The geopolitical recession has left citizens around the world bereft of leadership that could have more effectively prevented and certainly could have better managed the crisis that we now see.

Globalization never was the enemy as the interconnectedness of the world steadily and inevitably marched forward. What was and is the enemy is exploitive and isolationist politicians who portray themselves as champions for their own people (i.e. nationalism and xenophobia) who use the denigration of other politicians, cultural groups, and countries, to make themselves look better.

For those who are educators, and more specifically leadership educators, who might be reading this blog post, there is a dire need to engage with others to lift up, advocate, and support cooperation across all types of borders in leadership. As a shameless plug and hopefully not an "I told you so," Darbi Roberts and I edited a book titled Cultivating Students' Capacity for International Leadership that was written precisely to challenge the anti-globalists and isolationists. We had great authors who offer terrific insight into what we can do to get back to the interconnected world that strives for mutual benefit and resolution of common problems that we all face - not the least of which is COVID-19 at this moment.