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2021's Top Risks: global challenges intensify
Eurasia Group today published its annual list of the main geopolitical threats for 2021. For the second year in a row, the #1 Top Risk is rising political polarization in the United States, which not many years ago was deemed one of the world's most stable nations, with strong institutions and — as the sole global superpower — with a clear mandate to lead the world on many fronts.
That's all gone, for now. Why, and what does this mean for America and other countries?
As outgoing US President Donald Trump continues to undermine democracy by questioning his recent election loss to Joe Biden, and Republican lawmakers heed Trump's call to erode the legitimacy of US political institutions, we've reached a new normal in American politics, Eurasia Group Chairman Cliff Kupchan said during a livestream discussion to launch the 2021 Top Risks report.
That new normal is that in future US elections, the American president will be rejected by half the country no matter his agenda, Kupchan explained: in the current political environment, the world simply cannot look to the US to solve any global problem, much less a once-in-a-generation crisis like the coronavirus pandemic.
For Ian Bremmer, president of GZERO Media and Eurasia Group, America is in no position to provide global leadership at a moment when other countries would have hugely benefited from it, so other rising powers may fill the void created by the US abdication from its own role as superpower. The prime candidate to do so is China, which is increasingly competing with the US for global influence.
Indeed, Kupchan expects US-China rivalry to intensify — albeit in a different way than under Trump — when Biden takes office. There'll be a bidding war between both sides to win global hearts and minds as the new US president attempts to "multilateralize" US competition with China on issues such as COVID-19 vaccines or green technology.
Bremmer believes that China has the upper hand in vaccine diplomacy, and that unless Biden's US vaccine rollout is a roaring success, China is better positioned to exercise its soft power throughout the developing world with jabs that are cheaper and easier to distribute than the American vaccines.
Sustainability will be another arena for competition. Biden will try to clip China's wings on Chinese quest to benefit economically from the world's renewed push for renewable energy due to the pandemic, Bremmer added.
A longer-than-expected recovery from COVID-19, furthermore, is poised to make the world even more "GZERO" than it was a year ago. Kupchan said that the lasting scar tissue of the pandemic will create haves and have nots between and within countries in a leaderless world where the US is simply too divided to govern itself — let alone the international system it helped create after World War II.
For Bremmer, the coronavirus did not spur a more "GZERO" world, which we were already in before COVID-19, but underscored its urgency by accelerating all other geopolitical risks. It made everything a lot worse, a lot faster.
Watch the above video for more insights from both experts on other 2021 Top Risks, including why we'll see huge inequality in how different parts of the world recover from the 2020 public health crisis, and questions posed by readers. Check out the full report here and GZERO Media's summary here.Watch our livestream with Ian Bremmer on new Top Risks 2021 report
Following one of the most tumultuous years in recent history, what should we be prepared for in 2021? Watch GZERO Live's livestream, Top Risks 2021: Eurasia Group's Biggest Global Threats. Ian Bremmer and Cliff Kupchan of Eurasia Group discussed the firm's predictions in a conversation moderated by Meredith Sumpter, CEO of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican.
Click through to gzeromedia.com/gzerolive to watch today's livestream.
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Panel: Working together to protect cyberspace
Our October 14th livestream discussion, "Digital Peace: Trust and Security in Cyberspace," presented by GZERO Media — in partnership with Microsoft and Eurasia Group - focused on the need for a global framework to govern cyberspace.
The panel was moderated by Meredith Sumpter, CEO of the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism, and included:
- Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director, Cyber Policy Center, Stanford University
- Marina Kaljurand, Member, European Parliament; Former Chair, Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace; Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia
- Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President, Customer Security & Trust, Microsoft
- Dapo Akande, Professor of Public International Law, University of Oxford
A major theme that emerged from the discussion is how the healthcare sector has become more vulnerable to cyberattacks due to the pandemic. But this sector also poses a major opportunity for governments and other actors to work together on protecting the world from such attacks — with huge resources already being mobilized to do so.
Burt underscored how the rapid digital transformation spurred by COVID-19 has made online activity an even bigger target for cybercriminals, with health systems and vaccine research as the top objectives for hackers. Microsoft alone, he pointed out, has blocked over 1 billion phishing emails since the pandemic began.
Although the EU, US, Russia, and China still don't see eye to eye on which laws should apply, and even on core values, the panelists agreed that at a minimum coordination on greater transparency and predictability is a step forward towards wider cooperation in the future.
For Akande, the main issue in moving towards a digital Geneva Convention to govern the rules of cyber conflict is determining how international law applies in cyberspace. Both the UN Charter and international human rights laws should be useful tools, but the problem (as always) is enforcement.
Kaljurand — who shared how her native Estonia responded to a Russian cyber attack in 2007 — explained that international cooperation is crucial to prevent a type of war that has no borders. The lesson for the EU from the pandemic, she said, is that EU member states have a lot more to gain from standing together for common interests like cybercrime instead of building borders between each other.
Finally, since cyberspace is mostly developed, owned, and operated by the private sector, the experts debated whether private firms should take on more responsibility on governance. That doesn't mean that governments will not be ultimately responsible, but such a complex problem will require more inputs from business and civil society.
Kaljurand said that even if the private sector is closely involved, governments should have the ultimate responsibility. For Schaake, public-private cooperation in this sphere can only work if there's clarity about the role each side will play to ensure transparency around communication, responsibility and accountability.
Beyond governments and tech firms, Burt suggested employers and citizens as other key players, putting the example of how Microsoft data shows that 99% of all cyber attacks can be stopped by enabling multi-factor authentication across all accounts by users.
This event was the last in a four-part livestream panel series about key issues facing the 75th United General Assembly.
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