Page 81 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

bound to increase international volatility. More and more,
countries that tended to rely on global public goods provided by

the US “hegemon” (for sea lane security, the fight against
international terrorism, etc.) will now have to tend their own
backyards themselves. The 21st century will most likely be an era
devoid of an absolute hegemon during which no one power gains

absolute dominance – as a result, power and influence will be
redistributed chaotically and in some cases grudgingly.

In this messy new world defined by a shift towards multipolarity
and intense competition for influence, the conflicts or tensions will

no longer be driven by ideology (with the partial and limited
exception of radical Islam), but spurred by nationalism and the
competition for resources. If no one power can enforce order, our
world will suffer from a “global order deficit”. Unless individual
nations and international organizations succeed in finding

solutions to better collaborate at the global level, we risk entering
an “age of entropy” in which retrenchment, fragmentation, anger
and parochialism will increasingly define our global landscape,

making it less intelligible and more disorderly. The pandemic crisis
has both exposed and exacerbated this sad state of affairs. The
magnitude and consequence of the shock it has inflicted are such
that no extreme scenario can now be taken off the table. The
implosion of some failing states or petrostates, the possible

unravelling of the EU, a breakdown between China and the US
that leads to war: all these and many more have now become
plausible (albeit hopefully unlikely) scenarios.

In the following pages, we review four main issues that will

become more prevalent in the post-pandemic era and that
conflate with each other: the erosion of globalization, the absence
of global governance, the increasing rivalry between the US and
China, and the fate of fragile and failing states.

1.4.1. Globalization and nationalism

Globalization – an all-purpose word – is a broad and vague
notion that refers to the global exchange between nations of
goods, services, people, capital and now even data. It has

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