Chapter Break

Again, the Atlantic: an article laying out a wide variety of scenarios dealing with the geopolitical balance (and lack of it) in the wake of the current pandemic and, especially, in the wake of the second wave.

This is one that actually stimulates the brain cells if you're a policy wonk, primarily because it takes complex factors and processes which are already in motion and examines where the current shocks, and many (mostly unique and unexpected) second-wave shocks will take them. Much is made of China's new position of strength in the world, and how it can make a broken-field run through all this chaos and end up with a more substantial role in much more of the world – Russia, certainly (Putin will drive Russia into disaster, because he cannot stand still, and China will move in, giving it a foothold in Europe) but also in much of the developing world where China does not already have influence.

And if things get military, and another coalition of the willing is necessary, most developed countries cannot mount the kind of force they could even twenty years ago. And given the way they've been treated by the US in the last three years, why should they?

Oh – and everyone's going to be broke. Countries, I mean.

It's a pretty concise article for all that. And it contains my new favorite history quote: “Historians love chapter breaks.” Covid-19 will be, apparently, a chapter break. 

 And, I suppose, the following chapter will be called “The New World.”