'The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born,' wrote the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci at the end of World War I. 'Now is the time of monsters.' A witness to the rise of fascism in Italy, Gramsci understood transitions can be dangerous. The world today is at a similar inflection point. With Donald Trump victorious in the 2024 US presidential election, the Western liberal order presided by the United States since the end of the Second World War is over. This timely book, by two eminent strategic forecasters, Mathew Burrows and Josef Braml, illuminates where the West and the world are headed in the wake of the November election. Weakened by recent military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and potential setbacks in Ukraine and the Middle East, the United States is declining as a global power, even if it continues to play an outsized role on the world stage. Not since the end of the Cold War has there been so much pessimism in the West and uncertainty about the future of the world. A new set of destabilising factors - regional conflicts, climate change, the growth of AI, a global economic slowdown, endemic illegal immigration - are feeding off each other and producing more instability. Far-right and populist movements in Europe and North America thrive on this vulnerability. As the world grapples with these issues, separate conflicts in Middle East and Ukraine are threatening to shatter the nuclear weapons taboo that has held since 1945. Plus, a fragmenting global economy with the growing protectionism by the United States and China is producing a world of slower growth. A major war between the United States and China or between NATO and Russia threatens to bring an end to civilisation. But crises can also bring renewal. Take, for instance, the advent of artificial intelligence, which, like past technological revolutions, could result in better lives for millions. Or the new technologies like green energy which can help us fight climate change. Automation may eliminate some jobs but will help Western societies deal with declining populations. World to Come is a clear-eyed survey of the state of the US power and the consequences for the rest of the world. It spells out the hard choices we would need to make as we tackle the rise of nationalism, the slowdown in global economic growth and the inevitability of climate change. And it's a call to action, to ensure that the world that comes out of the end of Pax Americana is one we all want to live in.
