Ian Bremmer is President and founder of the global risk consultancy firm Eurasia Group, as well as Editor-at-Large of TIME magazine. He has also been dubbed the “rising guru” in the field of political risk by The Economist. Each January he sits down with Charlie Rose to give a crystal ball geopolitical forecast for the world in the 12 months ahead.
His most recent conversation aired recently, and it comes as he and his team at Eurasia Group publish their annual report entitled Top Risks 2017: The Geopolitical Recession. Bremmer’s top global risk for 2017 will be unleashed when Trump takes office on January 20th, which will mark the beginning of America’s abandonment of its global leadership role, and the official end of Pax Americana. Evelyn Cheng of CNBC writes, “Eurasia Group named the U.S. abandonment of its global leadership role its ‘Top Risk for 2017,’ saying in a Tuesday report that the new U.S. position is not isolationism — outright seclusion from global affairs — but rather one that prioritizes the country’s own economic interests above the global promotion of democracy, civil rights or the rule of law. ‘Now the Pax Americana is over,’ Ian Bremmer, the president of consulting firm Eurasia Group and a closely followed political scientist, said on a Tuesday conference call. ‘It’s been coming … for a while. It’s now here.’ As a result, Bremmer said, China has encountered a ‘major opportunity’ to take on greater global leadership, and Russia sees a ‘massive opportunity’ to expand its power, while traditional U.S. allies now see their connection with the United States as ‘deeply problematic.'”
“Pax Americana is a reference to the ‘Pax Romana’ period of two millennia ago, when the regional order in Europe, the Mediterranean and beyond was controlled by Rome. The United States played a similar role in international affairs for more than two generations after World War II, as it aggressively promoted far-reaching alliances and global free trade under Democratic and Republican presidents alike. But vast segments of Americans were economically hurt by those efforts.”
In terms of geopolitical risk, the end of Pax Americana is a lot like that final scene in Thelma & Louise at the edge of the Grand Canyon, except this time Donald Trump is the driver and the entire free world is in the back seat. You can watch Bremmer’s forecast above, and for all FEELguide stories related to Ian Bremmer visit Ian Bremmer on FEELguide.
