Since the Global Financial Crisis (2010), the trust in neoliberal consensus collapsed, and over the last decade, the world no longer agreed on the “right” social, political, economic, and business model. Accordingly, alternatives have been proliferating, as an angry populace lashes out, resulting in chaotic electoral choices while resurrecting historical grievances and geopolitical tensions. The 1930s was the last time the world experienced anything like the same degree of polarization. The book discusses the possibilities of these tensions erupting into wars: Cold and Hot, Hungry and Civil. “In particular, three potential conflict facilitators are examined: China and its economic and geopolitical positioning; the future of the remnants of the Russian Empire; the evolution of acute domestic polarization in the US; and climate change and the need to manage unprecedented migratory waves. Each of these fault lines is capable of converting our world into an equivalent of the ‘world on fire’ of the 1940s rather than into a far preferable and moderate transition of the 1950s-60s”.
