Pandemic Projections from Moscow: The Status Quo Reinvisioned (but not quite enough)
Pandemic Projections from Moscow: The Status Quo Reinvisioned (but not quite enough)

Summary/Abstract: Written in the shadow of the COVID crisis that began late in 2019 and has transformed international politics in 2020, the IMEMO’s 2020 Forecast furnishes valuable insight into global affairs and into the strategic agenda as it is being set in Moscow. It does an admirable job of integrating a global pandemic, which is wreaking havoc in real time, into longer term projections about global order. Where it concerns issues of public health and political upheaval, the Forecast is persuasive: it alleges a widening gap between political elites (in many countries) and the populations they are trying to govern. The Forecast misses a few important political trends, however. Of these, the most important is an accelerating consolidation of the post-Brexit European Union (EU). Should this continue, transatlantic relations could deepen, whereas Russia and China might find themselves confronting new challenges. If anything, the IMEMO Forecast does not stray far enough—intellectually— from the pre-COVID status quo.

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