Who's in charge around here?

As we approach the end of the 21st century’s Q1, both the results and the forecast for the next quarter look – to say the least – concerning.

All the while the scale of the challenges in the next 25 years look if anything even more daunting than the last. 

Yet unity feels in short supply. So too does democratic leadership.

The ‘West’ is responding stoically (outwardly at least) as it steels itself for Trump 2.0 and the deliberate uncertainty he will sow by casting doubt on US commitment to its alliances – not least Ukraine and NATO – and to reducing rather than ramping up tariffs.

Even  adjusted for Trump, those alliances and assumptions that set the tone for the new millennium have become splintered and shakier just as the world becomes a more dangerous and complex place.

The G20 – meeting this week in Brazil – can only agree to “highlight the human suffering” of the war in Ukraine without mentioning that it was caused by Russian invasion. Reflecting weariness about the dragging on of the war and – significantly – the impact on “global food and energy security” and wider economic impact, much of the rest of the world is losing interest. 62% of Britons say they feel G20 meeting’s make “little to no difference”. It’s hard to argue.

At the same time the US and UK have approved the use of Storm Shadow missiles by Ukraine on targets inside Russia, while Putin has lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons to a level uncomfortably close to the new status quo.

At the UN, the Security Council can’t even call for a ceasefire in Sudan – recently called “the war the world forgot” – despite catastrophic famine and displacement, because of a Russian veto and proxy wars being fought through the conflict.

In Azerbaijan, the COP29 summit remains predictable deadlocked, hot on the heels of the COP16 biodiversity summit in Columbia fizzling without agreement.

And in a wider sign of things to come, the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit could not compete with the parallel BRICs summit. Rather than join Sir Keir Starmer and the King in Samoa, India and South Africa chose to head to the Putin-hosted summit in Kazan alongside the Presidents of China and Iran. 45% of the world’s population was represented in Kazan – and that share seems likely to grow further in the coming years.

Meanwhile Europe faces a dearth of leadership. The UK has attempted to present itself as steadier under Starmer, albeit with little to show from its first few months of diplomacy and preparing its own Strategic Defence Review and Industrial Strategy and Trade Strategy. 

Macron is on the way out, with the far left and right jostling to succeed him following his hollowing out of the centre of French politics. Olaf Sholtz’s term of Chancellor of Germany looks to be approaching a quicker end in next year’s election, having failed to come close to exerting the sort of profile on the world stage as Angela Merkel. Ursula von der Leyen is a stable presence as she prepares for a second term as EU Commission President, but splits within the EU27 seem more likely to widen than narrow, not least as it is Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Italy’s Georgia Meloni who will receive the warmer reception in Washington than any other EU leaders over the coming years.

These are not positive omens that the shape of geopolitics will develop to the West’s advantage.

Or at least, it puts into stark relief the sheer messiness and contradictions that the next 25 years is likely to be characterised by, just as huge structural challenges and technological changes hit.

Proper economic growth. Immigration - legal and illegal. Housing. Family policy. Taxation. Health and welfare spending. Low pay and high bills.

All evergreen political issues for the UK, but which will become even more difficult as the impact of climate change, the domestic transition to net zero, and advancements in AI and automation really bite – with the leadership, expertise and control of those latter technologies feeling as likely to slip the leash of governments than be truly developed in partnership for shared ends.

Meanwhile, loyalty to the established political parties is far looser than a generation or two ago, with start up parties determined to capitalise. 

The first 25 years of the new century was – as with any such broad swathe of history – a mixed picture in terms of its successes and failures. 

And just as the assumptions of the year 2000 – of inevitable globalisation and democratisation – were proved wrong, so it is that the century’s Q2 could buck the (gloomier) expectations it starts with.

To do so, however, will require far more unity of purpose and determination than the international community has shown itself capable of in recent months and years.

Time will tell.