Thread by @ForeignPolicy

Foreign Policy asked 12 leading thinkers to predict how the pandemic will permanently change the world’s political and economic relations. Here’s what they have to say. [Thread.]

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According to @stephenWalt, the pandemic will reinforce nationalism and accelerate the shift in power from West to East. “What won’t change is the fundamentally conflictive nature of world politics.” [2/12]

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That will be felt particularly from China, @mahbubani_k contends, merely accelerating a change that had begun long before. [3/12]

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To that end, the pandemic shows President Trump’s strategy for American power to be inadequate, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. writes. “Even if the United States prevails as a great power, we cannot protect our security by acting alone.” [4/12]

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To Shivshankar Menon, three things are clear: government type from country to country has been crucial to the success of responding to the virus; the crisis may bring a meaner, poorer and smaller world; and yet, some hope and good sense may prevail. [5/12]
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Economically, the world may be in store for more grave news. @RobinNiblett contends the pandemic “could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back of economic globalization.” Global economic governance established 100+ years ago will atrophy. [6/12]

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COVID-19 will also hit the tenets of global manufacturing, Shannon O’Neil argues. Companies will rethink their multi-step, multi-country supply chains, leading to lower profits but more stable supply. [7/12]

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Indeed, companies around the world are likely to come out of this pandemic gun-shy about their globally dispersed production model, giving way to a dramatic new stage in global capitalism, @Laurie_Garrett writes. [8/12]

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The coronavirus crisis will also lead most governments ​to turn inward, focusing on what takes place within their borders rather than ​on what happens beyond them, @CFR_org president Richard Haass writes. [9/12]

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Strategic nationalism may rear its head, but over time, “the democracies will come out of their shells to find a new type of pragmatic and protective internationalism,” argues G. John Ikenberry. [10/12]

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But don’t expect countries to draw the same consequences from the pandemic once it’s over. “As it has always been, history will be written by the ‘victors’ of the COVID-19 crisis,” @BrookingsInst president John Allen writes. [11/12]

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But there are many examples in every country “of the power of the human spirit—of doctors, nurses, political leaders and ordinary citizens demonstrating resilience, effectiveness and leadership,” @Kennedy_School professor Nicholas Burns writes. [12/12]

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