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November 2012: a Dystopian dream
By Gideon Rachman
Published: February 16 2009 19:27 | Last updated: February 16 2009 19:27
On both sides of the Atlantic, senior officials are issuing dire warnings about global political turmoil. In the US, Admiral Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, says instability produced by the economic crisis is now the biggestshort-term threat to US national security. In Britain, Ed Balls, a cabinet minister, argues that the financial crisis is “more serious” than that of the 1930s, adding cheerfully: “And we all remember how the politics of that era were shaped by the economy.”
All this is alarming - but also rather vague. So how might world politics look in four years’ time? Something like this, perhaps . . .
It is November 7 2012. At three in the morning, an exhausted-looking President Barack Obama appears before weeping supporters in the ballroom of the Chicago Hilton and concedes defeat. The euphoria of his victory-night speech in Grant Park four years earlier is a distant memory. The Obama administration has been overwhelmed by America’s economic problems. Sarah Palin is the new president of the US.
Elected on a ticket of populism at home and nationalism overseas, President-elect Palin starts to take congratulatory phone calls from foreign leaders. First on the line is Avigdor Lieberman, the prime minister of Israel; then comes President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Five different leaders claiming to speak in the name of the European Union try to place calls - but they are all put on hold. As for the Chinese leadership, the new president is not speaking to them. How could she, after she has campaigned against the “communist currency manipulators of Beijing”?
The Chinese have resisted the temptation to call Mrs Palin a “capitalist running dog”. But Maoist language is creeping back into Chinese official discourse, as the country struggles to adjust to the collapse and closure of its export markets. Alarmed by the large number of unemployed in the cities, the Communist party has abandoned plans to privatise rural land and invested heavily in public works in the countryside and new collective farms. This policy is swiftly dubbed “the Great Leap backwards”.
The world event that had most damaged Mr Obama was Iran’s successful test of a nuclear weapon in 2011. The Republicans had hammered home their message that Mr Obama was “a second Jimmy Carter”, who had been duped by hopes of striking a grand bargain with Iran.
The Iranian nuclear test had also driven Israeli politics even further to the right and set the stage for the rise of Mr Lieberman. His campaign slogan in the 2011 election - “bomb them while they are on the toilet” - was borrowed from Mr Putin and chanted gleefully by Mr Lieberman’s Russian-speaking supporters.
Mr Obama had successfully delivered on his campaign promise to get America out of Iraq. But by 2012, the voters were taking that for granted. Nato’s messy withdrawal from Afghanistan had, however, damaged him. The US and its allies had left behind a country run by a patchwork of more or less co-operative warlords. The new anti-terror strategy was officially called “watch and strike”, and unofficially dubbed “whack a mole”. It involved monitoring potential terrorist camps from a distance and bombing them.
Mr Putin had said that he had no intention of gloating about Afghanistan, before adding: “But the age of American arrogance is over.”
By 2010, Mr Putin was safely installed back in the Kremlin. The gravity of Russia’s economic crisis had led the official media to clamour for a return to strong leadership. President Dmitry Medvedev had taken the hint in early 2010 and stepped aside. His arrest the following year came as an unpleasant surprise.
In 2011, the unstable democratic governments in Ukraine and Georgia had fallen, after weeks of popular unrest. The Russians were suspected of orchestrating events but nobody could prove anything. The Americans and Europeans had protested - but only feebly. Privately, many western diplomats argued that only Mr Putin stood between Russia and fascism.
After the fall of the Merkel government in 2009, Germany was governed by a succession of unstable coalitions and forgettable chancellors. The hope that had accompanied the election of David Cameron as Britain’s prime minister, under the slogan “let the sunshine in”, had swiftly disappeared. The hapless Mr Cameron was now the most unpopular prime minister in British history.
This left President Nicolas Sarkozy of France as the dominant figure in the EU. His divorce from Carla Bruni and marriage to Madonna had only briefly distracted him.
Mr Sarkozy had weathered the denunciations that followed his decision in 2010 formally to withdraw France from the EU’s regimes on competition and state aid. All main French banks and industrial conglomerates were instructed to make 90 per cent of their investments at home. Mr Sarkozy’s move was widely denounced across the EU - but then equally widely imitated.
At home, the French president was under pressure to go even further in a nationalist direction from his main political opponents - “the postman and the housewife”, otherwise known as Olivier Besancenot, a Trotskyite, and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front. Ms Le Pen cited the rise of Sarah Palin as an inspiration.
As the morning of November 7 wore on, President Palin herself took to the stage in Anchorage, Alaska. Her supporters cheered and waved ice hockey sticks. “I’ve got a message for the mullahs and the commies,” she roared: “America is back.”
gideon.rachman@ft.com
Ukraine on the brink
Published: February 16 2009 02:00 | Last updated: February 16 2009 02:00
Ukraine's name, by some accounts, means "at the edge" - which is where its economy finds itself today. Austria's finance minister warned last week of the risk of an economic "catastrophe" in the 46m-strong country triggering a "domino effect" of problems further west. Ukraine's finance minister, meanwhile, resigned amid differences over budgetary policy that delayed the second tranche of a $16.4bn International Monetary Fund loan, due this weekend. Fitch downgraded the country's credit ratings to B. Some forecasters say the economy could contract by 10 per cent this year; the national currency has slid 40 per cent against the dollar. Spreads on Ukraine's credit default swaps are over 3,000 basis points.
Demand and prices have plummeted for steel, previously 40 per cent of Ukraine's exports, while industry faces higher prices for Russian gas. Cheap foreign financing has dried up. The woes are compounded by the fact that the president and prime minister, leaders of the 2004 Orange Revolution, spend more time mudslinging than working together on coherent anti-crisis policies.
The main sticking point over the IMF loan is a projected 3 per cent budget deficit this year, when the IMF's conditions stipulated a balanced budget. But scope remains for a compromise to get the IMF programme back on track. If so, notes Dresdner Kleinwort, with public sector gross external financing needs of $3bn this year, the country should still be able to service its sovereign debt, which accounts for only about one-fifth of its total $105bn external government and corporate debt.
But with gross financing needs of about $45bn for the economy as a whole, mounting corporate and bank defaults are inevitable - as in Russia. Russia, however, has greater resources for selective corporate bail-outs. And its less dire economic position gives Moscow potential to reassert influence. Russia is one of several partners from whom Ukraine is seeking $5bn of loans to bridge its budget gap.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Austria warns of dangers in potential Ukraine 'catastrophe'
By Stefan Wagstyl in Kiev
Published: February 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: February 13 2009 02:00
An economic or political "catastrophe" in Ukraine could trigger a "domino effect" of economic difficulties in the European Union, Austria's finance minister has warned.
Josef Pröll, who is also the country's vice-chancellor, gave his warning amid intense efforts by Vienna to win EU support for extra financial backing for crisis-hit eastern European states, including Ukraine.
"Ukraine is a very important keystone country and we must avoid a domino effect inside the EU, if there is economic and political catastrophe in such a huge neighbouring country," he told the Financial Times.
"We don't see this scenario developing now. But we must prepare and keep an eye on Ukraine."
Mr Pröll was speaking during a trip to eastern Europe made amid mounting international concern about the region's banking debts.
Figures published by the Bank for International Settlements showed that at the end of September, eastern Europe's loans from foreign banks were $1,656bn, three times more than in 2005, including $1,511bn borrowed from west European banks.
Proportionately, the most exposed nation is Austria, with east European loans totalling 75 per cent of gross domestic product, followed by Sweden (30 per cent) and Greece (19 per cent). The danger is that while these loans have helped finance strong economic growth, some will turn bad, as economies plunge into recession.
UniCredit, the Italian bank with big east European operations, has estimated the region's banks have a funding gap - loans minus deposits - this year of €150bn (£135bn).
The International Monetary Fund has said it might need an extra $150bn to help emerging markets, including eastern Europe.
Three countries - Ukraine, Latvia and Hungary - already have secured emergency IMF programmes.
Ukraine is seeking an estimated $5bn in extra loans from sources including Russia, the US, the Middle East, Japan and the EU. Mr Pröll is visiting Ukraine, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria before an EU finance ministers meeting next month where government support for banks will be discussed.
Mr Pröll declined to quantify Austria's estimates of the region's needs but said support was required, in different forms, from the EU, the IMF, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and individual west European states.
A senior aide called for more active EU leadership on the issue, saying a key part of the problem was how government support packages in eurozone states affected other countries, causing potential "distortions" to markets.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009