War footing
ISMAIL LAGARDIEN: We ignore the threat of a great powers conflict at our peril
The naïve belief that war is improbable was the reason the world sleep-walked into two world wars
There are two important high-level trends that define global political economic matters today, and both may have serious implications for national public policymakers in the medium to long term. One of these trends is the speculation about a war between the world’s two "great powers", China and the US. The other is that the life of capitalism is approaching an event horizon, that point at the edge of a black hole where retreat is virtually impossible. If SA is to make headway using the options that are available to public policymakers, both issues deserve closer examination. It was probably no surprise when the World Economic Forum published an article at the end of 2017 that questioned the "legitimacy" of capitalism, and the way that it was "losing support". And in January the current affairs journal The Economist published an article on The Next War, under the headline, "The growing danger of great power conflict". In July 2017 it had this headline: "Will America and China go to w...
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