What If the EU Fractures, China Stagnates, or the U.S. Economy Worsens?(2)
European nations most vulnerable to partial or complete fragmentation include Spain (up to 6 sub-nations), Italy (North splits from the rest), UK (Scotland wanders away), Belgium, and Ukraine. In Asia, Pakistan is an obvious candidate for disintegration while separatism will increase in India and China without a formal break up. Russia and its neighbors may see more “autonomous” regions. In the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey will be vulnerable to Kurdish aspirations for more self government and assertion of identity. Lebanon may disappear as a nation. Africa will be subject to more fragmentation since the fracture lines are many and true, long established, nation states are few.
In the New World, disunity will also increase from Canada to Argentina, but actual secession may be unlikely. The US will not be immune from people choosing to emphasize regional, linguistic and cultural identification and loyalty over the Nation. The great risk to the US is that fewer people will have reverence or even a correct understanding for the living Constitution, which is what makes the US the exceptional nation it is. The cultural and geographic divisions within the US may become distressingly pronounced.
The opportunistic reaction to global fragmentation will be to create or recreate superregional “zones of influence”. The AngloSphere has been discussed for many years now as a trading, linguistic (English), and military association anchored by the US in the West and India (now the largest English speaking nation in the world) in the East, with English speaking Africa in the middle, incorporating over a third of the global population. The SinoSphere, anchored by China and including Japan and Siberia (where the illegal and legal Chinese immigrants will soon exceed the native population) is a candidate. Less likely candidates include a large RussoSphere (including Iran and its clients), a SunniSphere, and a HispanoSphere, but smaller versions are feasible. There will be no EuroSphere because there is no European nation around which such a sphere of influence can be organized and sustained.
2. Rise of Haven States: These are a corollary of global fragmentation. There will be 2 kinds of haven states: the failed states that are domiciles for Narco and Islamo-terrorists, and the stable states that are the refuge of private capital and corporations. While Africa and East Asia will provide the failed states, the stable states may well be found in the island nations of the Pacific and Caribbean and the small reconstituted mini-nations of Europe.
The failed states will elicit repeated local but expensive wars of suppression by large nations or spheres and ensure terrorist attacks all over the world will continue for a generation. The stable states will compete among themselves to provide security and anonymity for private capital. The combination of global fragmentation and haven states will allow very large, well organized and very rich multinational criminal organizations to function. In addition to drugs and weapons, of course, there will be organizations that specialize in human trafficking, counterfeiting, commercial espionage, financial fraud and piracy of both physical and intellectual property.
