Does the World Face a Leadership Vacuum?

In the midst of this coronavirus, the USA seems to be dissolving into chaos. They seem on the brink of civil war.

Nor is China looking strong. Rather, the CCP’s thrashing about looks desperate. They probably face a prolonged, severe economic downturn, and a chaotic change of government.

Who will rise to fill the vacuum if both the US and China are out of the game, at least temporarily?

The Muslim world has been a problem for everybody, but that does not mean they can assume leadership: they have been a problem to themselves as well. They do not seem capable of running a country, much less the world. Islam looked stronger than it was while buoyed by oil riches. That spigot has closed, and will not reopen.

The same is true for Russia; they had some muscle so long as they were a petropower. They are now probably doomed to fade into insignificance, for the foreseeable future.

The EU? Europe has been committing slow suicide for the last one hundred years, and the pace has hastened. The decadence and the self-hate seems terminal. If they pulled out of the union, and began a new one among themselves, the smaller nations of Central and Eastern Europe could accomplish something. But that would need a major restructuring of which there seems no trace on the far horizon. And they would still not be terribly powerful. A new Austro-Hungarian Empire?

I see three possible new world leaders. One is India, poised to perhaps take over from China in manufacturing. But their prospects seem medium to long-term. One is the ring of middle-level East and Southeast Asian nations, ASEAN plus Taiwan and South Korea, which have been revealed by the coronavirus to have great vitality. And one is CANZUK.

Indeed, the world’s need for CANZUK may soon be urgent.