80 The Economist October 9th 2021
Books & arts
AfterthepandemicTomorrow’s world
T
here arefew monuments to the tens
of millions of victims of the Spanish
flu, overshadowed as it was by the death
and destruction of the first world war. “It is
difficult to assign great historical meaning
to a pandemic, which is perhaps why they
tend to be forgotten,” notes Bruno Maçães.
Nevertheless, a catastrophe like covid19
cries out for interpretation. It is too early to
discern all the ways in which this pandem
ic has changed the course of history. But
has it revealed anything about the struc
ture of international politics today?
Two new books attempt an ambitiously
early answer to this question. Colin Kahl,
now an undersecretary of defence at the
Pentagon, and Thomas Wright of the
Brookings Institution, a thinktank, draw
on a detailed chronicle of the pandemic in
“Aftershocks”. Mr Maçães, a former Europe
secretary in the Portuguese government,
gives a more philosophical tour of the hori
zon in “Geopolitics for the End Time”. Both
books seek insights into the future in the
events of the past 18 months. “Conflict
between great powers is back with a vengeance,” arguesMrMaçães. MessrsKahl
and Wright agree. Their collective conclu
sions do not bode well for future crises.
The pandemic might have become a
moment for global cooperation. It did not.
Instead, borders were closed and states
rushed to develop their own vaccines.
Little was done to protect the poorest
countries from the economic damage of
lockdowns or to distribute vaccines equitably. Conflicts in Syria, Yemen and else
where raged on; pleas for ceasefires from
the unwent largely unheeded.
Mr Kahl and Mr Wright show how, even
before the pandemic, strains between
America and China had impeded coopera
tion on public health. When the virus
arrived, they argue, a more even spread of
geopolitical power than in past decades,
along with rising nationalism, stymied
both meaningful international partner
ship and effective American leadership.
They cite covax, the vaccinesharing
scheme in which neither China nor Amer
ica originally participated, and which
struggled to compete with national pro
curement programmes. Partly, perhaps,
because central bankers are relatively in
sulated from domestic politics, the finan
cial system—quickly stabilised through
collective efforts—was an exception to the
general dogeatdog response.
Meanwhile the pandemic opened up
new opportunities for competition. The
supply chains that undergird the global
circulation of goods became a point of con
tention, as Americans and Europeans
quickly discovered how dependent they
were on exports from China, including
those of ventilators and other vital medical
kit. Mr Maçães observes that China saw the
pandemic as a nationalsecurity threat,
rather than simply as a publichealth
emergency, and acted accordingly. It tried
to extract political concessions in ex
change for masks and vaccines, using theTwo books assess the geopolitical lessons of covid-19. Their conclusions are bleak→Alsointhissection
81 FionaHill’smemoir
82 ThegeniusofJohnvonNeumann
83 Sustainablebusiness
83 Colm Toibin on Thomas MannAftershocks. By Colin Kahl and Thomas
Wright. St. Martin’s Press; 464 pages; $29.99
and £23.99
Geopolitics for the End Time. By Bruno
Maçães. Hurst; 240 pages; £18.99