In Trinidad and To­ba­go, pol­i­tics has been ex­treme­ly com­bat­ive for 16 years run­ning. No change in sight. In Cari­com, the rules of en­gage­ment are chang­ing, and in­ter­ests are di­verg­ing, so some shift is pos­si­ble. In coun­tries across the hemi­sphere, au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism, stri­den­cy, more ide­ol­o­gy, maybe some dis­rup­tion, some cau­tion. And around the world, coun­tries are more anx­ious about the fu­ture and their place in it. Un­cer­tain­ty and per­haps, more volatil­i­ty.

Where are we head­ed in T&T, giv­en the swirl of con­tro­ver­sies we have been liv­ing through lo­cal­ly?

The Bud­get in ear­ly Oc­to­ber may give us some clar­i­ty on non-en­er­gy in­vest­ments and ex­ports. Giv­en the storm over the in­de­pen­dence of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, we may well be head­ed for an elect­ed pres­i­dent. The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill to re­strain crim­i­nals saw lit­tle re­straint from any quar­ter. And amend­ments to the Pro­cure­ment Bill ...well...how can I not be dis­ap­point­ed? The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) had al­ready de­stroyed it with amend­ments. This Gov­ern­ment could have re­in­stat­ed the 2015 law, unan­i­mous­ly passed in the Sen­ate and with­out PNM sup­port in the low­er House in 2014. But it did­nt. The Gov­ern­ment chose in­stead to in­crease the loose­ness which the PNM in­sti­tu­tion­alised.

Don’t ex­pect me to jump up and wave!

The geopol­i­tics too is de­cid­ed­ly dif­fer­ent. The Unit­ed States, Chi­na, Rus­sia and In­dia all want dif­fer­ent things. The US wants to stay ahead, dom­i­nant. Chi­na wants re­spect as the ris­ing pow­er, par­i­ty with the US. Rus­sia wants to re­gain the pow­er and stature the So­vi­et Union once had. In­dia wants a seat in the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, res­o­lu­tion of bor­der dis­putes with Chi­na as a bridge to a peace­ful neigh­bour­hood, part­ner­ship with the US and friend­ship with Rus­sia.

There is a push for greater in­flu­ence in glob­al, fi­nan­cial and po­lit­i­cal gov­er­nance too by de­vel­op­ing coun­tries. Fi­nan­cial rules for de­vel­op­ing coun­tries are fiercer, and a rules-based or­der for in­ter­na­tion­al gov­er­nance is un­der threat.

Every coun­try wants as much strate­gic au­ton­o­my as pos­si­ble. A mul­ti-vec­tor diplo­ma­cy, with many vari­ables and a high de­gree of un­pre­dictabil­i­ty, has emerged. This is the clas­si­cal dance of the big pow­ers - strate­gic au­ton­o­my and diplo­mat­ic lever­age with­out a pre­dictable out­come.

Mid­dle pow­ers, re­gion­al blocs and de­vel­op­ing and emerg­ing states are striv­ing for things like en­er­gy sus­tain­abil­i­ty, na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and trad­ing arrange­ments to sup­port vi­a­bil­i­ty. And they are try­ing to do this with­out rigid align­ment to any tra­di­tion­al su­per pow­er. They too are seek­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty in diplo­ma­cy rather than the con­for­mi­ty of geopo­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty.

But in­evitably, the world is mov­ing from the unipo­lar glob­al or­der to a more frag­ment­ed mul­ti-vec­tor and com­plex adap­tive sys­tem with sev­er­al poles of pow­er. A range of com­pet­ing struc­tur­al shifts across pow­er, tech­nol­o­gy and eco­nom­ic gov­er­nance are strength­en­ing, but al­so con­tend­ing. G20, BRICS, Belt and Road, tar­iff im­po­si­tions, con­fronta­tions on trade, in­vest­ment and oth­er mat­ters, and a range of oth­er al­liances and con­fig­u­ra­tions, in­clud­ing the tech­no-elite club. Dis­trac­tions and cal­cu­lat­ed pub­lic quar­rels seem part of this process every­where.

These things are deeply in­ter­con­nect­ed in the quest for glob­al dom­i­nance. Mul­ti­po­lar in­flu­ence hard­ly means the end of the striv­ing for glob­al dom­i­nance. The yearn­ing for pop­u­lar­i­ty and the pro­jec­tion of a pos­i­tive im­age for a leader with­in a coun­try might seem to con­tra­dict vex­a­tious be­hav­iour, blunt at­tacks and re­ver­sals of well-con­sid­ered po­si­tions; but re­al­ly, they are part of the same chaot­ic swirl of com­plex­i­ty and search for clout.

There are so many crit­i­cal bat­tles be­ing waged at the same time in this com­pet­i­tive dis­or­der. There is the tech­no­log­i­cal bat­tle for space dom­i­nance - an ex­is­ten­tial is­sue both in terms of the plan­et it­self and for com­pe­ti­tion in com­merce. There is the bat­tle for AI dom­i­nance, which is linked to the space race. There is the bat­tle for min­er­als and rare earth ma­te­ri­als con­nect­ed to AI de­vel­op­ment. There is the con­stant push for in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship linked to wealth cre­ation and com­pet­i­tive edge. And there is the bat­tle for mil­i­tary as­cen­dan­cy.

The UN solved no world prob­lem last week de­spite thearics. Con­flicts and grid­lock on­ly un­der­score the need for UN re­form.

In Wash­ing­ton, Pres­i­dents Xi Jin­ping and Don­ald Trump en­gaged in ne­go­ti­a­tions amidst some pageantry and soft­er diplo­ma­cy. The big items were not re­solved. Tai­wan stale­mate. No deal on rare earths. Big dif­fer­ences on geopo­lit­i­cal con­flicts. Pos­si­ble lim­it­ed AI co­op­er­a­tion.

Some small­er things did ad­vance. No tolls on strate­gic wa­ter­ways. Some tar­riffs were re­duced. Some trade deals were reached. More­over, Chi­na got the word. 

“re­spect” added to “fair­ness” and “reci­procity” in the re­framed strate­gic overview.

So, in the midst of war, tur­bu­lence and self-in­ter­est, there is min­i­mal progress.