Title: Dark Ages: towards 2050
Approx. Reading Time: 46 minutes
Author: Peter Kingsley, Simon Tilford
Scenarios are models. They describe alternative possible futures. At their best, they explore extremes, because history tells us one thing about the future: failure of imagination is a primary source of risk and catastrophic failure. In this update of Dark Ages, one of our reference scenarios, Peter Kingsley and Simon Tilford explore a descent into chaos, a story of climate and biosphere collapse, war, state failures, economic crisis, mass migration and humanitarian disasters. A story of sleepwalking world leaders. Too little, too late. Like Orwell’s 1984, it serves as a warning, not a prediction. This story has momentum. Is this the world we want?
Read EssayThe liberal media and the courts are the only ones hitting back against the Trump administration. The Democrats have yet to recover their footing. There has been some bipartisan pushback against his U-turn on Ukraine and embrace of Putin, but not as much as would have been expected given the ramifications. Nevertheless, Trump faces mounting challenges. Economics could be his downfall.
Three years after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, a cessation of hostilities is in sight—prompted by Donald Trump’s determination to relieve the financial burden of US military aid by seeking a quick end to the conflict. As negotiations start in earnest between Russia and the US, Vladimir Putin must decide how long he wants to keep fighting.
The phrase ‘decoupling from the US’ rolls off the tongue easily. In reality, it is more complex, involving what economists call a “fallacy of composition”. It may be possible for one or even a few countries to shift some trade away from the US, but very difficult for all to do so simultaneously due to the country’s centrality to the global economy and the exceptional role of the US consumer.
In its 55 years of existence, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting in Davos has never seen one single individual dominating discussions like Donald Trump did this year. Even though the US President wasn’t there in person, it was all about him. His deregulatory agenda was feted by business leaders, but what he envisages is the law of the jungle, where the big end up eating the small. This promises further fragmentation and chaos.
Title: Dark Ages: Descent into Chaos
Approx. Reading Time: 11 minutes
Author: Peter Kingsley, Simon Tilford
In this new, updated introduction to Dark Ages—one of our three long-standing reference scenarios—Peter Kingsley and Simon Tilford explore how the world could face cascading geostrategic and socio-economic failures. It is 2030. Trade wars, land grabs, climate dislocation and financial crises have triggered a deep global slump. Unregulated AI has supercharged misinformation, fuelling culture wars and further eroding political legitimacy. No power is able to take on the hegemonic role ceded by the United States. Politics are nationalistic and zero-sum, precluding agreement on international rules to keep markets open and enforce regulatory standards. Finance and business have been forced back behind national and regional borders.
Read EssayTitle: Reality, Fiction, Artificial Worlds
Approx. Reading Time: 8 minutes
Author: Peter Kingsley
By all accounts the US election was a geostrategic, political and cultural tipping point. To some, a triumph for Donald Trump. For others, after decades of liberal democracy’s failures, a vindication of conservative values. For the libertarian right, the realisation of political power. For some, a victory for Putinism. For democracies around the world, another wake-up call. For Europe, the trigger of fears of existential security crises. Peter Kingsley explores the future of artificial political worlds.
Read EssayTitle: The Climate Impacts of Trump II
Approx. Reading Time: 9 minutes
Author: Laurie Laybourn
A second Trump presidency is bad news for efforts to limit climate disruption. Laurie Laybourn argues US emissions will be higher, partly because Trump is beholden to fossil fuel interests and partly because he will try to reverse the Biden administration’s shift towards activist government, which was crowding in private investment and accelerating decarbonisation. Ultimately, Trump could be the first post-1.5°C president. Global climate efforts will need to work out how to deepen cooperation even as climate consequences rapidly escalate and while facing an isolationist US administration.
Read EssayTitle: Climate Runs Amo(c)k
Approx. Reading Time: 12 minutes
Author: David Drewry
Global warming is contributing to the weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a system of ocean currents that bring water from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere—maintaining Western Europe’s temperate climate—and cold water towards the equator. Professor David Drewry argues that scientific studies pointing to a collapse of AMOC need to be taken more seriously. The consequences for Western Europe would be devastating: dramatically lower temperatures, most agricultural land rendered infertile, and mass migration southwards. Despite this grim prospect, our preparedness for collapse of the AMOC is negligible—all attention is focused on adapting to a hotter world.
Read EssayWhile the January 2025 LA wildfires were exceptional in their speed and severity, less attention has been paid to an important political dynamic: how the failure to protect communities through adaptation and emergency response can increase support for political parties that seek to curtail climate action. As such, the ability to spur decarbonisation and tackle the causes of climate change could become increasingly dependent on whether political leaders are also perceived as capable in responding to its consequences.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a primary global power battlefield. The landscape is defined by ever-greater momentum, conflicting signals and turbulence, as the recent emergence of DeepSeek and the collapse of US share prices illustrate. The deep-seated tensions between ‘AI for good’ and what some experts see as existential risks posed by unregulated AI, social media, quantum computing and Big Tech, led by the US, are polarising governments, academic experts, corporate leaders and financial markets.
For some, the election of Donald Trump highlights the need for the UK to rejoin the EU as quickly as possible. For others, it’s an opportunity for Britain to carve out a privileged relationship with a booming US. For their part, British voters increasingly want closer EU ties, but they are largely being ignored by the country’s politicians. The risk is that the UK ends up with worst of all worlds.
The consequences of climate change are weakening societies’ abilities to respond to its causes and impact, leading to ‘derailment risk’. Adaptation is sometimes misconstrued as coming at the cost of addressing the underlying problem—mitigation. However, as climate consequences escalate, adaptation will be an essential enabler of mitigation: more resilient and cohesive societies will be better able to see out the transition, no matter what climate change throws their way.
France’s political tumult is already affecting its economy, exacerbating the country’s divisions: a vicious circle. Germany, the other motor of European integration, also faces a deepening economic stagnation. This comes at a crucial time for the European Union, as it faces Russia’s determination to upend the current security order and Donald Trump’s return to power in the US. Crisis could prove a catalyst for change, but it could also be a precursor of worse to come.
Donald Trump doesn’t think of the world in terms of a grand strategy. Rather, he combines an unpredictable and disruptive leadership style and a transactional approach to allies and adversaries alike. His electoral victory heralds a new era for European security. Unless Europeans can step up and take on much of the role currently undertaken by the US, the region could face growing uncertainty and conflict.
In early 2023, not for the first time, we made the case that inter-systemic risk would become the defining characteristic of the future political and geostrategic landscape. World leaders would be overwhelmed by complexity, radical uncertainty and bewildering rates of change. The impacts of the incoming Trump administration and the influence of the ‘libertarian right’ cannot be understood in conventional risk and opportunity terms, or as the sum of individual policies.
Donald Trump’s frustration at the US trade deficit is justified. However, import tariffs are a poor way to go about addressing this issue. Capital controls would get to the root of trade imbalances more effectively than tariffs while doing less damage to the international trade system. Like previous administrations, the incoming Trump one is likely to eschew this route.
Chinese equites have recovered sharply since their summer lows, but whether this can be sustained depends—in the short-term—on the economic outlook, which in turn de-pends to a significant extent on policy announcements due in November. Over the long-er term, confidence in China as a place to invest, be it physical or portfolio capital, will also be determined by how the country manages its global economic role and the actions it takes to project power and influence.
The wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon are reminders of the catastrophic consequences of conventional conflict. They also remind us that hybrid conflict and breakthroughs from the secret worlds of invention—particularly in AI—are transforming the security landscape. More importantly, layer upon layer of hybrid threats create ever-greater complexity, uncertainty and speed. With that, the challenges to policymakers, corporate strategists and financial services risk teams grow exponentially. Conventional risk modelling has few answers.
Two years ago, 196 countries agreed to reverse biodiversity loss and achieve a world living in harmony with nature by 2050. Meanwhile, the WWF is warning of a potential ecosystem collapse that would threaten global food security and livelihoods. As COP16 convenes in Cali, Colombia while both futures remain possible, is enough is being done to save our ecosystems?
The last 18 months have seen extraordinary temperature increases that have taken climate scientists by surprise, with 2024 set to break 2023’s record as the hottest year on record. Scientists had predicted this extreme outcome was a possibility, but not that it would manifest this soon or severely. This should act as a salutary lesson to focus our understanding of climate threats on what could be most extreme, rather than what might currently seem most likely. There would then be no surprises.
Europe is falling behind the United States and lacks the political will to do much about it. The direction of travel across the EU is towards more national control—that is, less integration of markets and pooling of debt, even if doing the latter would make all member-states wealthier. This makes it less likely that Europe will take its own defence more seriously, leaving it increasingly exposed to geopolitical risk.
Three eastern German states are now voting for far-right parties in record numbers. Despite “firewalls” against forming coalitions with them, the country’s mainstream politicians appear to still be bending to populists’ policy demands. This could help create a moral vacuum in the EU just as the US—depending on the result of November’s election—could be retreating from the region.
Contrary to IMF data, global trade imbalances are growing once again. Addressing them will primarily require action on the part of the countries running trade surpluses, not least China. Unless this happens, global economic growth will remain sluggish and protectionist pressures will build, ultimately rebounding on every economy.
The 10 percent fall in the S&P over the three weeks to early August set off alarm bells in global markets. By mid-month, a sense of calm had returned but market expectations have shifted, with the cyclical outlook for the world economy very much in the balance. More significantly, a whole spectrum of economic policymaking is playing out, with significant implications for asset markets and, hence, investors.
