23/10/2024
During the next few years, especially if the GNU holds in some form, we are really going to have some very serious debates and arguments about how we formalize our diplomatic and trade relationships with US/Russia/China.
It is an immensely complex debate, with thousands of moving pieces, and where we are a very small player in fast-moving, massive global power realignments, and where the consequences are existential and defining of the future of SA and many other countries.
Given the current early debates and positions taken on the questions it is clear that not too many of our decision makers understand the full reach and nuances of these interlinked conflicts and interests. An accurate assessment and then continued, ongoing balancing of interests and alignments will be necessary, such as never seen before. This is the Cold War 2.0, not some simplistic pick-a-team nationalistic exercise.
An already complex set of questions is exacerbated by the entrenched histories and emotional baggage carried around by our various political decision makers, as well as the negative conflict dynamics resulting from our existing, unresolved national conflicts and other conflict dynamics.
So far. I am concerned by what I see and hear. We do not as yet have the questions right, much less the answers. And so much depends on getting it right, keeping it right, as a matter of great urgency. We are already late to these developments. The successful managing of this process, and to keep doing so, requires a greater degree of knowledge, nuance and skill than what we seem prepared to commit to this defining moment in our history
