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By Thierry de Montbrial

September 21, 2005

Original Article (French)

Our World

The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will have profound consequences on a number of time scales. Though the temptation remains strong to focus on the short term, I would start by examining the long term, that is to say on the level of one or two generations, beyond which any attempt at prediction is impossible. What this catastrophe has reminded us of is the smallness of not only individuals, but of human societies in general, before the forces of nature. The truth is that not a single year passes without something happening to make us aware of this: hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves …

But most of the time, these dramas unfold in the third world, the victim of all evils. The recent tsunami of December 2004 was an exception, not territorially, because the affected zones are a part of the third world, but because of the elevated number of victims from rich countries. With Katrina, it is the richest country in the world, the only superpower on the planet, with its staggering superiority both economically and militarily, that fate has struck. And this country has found itself as disabled, as powerless as Thailand, India or Sri Lanka in comparable circumstances. Herein lies several lessons that need to be learned quickly if we are interested in the sustainable development of humanity.

The first is a universal truth: faced with the brutal urgency of a complex situation, a human society’s ability to react is the measure of its degree of preparation. This is true for natural catastrophes like Katrina or the tsunami in December, but also for wars. For example, because the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990s was not as predictable as the crumbling of the Soviet Union that caused it, the international community was caught off guard. It thus found itself incapable of reacting quickly and in an orderly fashion, which gave rise to the horrors that followed.

Second lesson: natural disasters will continue to occur, independent of human cause, particularly with the movements of the earth’s crust or climatic changes; but it is highly likely that anthropic disasters, that is to say involuntarily provoked by human activity, will multiply. Certainly nothing can prove that Katrina belongs in this category. This drama should be considered a warning, in particular for countries like the United States or China, which tend to treat the acceleration of climatic change carelessly.

Therein lays a true challenge for the governance of the planet as a whole: globalization entails a multiplication of problems, the solution for which can only be global. Since the United States is currently and for at least several more decades in the leadership position, it is up to Washington to exercise historic responsibility in this domain.

Finally, the third lesson: the reactions to natural catastrophes as well as possibly preventing them should be considered international problems - problems on a global scale. This is true not only for upheaval in the earth or atmosphere, but also for problems such as pandemics (AIDS). That is the long term. Learning new means of political organization will take time because this is a matter of addressing problems without evident solution on any level. Their level of complexity is no less, for example, than conceiving of and sending a manned mission to Mars. But the conquest of space can be extended over several decades without problem, while coming generations will not likely pardon us negligence toward our own planet.

Let’s talk about the short term. On the level of American domestic policy, the immediate effect of Katrina is clearly to destabilize George W. Bush’s second term. He could pay the price for his errors during the midterm elections in 2006. From the point of view of international policy as a whole, the consequences concern the global economy and the ability of the United States to act.

Even before Louisiana and Mississippi found themselves turned upside down, American involvement in Iraq was making itself felt by reducing the maneuvering room of American foreign policy. For example, Washington had to renounce its attitude of firmness toward North Korea, and the credibility of its threats against Iran had become progressively weaker. With the elections in Afghanistan, we can see that the war against the Taliban is far from having brought democracy to that country. And the examples are endless.

Today, American citizens can see that not only are their boys mobilized in Iraq for hard to justify and unrealistic reasons, but this mobilization is being increasingly compromised by the state of the country’s domestic security. Therefore it is likely there will be increased pressure for a rapid reduction of American forces in Iraq, leading to a total withdrawal. Even though predicting the future political structure in Iraq is guesswork, one thing is certain: for better (with regard to Saddam Hussein) or worse, the democratic dream of the neoconservatives is gone.

In Iran, it is easy to think that Ayatollah Khameini [Iran’s Supreme leader] and President Ahmadinejad are rubbing their hands together. These leaders know that George W. Bush has become too weak to launch even a limited attack against them, and what is more, that they can count on the support of Russia and China in the event that Washington seeks to bring the nuclear issue before the United Nations Security Council. The most likely hypothesis is that, sooner or later, there will be direct negotiations between Washington and Tehran.

As for the global economic situation, the horizon is darkening. The hike in oil prices has not, up to now, significantly slowed American growth, which continues thanks to the always-impressive dynamism of U.S. companies - but with a nonexistent savings rate. The tens of billions of dollars that the United States spends each year to keep its army in Iraq will now be added to other tens of billions of dollars for the reconstruction of destroyed areas.

Who can believe that a macroeconomic shock of this amplitude will have no effect, in terms of a slowdown of growth and a return to inflation, or even more likely, to a combination of the two? As always in a democracy, pocketbook issues weigh especially heavily during electoral cycles, and add yet another level of uncertainty in terms of the 2006 Congressional elections.

George W. Bush has before him three full years to preside over the destiny of America. Even weakened as he is, as leader of the leading country on the planet he has considerable resources. Will he know how to draw positive lessons from the hurricane?

What will come of the great debate that this nightmare has triggered in the United States? Will it lead to one more disillusionment for the world as a whole, or to reason for hope?