Global analysts say if they had to pick a year for an unexpected crisis 'it feels like 2018. Sorry.'
 
 
The excitement of the new year has barely warn off and global analysts are already warning that 2018 "doesn't feel good," Axios reports. The Eurasia Group, the world's largest political risk consultancy, reported Tuesday that "in the 20 years" since its founding, "if we had to pick one year for a big unexpected crisis … it feels like 2018. Sorry."
The Eurasia Group broke down 2018's risks into 10 categories like "U.S.-Iran relations" and "identity politics in southern Asia." Other categories are less obvious, such as "accidents," which observes that there are "too many places where a misstep or misjudgment could provoke serious international conflict."
The United States is hardly exempt from risks either. "The decline of U.S. influence in the world will accelerate in 2018," the analysts predicted. "The mix of soft power and economic and political liberalism faces a crisis of credibility. With little sense of strategic direction from the Trump White House, U.S. global power, used too aggressively by George W. Bush, then too timidly by Barack Obama, is sputtering to a stall."
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Additionally, risk #10 — "red herrings" — cites President Trump as "the weakest U.S. president in decades," writing that "if there's a major crisis (please see risk #2: Accidents), we're all in trouble." Read the full Eurasia Group assessment here.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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