[27 November 2022] The firm Standard & Poor’s needs no introduction. Founded in 1868, S&P, as it is known today, has a worldwide reputation for building and maintaining accurate financial market indices. The latter are widely viewed as points of reference across the world. In addition to issuing credit ratings for companies, as well as evaluating debt obligations, S&P issues periodic forecasts about the state of the global economy and its many parameters.
Last week, the company unveiled its most recent forecast, as part of the latest installment of its Global Market Intelligence report series. Titled A World Rebalancing, the report makes for unsettling reading. It describes with stark language what the S&P analysts refer to as “a new era of uncertainty and instability.” This highly pessimistic view rests on a handful of overarching themes, which, according to the authors of the report, are expected to continue to drive political and economic developments in the coming year.
Among these themes are a growing number of unresolved conflicts, principal among them being the Russo-Ukrainian war. Every single day this war continues, global instability increases, fed by worries about a potential nuclear accident, growing energy instability, as well as the continuing drop in food production and the global inflationary pressures that this war has been generating. Without doubt, the issue of energy security will remain at the top of the economic and political agenda in the coming year, the report notes.
The risk environment has undoubtedly become progressively unmanageable since 2016. It will become even more so in 2023, prompting leaders in the public and private sectors to resort to intelligence professionals, in order to reduce the possibility of error in their decision-making. In other words, 2023 will be a heck of a time to be in the field of intelligence. As this tumultuous year is about to end, we need to prepare for what is to come in our field of work and study. This may be one for the history books. [EIA]