In this podcast from ABC radio national (54 min), journalist and Professor of Global Affairs at Griffith University Stan Grant  gives a lecture examining the impact of the pandemic on international relations and our democratic freedoms.

Stan looks at the perfect medium that this current pandemic provides for the growth and spread of tyranny. Will democracy survive the pandemic?

We are now living in the midst of a tinderbox of changing global order, expanding borders and disputed territories.
A Thucydides Trap, where conflict with China is a real and unthinkable nightmare that could easily escalate out of control from a simple miscalculation.

Thucydides’s Trap refers to the natural, inevitable discombobulation that occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power…[and] when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, the resulting structural stress makes a violent clash the rule, not the exception.

— Wikipedia.

I recommend taking the time to give your undivided attention to this eloquent (if not a little too academic) podcast. Go make a cup of coffee (or something stronger) and sit back to steep in this.
Fair warning: This is a pretty grim listen. But more so, it is an important lesson as we move into 2021.

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Original source: Big Ideas.
Photo credit: Public Domain Pictures.