The Deep File: Where we may be going in 2022
In which, I end 2021 by reviewing the year that was and attempt to anticipate the year that will be.
Where I thought we were going
Below are a list of observations I made at the close of 2020, and my guesses as to where those trend lines were going:
The pressure on the Biden administration to respond to Russian hacking operations will be high.
Republican Senators are going to work to hold the Biden administration's feet to the fire on China, especially as the ICC and other international organizations turn a blind eye to its human rights depredations.
Iran appears intent on avenging the year-old death of General Soleimani (guess they were waiting for a new President to do that).
Arab-Israeli ties across the Middle East look set to improve, with or without American support.
The civil and religious crisis in Nigeria looks set to deepen as Boko Haram continues kidnapping children and murdering Christians across the country.
War in Ethiopia’s Tigray region also appears to be lasting into the new year.
Antitrust legislation against the major Big Tech firms will continue to gather strength, especially as bipartisan support for such action emerges on Capitol Hill.
Where we’ve been in 2021
Overall, I’d say I didn’t do too badly in terms of identifying some of the main contours of 2021. From Africa’s simmering wars, to escalating bipartisan antipathy towards China, to difficulties with Russian and Iranian aggression across the world, the general challenges facing the incoming Biden administration were clearly marked out. And it was in that context that I expressed concern and general pessimism as the early shape the Biden foreign policy and foreign policy team was taking.
Little did I know how spectacularly the administration’s approach to foreign policy would fail in Afghanistan. And, as I noted in a Deep File on the Afghanistan debacle, this failure would continue to haunt the Biden administration. That observation seems to be bearing itself out as Afghanis move into a winter of food and fuel shortages, and American adversaries seek to push the envelope from Ukraine to Taiwan.
2021 was also another year of the Covid rollercoaster. The Biden administration vowed the end the plague and got smacked by two subsequent waves making 2021 a deadlier Covid year than 2020, an appalling mark against the Biden administration given its confidence coming into office, and the greater array of tools it had at its disposal in terms of vaccines, new medical interventions, etc.
Foreign policy failures and a failure to deliver on a promised post-pandemic “return to normalcy” would be bad enough for an administration headed into unfavorable midterms, and close observers of party politics noted that the challenge for the Democrats in 2021 was going to be demonstrating that they could govern in the divided political landscape. Here, too, Democrats largely failed, evidenced by electoral defeats in Virginia and the intra-party circular firing squad that emerged in Congress over Biden’s legislative agenda.
Where we may be headed in 2022
In all actuality, Biden may already be a lame duck president. The big political question of 2022 will be how bad will the midterms be for the Democrats? If the inflationary economy continues (or worsens), if Russia and China score even a minor foreign policy victory at America’s expense, and if the Supreme Court rules against the government on abortion and vaccine mandates, the already grim pre-election political landscape will look positively apocalyptic for the Democrats.
Bad midterm results are probably the easiest thing to predict for 2022. After that, it’s all just assessing probabilities. That being said:
High probability
The inflationary economy will continue for the time being.
The midterms will be terrible for the Democrats, and they’ll continue to see minority voters (especially Hispanics) step away from the party.
Attempts to renegotiate a nuclear deal with Iran will either fail, or merely deliver a mutual face-saving agreement.
Russia’s pressure campaign on Ukraine won’t stop. It might not go to war, but the pressure will still be a major distraction for US diplomats.
We’ll have our winter wave of Omicron, but it’s already shaping up to be less deadly, which is a major plus if that trend line holds.
North Korea’s going to want in on all the attention it’s Chinese ally is getting from America, so expect a Pyongyang-generated crisis at some point.
Medium probability
The Ethiopian civil war will continue, and could pull in other regional actors, especially if retreating Tigray rebels seek asylum in a neighboring country.
SCOTUS is likely to rule on major issues in the first half of the year, and will likely make major revisions to Roe v. Wade, limit federal power on vaccine mandates, and possibly expand gun rights.
Democrats will make a last ditch effort to get some portion of the Biden legislative agenda passed, whether it’s voting rights or Build Back Better, but the closer midterms come, the less expansive those bills are likely to be.
Low probability
Manchin won’t be switching parties any time soon.
China will saber rattle over Taiwan, continue airspace incursions, and otherwise seek to alienate the island, but is unlikely to invade it.
That is by no means an exhaustive list of what 2022 will be like, and there will likely be surprises along the way, but I provide the above observations (not predictions) as a a way of hopefully providing you with a framework by which to observe the coming year without getting sucked into the alarmist reporting that will no doubt accompany anything and everything.
As for me, I’ve got a dissertation to finish and 2022, God willing, will be the year I do that.
I’m also really looking forward to continuing to write to you and for you in the coming year. Happy 2022!