2019 will the year of uncertainty, warns the Centre for Strategic & International Studies. There’s the Trump-Russia investigation. Trade tensions. Civic unrest. Leadership vacuums. And intergenerational tensions.

“In a word, vertigo will define the certain uncertainty of 2019,” writes CSIS Risk and Foresight Group head Samuel Brannen. And that uncertainty is his number one on a list of his top five greatest risks for the coming year.

UNCERTAINTY
“US monetary policy and macroeconomic outlook are clear as mud headed into 2019,” Brannen writes. And that will have global fallout.

Then there’s the potential market fallout of the Mueller investigation into Trump’s 2016 election campaign: “For historical reference: during Watergate, January 1973-August 1974, stocks lost 42 per cent of their value,” he warns.

It’s all part of a global pandemic of uncertainty: “Multiple-personality-disorder Brexit, Italy’s debt crisis, civic unrest and a cratering presidency in France, a lame duck German chancellor, and more …”

And he calls into question the United States’ ongoing ability to shape world affairs: “Senior vacancies across the Trump administration and response to past turmoil — (such as) the Khashoggi killing — call into serious question how Washington will respond in a real crisis”.

INDO-PACIFIC POWER PLAY
The United States and China are at each others’ strategic and economic throats. And the nations of the Indo-Pacific are inevitably being caught up in it all.

Now, Brannen says, these nations must choose sides.

“The United States and China are increasingly asking countries in the region to choose between them, pivoting from an era of broader multilateralism and integration,” he writes.

He says President Trump’s failure to attend key regional summits has led to “deep concern” about US commitment to the region.

“China, for its part, continues to assert itself through territorial claims and island building activities in the South China Sea, the coercive politics of the Belt and Road Initiative, and malign influence in its neighbours’ internal affairs and democratic processes,” Brannen says. “But there are no questions in the region that (China’s influence) is there to stay.”

Which is why nations — including Japan and Singapore — are attempting to find ways to live alongside their increasingly assertive neighbour, initiating high-level talks and visits.

“US allies and partners in the region feel they must find a modus vivendi with China that doesn’t rely on continued US presence and commitment,” he warns.

‘GREY’ WARS
Direct conflict between nation states is a fearsome concept. Modern military technology is fast, brutal and effective. And the risk of nuclear escalation is therefore high.

So the world’s competing powers are finding new ‘battlefields’, and ways to fight without appearing to fight.

“Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will continue to engage in a range of covert activities that blur the lines of war and peace, negating traditional strengths of the United States and its allies,” Brannen warns. “Business and citizens alike are increasingly caught in the crossfire”.

Disinformation campaigns. Election interference. Cyber attacks. Digital espionage. Debt imprisonment. Mercenary combatants. Military manoeuvres.

The West “has been slow to acknowledge that these adversary behaviours are not aberrations but a consistent pattern indicating a new set of rules (or lack thereof) under which geopolitics will now play out,” he concludes.

GENERATION CHANGE
In 2019, Millennials (aged 23-38) will overtake Baby Boomers (55-77) as the single largest group in the United States. It’s a generational shift echoed around muchn of the Western world.

“The consequences could be sweeping,” Brennen warns. “As millions of more boomers cross the traditional retirement age and beyond, younger Americans increasingly wonder why boomers are still calling all the shots at a time when few think the country is headed in the right direction.”

He points out Millennials think very different, in large part because they are the first generation to be financially less well-off than their parents.

“Their risk calculus relative to the status quo is simply different from their elders,” he warns.

Millennials to show a greater preference for international engagement when it comes to foreign policy and hold significant fears for the state of the environment — and its implications.

AUTOMOTIVE APOCALPSE
Australia’s car industry has already gone the way of the dodo. According to CSIS, this “slow moving apocalypse” is set to march across the world.

“Between electric vehicles, autonomous driving, the takeover of the Internet of Things and a data-driven economy, the car as we know it is no more,” Brannen concludes.

And that’s led to a global automotive ‘arms race’, with new competitors ranging from the likes of Apple to Waymo.

But behind it all are changing consumer behaviours.

“How many 20-somethings do you know who don’t own a car and really don’t ever want to own one?” he asks. Car makers are having to ‘reinvent themselves’ as transportation companies, he says, exploring new business models beyond simply selling their vehicles.

The stress on carmakers is so intense, Brannen says, that its corporate leadership is “coming unglued under pressure”. The heads of Nissan/Renault and Audi were arrested in the past year, and Tesla’s controversial Elon Musk found himself probed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.