2022 IN REVIEW: WORLD EVENTSTen Most Significant World Events in 2022
Future historians may come to regard 2022 as a hinge in history, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. Major war returned to Europe, with the attendant threats of nuclear strikes, and the door closed firmly shut on the U.S. policy of strategic engagement with China. As 2022 comes to a close, here are the top ten most notable world events of the past year.
Future historians may come to regard 2022 as a hinge in history, marking the end of one era and the beginning of another. Major war returned to Europe, with the attendant threats of nuclear strikes, and the door closed firmly shut on the U.S. policy of strategic engagement with China. Yes, the past twelve months did bring some good news. Most notably, the COVID-19 pandemic eased in many countries. But overall, 2022 brought more bad news than good news. So here are my top ten world events in 2022. (My colleagues in CFR Digital have created a video that recounts the top seven.) You may want to read what follows closely. Many of these stories will continue into 2023 and beyond.
10. Turmoil Rocks British Politics. It is never good when a prime minister’s tenure is measured in “Scaramuccis.” But that was the United Kingdom’s situation in 2022. The country whose empire once spanned the globe had three prime ministers in just two months and also lost the world’s longest reigning monarch. The proximate cause for the turmoil at 10 Downing Street was more than fifty members of Boris Johnson’s government resigning in July to protest the seemingly endless parade of scandals on his watch. He agreed to resign, and was succeeded by Liz Truss. She lasted just forty-five days—or 4.1 Scaramuccis—the shortest tenure of any British prime minister in history. (Truss also holds the distinction of being the last prime minister that Queen Elizabeth II asked to form a government.) Truss won the job in an internal Conservative Party election in which just 0.3 percent of registered British voters were eligible to vote. She sealed her doom by immediately slashing taxes. The move sent the value of the British pound plummeting. Rishi Sunak, who helped engineer Johnson’s downfall, got the honor of trying to pick up the pieces as Britain’s first prime minister of color. He faces daunting headwinds. Britain looks to be in a recession with inflation running at 15 percent, partly because of skyrocketing energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
