2022: The year that shook the world [What Think Tanks are thinking]

The past year has been a genuine annus horribilis, shaking Europe and the world with security, economic and geopolitical shocks. Russia's brutal and unprovoked attack on Ukraine is the biggest military conflict on the continent since the Second World War. Apart from causing horrific death tolls, suffering and destruction, the war triggered security, political, energy and migration crises and undermined the nascent economic recovery from the COVID pandemic, fuelling record inflation and clouding growth prospects. The assertiveness of autocratic regimes, notably in China and Russia, the rise of populism, global technology rivalry, and post-pandemic problems with supply chains accelerated global fragmentation, shifted political alliances and posed a further threat to the rules-based order in the world. Climate talks made some headway, but some analysts and politicians warn that the action so far has been insufficient and the world may be close to a point of no return on climate change. This note gathers links to selected recent publications and commentaries from many international think tanks on the key takeaways from 2022.