This is not a drill

We are not merely living through a Trump war. We are living through the end of one world and the messy birth of another. For three decades after 1990, global politics felt settled: the US on top, the dollar anchoring the system, trade and finance broadly predictable. By the late 2010s, Amitav Acharya was already describing a “multiplex world” with many centres of power, overlapping rules and no single director.

The Iran–US–Israel war is unfolding inside that shift. President Donald Trump’s campaign against Iran, his threats to Iranian infrastructure should Hormuz not reopen on his terms, and his willingness to wield oil, sanctions and sea lanes as instruments of pressure are symptoms of deeper change, not its cause. I call this pattern political-creative destruction: old arrangements broken up, sometimes violently, clearing space for new ones not yet formed. For South Africa, the stakes are concrete. It is the difference between being blindsided by other people’s choices and positioning ourselves deliberately on the map of the next 30 years.

By mid-century, Asia could account for roughly half of global output in terms of purchasing power parity, while the combined US and EU share shrinks. The centre of gravity is moving east and south. In that world, shutdowns such as the disruption of Hormuz are not one-off shocks but rehearsals of how great powers will use leverage long after Trump leaves office.

The practical answer is to treat the state like a pilot facing fast-changing weather, not a committee waiting for the next headline. That means weekly simulations. Start with what has happened: tanker movements through Hormuz, oil prices, statements from Washington and Tehran, the rand. Layer in domestic signals — fuel underrecoveries, food prices, bond yields, port and rail volumes, the power system. Then ask disciplined forward questions. If the war continues at its current intensity, what happens to our fuel path, inflation and growth? If fighting de-escalates, how much relief arrives, and how fast? If strikes on Iran provoke retaliation at sea, what is our stress test for jobs, food and debt service?

The point is not to make one, perfect forecast. It is a live, weekly sense of a central path, a better path and a worse path, so a small team can tell the cabinet: here is what the data indicates, here is what it means, here are three moves for the central path and two we must hold ready if the worse path materialises. Governing in an era of political-creative destruction means assuming the environment is being remade and building habits of disciplined anticipation.

South Africa’s foreign policy objectives exist on paper, not in practice. The framework document issued by the department of international relations and co-operation in 2022 restates broad, sometimes contradictory principles: human rights, pan-Africanism, South–South solidarity and reform of global governance, without ranking priorities or defining what must be secured when interests clash. It is a bundle of competing elite preferences. In a world where decisions in Washington, Beijing or Brussels move our fuel bill within weeks, that ambiguity is no longer harmless.

Regional leadership has drifted and soft power has been squandered. Corruption and state capture, under the incumbent president and his predecessor, have eroded the moral authority we enjoyed in the 1990s. Within the Southern African Customs Union and Sadc, South Africa is economically dominant but has struggled to convert this into accepted leadership. The ANC and several peer liberation parties are at their weakest in 30 years, just as the global order enters its most turbulent stretch in a generation.

The real choice is between a fragmented Southern Africa pulled in conflicting directions by outside powers, and a South Africa unapologetic about acting as the region’s benign hegemon

Clinging to “non-hegemonic leadership” no longer serves the region. The real choice is between a fragmented Southern Africa pulled in conflicting directions by outside powers, and a South Africa unapologetic about acting as the region’s benign hegemon — anchoring collective positions, investing in regional infrastructure and pulling neighbours into shared projects rather than scattered bilateral deals.

That is not domination. It is recognising that regional renewal will not happen by accident. The department of trade, industry & competition’s (DTIC’s) strategies are not grounded in a live view of South Africa as the region’s economic centre of gravity. The Presidency lacks a strategic core to turn scenarios into time-bound instructions. The Treasury is asked to be both fiscal guardian and chief economic strategist, a dual role it cannot discharge in an age of rapid shocks.

Retooling for the next 30 years

South Africa should fuse Dirco’s external network with the DTIC’s trade and industrial instruments into a ministry of geopolitics & economic development. Integration must not subordinate development expertise to diplomatic convenience. The ministry would own real-time geopolitical risk analysis, map how global shifts hit our economy on a weekly basis and plug South Africa and the region into Asian and African growth, with the EU and US as important but no longer exclusive anchors.

Simulations need a permanent home, not an ad hoc war room. Repurpose the Deputy Presidency as a strategic foresight & futures office with a technocrat staff. Economists, demographers, systems analysts, regional specialists, climate scientists and security analysts, grouped around a reinvested Stats SA, would run weekly, quarterly and generational simulations, briefing the cabinet and parliament on the three biggest risks, the three biggest openings, and the concrete decisions we must take now. The UK’s foresight unit, Singapore’s strategy group and Finland’s committee for the future show that small, well-placed teams can change how a state thinks.

Then a role for a redefined Treasury: a ruthless manager, not a would-be developer. The Treasury should concentrate on three things.

First, fiscal sustainability, clear ceilings, credible debt paths, efficient tax design and the discipline to say “no”.

Second, a purpose-built financial integrity and expenditure-crime unit for what can only be called financial terrorism — the systematic theft and laundering of public funds through wrongly given tenders and misuse of state-owned entities. It would combine legal, forensic-accounting and data-analytics capabilities; use network analysis of ownership structures and anomaly detection in procurement data; and work with prosecutors and specialised courts to carry cases through to conviction. If the South African Revenue Service can spot your missed return, the Treasury should be able to spot a missing R1bn.

Third, building and defending the financial architecture: stable intergovernmental fiscal relations; protection from systemic climate and geopolitical shocks; and domestic capital markets capable of financing long-term infrastructure. The treasury of a serious state does not claim to create jobs. It builds and defends the system within which jobs can be created.

The deeper payoff is cultural. With foreign policy, trade and industrial strategy integrated, and leadership fed a steady diet of simulations, success stops being measured by how loud our statements are. It is measured instead by how well we shield households from external shocks, position our ports and firms in the emerging Asia–Africa-Atlantic economy, turn disruptions into investment openings, and anchor Southern Africa’s renewal as a confident hegemon rather than a distracted giant.

Political-creative destruction is breaking up the old order. We cannot stop it. We can decide whether to meet it with institutions built for a different age or with a deliberately rethought state in which the organising principles are economic development and economic diplomacy grounded in honest simulations of where the world is going; and where we want South Africa to be when we arrive.

Pooe is an associate professor at the Wits School of Governance. He writes in his personal capacity