At Davos, Geopolitics and Business Dance a Winding Waltz

It's that other time of year again. The time when the world’s business and political elites gather at an Alpine resort in Davos, Switzerland, to compare notes on the challenges they face. The top risks under discussion this year, released in advance by the World Economic Forum, are cybersecurity and "a deterioration in the geopolitical situation." The first of these two risks, cybersecurity, represents merely the latest in a long line of threats that have emerged from technological development as states and private actors jockey for an edge over one another. But the second risk, geopolitical deterioration, has not been much of a focal point for several decades. And because geopolitics is the platform on which many other things rest, its deterioration is a threat that affects not only Davos attendees, but also the entire global population....