Amid the international debate over the future of Afghanistan, a false binary has taken hold. Afghanistan is torn, we are told, between two choices: a corrupt, ineffective, increasingly unpopular government of President Hamid Karzai or the prospect of the return of the Taliban and their twisted and violent vision of Islam and a manifestly disastrous ruling history. In this stark choice, Mr Karzai is the usual winner.

The modern economy experiences two types of cyclical debt cycles: the short-term business cycle that produces the familiar oscillation between expansion and recession, bull and bear; and the long-term debt cycle that we are experiencing now. During the 75-year period of these cycles, the debt-to-income profile of the entire economy gradually builds up a stock of household, corporate, and government debt that income is insufficient to service. The credit reset from indebtedness to balance is called a deleveraging.

On January 6, 2011, then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Sharm el Sheikh in an effort to resuscitate the flagging peace process. Egypt for many years played the role of regional protector of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which was extremely heavy on process while being ever-more transparently light on delivering peace. It is a role that the new Egypt is unlikely to volunteer for.

This year proved a tipping point for China’s approach to the world. The confluence of Europe’s debt crisis and America’s contracting defence budget has created rising expectations that China will shoulder ever greater power burdens for international stability. No longer can it keep a low profile in international strategic and economic affairs. Could it join America as a world policeman sooner than expected?