The ‘butterfly effect’ is a beautiful, mysterious metaphor of the planet’s interconnectedness. American mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz explained it evocatively: “A butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause a tornado in Texas.” As the new year dawns, the question is: What if it is not a butterfly, but a behemoth flapping his wings?
When the almighty Donald Trump becomes president again of the sole superpower, we could see butterfly effects on steroids. In mathematics, the butterfly effect is part of the chaos theory, or chaology: consequences are not random, they are influenced by distant actions. Chaotic behaviour exists in natural phenomena like climate or heartbeat irregularities and in human-engineered systems like traffic.
Many see Trump as a champion-in-chief of chaos. Experts expect Trump’s wrathful focus will be China. Books predict Trump today will lead to nuclear war in 2034—a terrifying butterfly effect. China values its own exceptionalism as much as the US does. But China’s exceptionalism is also fuelled by centuries-old grievance at west-inflicted injury, humiliation, for toppling it from its rightful place in world glory.
Imaging: Deni Lal
The US can miscalculate China’s unyielding determination to resist American coercion. Resoluteness underpinned by rancour becomes immune to loss. But China also miscalculates. It is convinced the US is a declining power. Maybe, but not just yet. The US democracy is failing, its infrastructure crumbling, its politics toxic, its polarisation chasmic, its underclass sick and broke. But its economy and military might are robust. A provocation—seemingly as light as flapping wings—could unleash vengeful fury in the Pacific.
Iran worries about a Trump-backed Israel. Nuclear blowout is at the extreme end of the war spectrum. Belligerence leads to manifestations of varied confrontations. The recycled architect of the recycled America First slogan was scorned as an isolationist. It is unsettling that even before he begins his second term, Trump rattles his sabre in true imperialist style—threatening to seize Panama Canal, grab the strategically located Greenland in the Arctic from Denmark, make Canada the 51st state of the US. The expanding axis of the aggrieved bristles at being treated like timid little imminent colonies of the world’s new conquistador.
The butterfly effect may also be seen in the Russia-Ukraine war. A Trump brokered armistice is widely expected. But German elections in February could well be the flapping wings that alter the course of this war. The poll could be a referendum on continued support for Ukraine, with naysayers gaining the upper hand.
For millennia, Indians have believed in the butterfly effect, not as in mathematics but as in fate. Beneath randomness lie patterns, fractals, feedback loops and interconnectedness, linking cause and effect. Cloud cover saved Kuroko, the original target; clear skies doomed Nagasaki. Byzantium’s fall in 1453 ricocheted globally for centuries. First it disrupted trade of Asian luxury goods into Europe. So, Christopher Columbus sailed to discover new routes to India, only to find riches in America, which then encouraged European nations to launch an era of global imperialism, colonisation and exploitation.
However, butterfly effects can also be falsely attributed. Archduke Franz Ferdinand takes Sophie, his bored princess-wife, for a car-ride in Sarajevo, they are assassinated, World War follows. Butterfly effect? Wrong. The assassination was a pretext. European powers were already powder dry and battle ready. Such excuses are evil engineering, not butterfly effects.
Opposite of chaos is the stable theory, where big actions lead to minor outcomes. Such stability is valid in maths and physics, but a vain hope in today’s geopolitics.
Pratap is an author and journalist.