Blindsided by a dysfunctional Donald Trump administration, Australia can forget about escaping the madness that has engulfed Washington as it awaits the next unpredictable manoeuvre.

This is the world we find ourselves in, untethered from the sort of American stabilising role we have come to take for granted.

If you found 2018 disconcerting, there is no reason to believe things will settle down next year. Indeed, they may get worse as that administration finds itself increasingly under siege.

Multiple investigations into Russian influence on Trump’s presidential election campaign, lawsuits against the President’s associates as far as the eye can see and the prospect of endless Democrat-driven Congressional inquiries into the administration’s conduct mean Washington will remain in a state of high anxiety for the life of this President. Impeachment proceedings can’t be excluded.

At home, the 2019 election campaign is already under way with a beleaguered Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, striving to reverse an electoral tide that is threatening to wash away the Coalition’s foundations.

This month's release of the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) that showed a return to a budgetary surplus in 2019-20 – ahead of schedule – gives the government something to talk about.

However, it’s not clear this windfall gain and its disbursement will make a lot of difference in the end.

Overall, it seems as if the world has lost its bearings. As a result, American commentators have discarded their restraint.

“You had to ask whether we really can survive two more years of Trump as President, whether this man and his demented behaviour … are going to destabilise our country … and, by extension, the world,’’ wrote New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman last week.

His concerns are belated; the world already is destabilised. The question is whether the destabilisation can be contained.

What does this mean for us?

If Australian politics found itself on a settled course with a government in power that commanded public confidence, you could say the country was relatively well placed to deal with whatever challenges might arise. Washington’s disregard for a rules-based international system could be accommodated.

However, a hard-pressed government clinging to power and under siege from within its own ranks is less well equipped to manage challenges at home and abroad.

This includes getting the balance right between energy security and climate change mitigation.

Thus far Morrison’s tenure as Prime Minister has been disappointing. He does not appear to realise that leadership is more than a marketing exercise.

Meanwhile, international crises swirl. Among them: a slowing global economy and concerns about recession; record levels of private and public debt; unresolved trade tensions between the US and China; equities market volatility that is having a whipsaw effect on confidence; uncertainties over Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union; concerns about the future of the EU itself; fractious negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, and a highly unstable Middle East rendered more so by Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria, leaving a vacuum to be filled by Damascus and its backers, Russia and Iran.

In the year ahead Iran may prove to be the most combustible issue globally, one that has the potential to bring about a widespread crisis, even war. The resignation of defence secretary James Mattis in protest at Trump's arbitrary decision to pull back from Syria – exposing America’s Kurdish allies to Turkish reprisals – means that constraints on the President's actions in the Middle East will be loosened.

Trump’s antagonism towards Iran will be reinforced by those around him, including national security adviser John Bolton, who has a long history of hawkishness when it comes to Tehran.

What is certain in the year ahead is there will be moments when Iran’s behaviour invites the threat of American reprisals.

A Prime Minister such as Morrison, who can hear the electorate sharpening its knives, could be excused for casting his gaze in the direction of another conservative leader who was heading for defeat in 2001, until the Tampa loomed and with it an exploitable asylum seeker issue. That was followed by the September 11 terrorist attacks.

John Howard took advantage of – some would say manipulated – these events by running what was described at the time as a "khaki election". And the rest, as they say, is history.

In politics the unexpected does happen.

But as things stand, Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg find themselves in a political cul-de-sac awaiting December quarter growth figures in the new year on top of a weak September quarter. Further weakness in December will not be at all helpful for the government on the eve of a budget in April.

In all of this, the baleful prospect – for some – of William Richard Shorten’s arrival in The Lodge becomes more likely: not certain, but more likely.