In unsettled times, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House looks set to shake things up further. But how does a disrupter deal with an already disrupted world?
In the Middle East, a chain reaction set off by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel has propelled a year of staggering change. Israel has buried Gaza under rubble; degraded Iran’s regionwide network of nonstate proxies; demolished Tehran’s own defences; and, inadvertently, set the stage for Islamist rebels to topple the Assad family’s half-century-old dictatorship in Syria.
In Asia, where China vies with the United States and its allies for primacy, flash points in the South China Sea, the waters and skies around Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula look ever more precarious. Russia’s assault on Ukraine is, judging by President Vladimir Putin’s threats, part of a struggle to revise post-Cold War arrangements, and it threatens to tip into a wider confrontation in Europe.
Elsewhere, a wave of conflict – including Myanmar’s civil war, a Rwanda-backed rebellion in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, a gang takeover that has left millions of Haitians in warlike conditions, plus the devastation in Sudan – is adding to a global tally of people dead, displaced, and hungry due to fighting that is higher than at any time in decades.
Generalising about what drives the turmoil is hard, given each conflict’s distinct roots. China and Russia – and to some degree, North Korea – are challenging orders that were underpinned for decades by U.S. power in Asia and Europe. Elsewhere, absent a hegemon or concert of big powers acting in unity, more leaders sense constraints crumbling. More see opportunities to pursue ends by violent means or fear losing out if they hold back. Most governments, of course, do not seek to crush rivals at home or sponsor proxies abroad, let alone annex neighbours or kill civilians en masse. But more are taking things into their own hands. Increasingly, the main check on their actions is how much fight their foes can put up.
Interlinked conflicts make unintended consequences likelier.
If adventurism is on the rise, its knock-on effects – how rivals sensing the same loosened fetters might react – are harder to foresee. Interlinked conflicts make unintended consequences likelier. Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who masterminded the October assault, surely underestimated the ruin that a largely unrestrained Israel would wreak on Gaza in response. Even Israel, for all its spycraft, did not predict its hammering of Hizbollah in Lebanon helping a reformed al-Qaeda offshoot seize Damascus. (Syria’s new ruler, despite his jihadi past, says he is not looking for a fight with Israel.)
Trump’s return brings fresh uncertainty. In Europe, the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, Trump’s promises are often contradictory, as are the views of his cabinet picks and loyalists. If he doubles down on confrontation, how much risk will he tolerate? If he seeks deals, what trade-offs might they entail, and what might the implications be for U.S. allies? Outside those arenas, if Washington is largely absent, how will others fill the space?
Trump’s admirers see virtue in impetuousness. Keeping rivals and allies on their toes can deter the former and extract concessions from the latter. Putin, they say, was shyer of acting up with Trump in office, and Trump’s ambiguity about NATO has shaken Europeans out of their complacency about the continent’s security just as much as the Kremlin’s aggression has.
But unpredictability could just as easily backfire. While no one wants all-out war, miscalculation is as much a risk along major-power fault lines as elsewhere. If Trump or top officials get too hawkish, a rival could respond in kind, aiming to reset a red line but crossing one of Washington’s own. Or a U.S. ally – the Philippines, say, or Taiwan or Israel – could overstep, prompting retaliation from China or Iran that risks dragging in the United States.
On the other hand, if Trump disparages Washington’s alliances, an adversary – Moscow, most likely, but plausibly Pyongyang or even Beijing – could decide to test Trump’s willingness to come to the aid of U.S. allies, prompting a political uproar in Washington that forces the president’s hand.
Bellicosity might also engender more united resistance. Talk of a China-Russia-North Korea-Iran “axis” is overblown, given that the four capitals share few interests beyond resisting U.S. power and evading sanctions. Still, they increasingly help one another out. Iranian and North Korean arms; dual-use components from China; and, now, North Korean troops are helping to sustain Putin’s war effort in Ukraine. The defence pact that Putin inked with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in November in principle binds Pyongyang, and potentially peninsular security, to the war in Europe.
Ties among these adversaries will likely tighten if Trump ratchets up hostility on all fronts – all the more so if he pushes Europe to toughen trade restrictions on China or encourages NATO to involve itself more in Asia.
For dealmaking, Trump’s heterodoxy might be more an advantage – if it is aimed in the right direction.
For dealmaking, Trump’s heterodoxy might be more an advantage – if it is aimed in the right direction. The hypothetical grand bargain with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that is floated by some in Trump’s orbit – which would lead Washington to accept Chinese primacy in Asia, including over Taiwan (the manufacturer of almost all the advanced microchips that the global economy relies upon) – seems far-fetched. A deal with Russia that left Ukraine demilitarised and without security guarantees, as Putin demands, would quickly collapse. No stable path to sphere-of-influence-type agreements in Asia or Europe exists, even if Trump could persuade U.S. allies to think otherwise.
Humbler goals might be feasible. Frequent talks with Xi and efforts to reinforce the guardrails that are already in place, such as military-to-military hotlines and backchannels between top national security officials, could put the U.S.-China relationship on a steadier footing and help to prevent incidents in the skies and waters around China from spiralling into a full-blown crisis. With Russia, a ceasefire deal that punted the thorniest disputes to future negotiations would be far from ideal. Putin might well reject it. But if Trump could pull it off, it would be better than today’s destruction and escalation risks. Such arrangements might also open space for Washington’s Asian and European allies to gradually take on more responsibility for their own defence, rather than being left to fend for themselves while unprepared.
Nuclear talks with North Korea or Iran might yield more. Last time around, Trump’s mercurial course led to negotiations that nearly got him a deal – which, while imperfect, would have limited Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Despite Kim’s ties with Russia, Pyongyang remains a pariah with plenty to gain from Washington’s good-will. Still better prospects lie with Iran. Tehran, weaker than it has been for decades, might agree to curb not only Iran’s nuclear program but also its already-diminished network of proxies. Washington could, in turn, pledge not to destabilise the Islamic Republic – and to try to dissuade Israel from doing so. Trump, after all, has said that he is uninterested in regime change.
So, how to forecast an unpredictable 2025?
Whatever happens, the slide into lawlessness looks set to continue. The United States has always given itself and friends a pass from international law where it suited its interests. But even by the patchy standards of recent decades, things are bad and poised to get worse.
Whereas outgoing President Joe Biden paid lip service to global order, while turning a blind eye to Israel’s demolition of Gaza, Trump will largely dispense with the first bit. If Israel annexes the West Bank with U.S. blessing, or Washington unilaterally bombs Mexican cartels, norms that are already enfeebled risk further disintegrating. Belligerents will pay even less heed to civilian suffering. Other leaders might test whether they can seize chunks of a neighbour’s territory. Most of today’s wars look set to rage on, perhaps in some cases punctuated by ceasefires that hold until geopolitical winds shift or other opportunities to finish off rivals arise.
Trump could strike deals – ones with Pyongyang or Tehran that remake Asian or Middle Eastern security, or with Beijing that stem the tilt of competition toward conflict, or with Moscow that temporarily calm things down. But nightmare scenarios – a blow-up in Asia, a wider European confrontation, or an attempt to topple Iran’s regime or mass expulsion of Palestinians setting off a Middle Eastern conflagration – cannot be ruled out, either.
As the pace of change picks up, the world seems primed for a paradigm shift. The question is whether it will happen at the negotiating table or on the battlefield.
10 Conflicts to Watch in 2025
- Syria
- Sudan
- Ukraine and European Security
- Israel-Palestine
- Iran vs. U.S. and Israel
- Haiti
- U.S.-Mexico
- Myanmar
- Korean Peninsula
- China-U.S.
Syria
Let’s start with the good news: Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship has fallen. Syria could get back on its feet after one of the world’s bloodiest recent wars. But plenty could go wrong.
For several years, a stalemate had prevailed. In 2020, Turkey sent in troops and struck a deal with Russia, which used its ties with Assad to halt an assault on Syria’s north west that Ankara feared would drive millions more refugees into Turkey. The truce left Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate that had broken with the global jihadi movement, in charge of Idlib province. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) held the north east. The world mostly thought the war was over and Assad had won.
Then, on 27 November, HTS struck, advancing from Idlib and, apparently to their own disbelief, taking Aleppo, the country’s second city, with little fighting. From there, they marched south, moving into Damascus on 8 December. A regime established by Assad’s father and that had ruled Syria for 54 years fell in less than two weeks.
The Syrian army’s rout owed partly to the well-drilled force that HTS had assembled and partly to the regime’s own decay. Assad, banking on the continued support of Hizbollah, Iran and Russia, neglected his own forces, relying on conscripts, poorly paid reservists, and predatory militias.
Seeing his weakness, Assad’s external backers stood by as rebels advanced. Most Hizbollah units that had defended the regime had, in any case, returned to Lebanon to fight Israel, where they suffered heavy losses. Iran, itself stinging from Israeli blows, could not come to Assad’s aid. Russia, whose airpower had turned the war’s tide nearly a decade ago, was bogged down in Ukraine. As regime defences crumbled, Moscow and Tehran appeared to have accepted HTS’s guarantees that Iran could safely pull assets out and Russia pull back to its Mediterranean port at Tartus or air base in Latakia (whether Russia will keep the port and base, which serve as hubs for its operations in Africa, is unclear).
HTS – whose leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa (who dropped his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, upon entering Damascus), in effect holds power – faces daunting challenges.
The immediate danger is disorder, particularly in central and western Syria countryside. HTS has largely secured major cities, punished some people accused of inciting sectarian hatred, and announced that it will dissolve its armed wing and other militias to form a centralised army. Sharaa, who brooked little dissent when ruling Idlib, did gradually improve protections for Christians and Druze and pledged to protect minorities countrywide. But HTS forces, though generally perceived as disciplined, number only some 30,000 and are overstretched. Other former rebels, including some within the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), are more unruly. In Hama, Homs and Latakia, gunmen have looted, randomly killed members of minority groups accused of backing Assad’s regime, and summarily executed some of his accomplices.
Syrians from across the country’s religious, ethnic and cultural mosaic expect a role in government.
Governing is another challenge. Many Syrians fear Islamist edicts, given HTS’s jihadi roots. Alawites, regarded (often unfairly) as the Assad regime’s base, have special cause to fear a sectarian order. But anxiety is acute, too, among other minorities, many secular Sunnis, political factions uncertain of their future role, and many women. Syrians from across the country’s religious, ethnic and cultural mosaic expect a role in government. HTS has yet to articulate a vision to make that happen.
Alienating fearful communities that may see in Syria’s new rulers the existential threat that Assad had long painted would be dangerous, given the proliferation of arms and thousands of former regime soldiers concentrated in minority-dominated areas.
Other dangers emanate from outside. As Assad fell, Israeli bombs levelled Syrian air force bases, naval facilities and arms depots, including, according to Israel, chemical weapons facilities. Israel, which annexed part of the Golan Heights in 1981, also sent troops into an adjacent demilitarised zone and hilltop positions on its Syrian side – steps that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called temporary and defensive. Sharaa, while criticising the bombardment and offensive, pledges to abide by existing agreements with Israel.
In the north east, the Turkish-backed SNA has driven the SDF out of several towns, displacing thousands of people. They now threaten Kobani, a Kurdish-majority city on the Turkish border. Ankara views the SDF as an appendage of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it has battled in Turkey and northern Iraq for decades. More fighting could uproot thousands more and further strain Syria’s transition. The SDF guards thousands of former Islamic State fighters, whose escape could reinforce the group’s remnants already regrouping in the desert. The United States, with a small presence in the east, has stepped up strikes on the Islamic State and patrols around Kobani. A precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Syria, if incoming President Donald Trump orders such a pullback, could unsettle things further.
Turkey, which stands to gain more than any other neighbour from Assad’s fall, should let Syria’s new authorities negotiate with the SDF the north east’s reintegration on terms everyone can live with.
Finally, Western and UN sanctions that obstruct the relief and investment Syria needs after years of war must be loosened. Western capitals should quickly issue general licenses that can enable more aid and economic activity to flow immediately while working with regional capitals to clarify to Damascus what must happen for sanctions relief.
Sudan
Sudan’s war, by dint of sheer numbers displaced and hungry, is the world’s most devastating. Some 12 million Sudanese – more than a third of the pre-war population – have fled their homes. More than half face acute food shortages, with parts of the Darfur region suffering famine. UN officials describe rates of sexual violence against women and girls as “staggering”. Increasingly, the country looks headed for violent fracture.
Fighting has engulfed ever wider tracts of the country. It pits the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – paramilitaries led by Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagalo – against the Sudanese army, headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and an array of aligned militias and Darfuri armed groups. After longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir’s ouster in 2019, Hemedti and Burhan first shared power with civilian politicians and then kicked them out before turning on each other.
The army, without much infantry, relies on airpower, including foreign-supplied drones, and indiscriminately bombing areas under RSF control. It has turned to militias, particularly those mobilised by Islamists influential under Bashir. Former Darfuri rebels have helped beat back RSF attacks on North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher. The RSF struggle to hold land outside its western strongholds but remains potent when engaged in attacks that suit its fast-paced, mobile fighting style. Its forces often bring carnage as they advance. Momentum has swung between the sides. But neither looks likely to prevail.
The war also risks roiling Sudan’s neighbours. South Sudan’s oil revenues, which sustain its budget and the patronage that glues together an uneasy peace, have tanked since the main pipeline through Sudan shut down. In eastern Chad, almost a million refugees are upsetting intercommunal politics. Chadian President Mahamat Déby’s decision to allow Emirati weapons to flow through Chad to Hemedti’s forces, seemingly in return for Emirati investment in Chad, has fuelled anger within Déby’s own powerful Zaghawa clan.
Outside meddling in Sudan has helped carve the Horn of Africa into competing camps. Emirati backing for the RSF (which Abu Dhabi denies, despite documentation by the United Nations and others) reflects its pursuit of influence and profit in the Red Sea basin. Ethiopia, with close ties to the United Arab Emirates, has sought to remain neutral, fearing that the Sudanese army will aid Ethiopia’s armed opposition, but it may still get sucked in. As for the Sudanese army, it counts on support from Egypt, which sees the army, despite its Islamist links, as a better bet than unruly RSF paramilitaries. Eritrea, suspicious of the UAE and keen to have a buffer on its western border, is training Sudanese army-allied groups. Iran has reportedly supplied the army with weapons including advanced drones.
Saudi Arabia, with ties to both sides, has hosted talks in Jeddah with little success. After more than a year of war, the United States finally appointed a Sudan envoy, a welcome step. For his part, Hemedti seems willing to talk but wants a new army – and a commanding role in it for loyalists, something that military chiefs, Islamists, and former Darfuri rebels bitterly oppose. Nor can factious civilian politicians unite behind ceasefire terms and follow-up arrangements.
Worryingly, some in Sudan, particularly among Bashir regime acolytes, talk about partition, arguing that RSF abuses rule out coexistence. They demand a carve-up, leaving the army in control of the north and east, including Khartoum, and the RSF holding the west and a patchwork of other areas.
Ending the war needs to be a higher priority. Ideally, Abu Dhabi and Cairo, given their influence over the parties, would rekindle talks they held in Bahrain in January 2024, the most serious attempt thus far to bring the sides together. They should lay out a vision for power-sharing, even if it is only transitional. Many Sudanese reject the idea that Burhan and Hemedti, who have driven Sudan off a cliff, should play any role in its future. But neither will halt a ruinous war absent a settlement they can live with.
As for the United States, President-elect Donald Trump shows little interest in Sudan and may defer to Gulf powers there. That would be a mistake. Washington is best positioned to push key players, notably Egypt and the UAE, to forge a deal. A violent breakup of Sudan could destabilise the Horn, the Red Sea, and farther afield for decades to come.
Ukraine and European Security
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war by negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Talks are worth trying, but it is hard to see a path to a sustainable ceasefire – let alone a peace deal.
Russian forces have the upper hand, though their slow advance in Ukraine’s east is coming at immense cost. The Kremlin’s army has suffered an estimated half-million deaths and injuries since 2022, Russia’s heavily sanctioned economy is struggling, and Putin wants to avoid calling up more soldiers, presumably fearing unrest. Plus, bogged down in Ukraine, Putin has lost his main Middle Eastern client, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. He still believes he is winning in Ukraine and that Kyiv’s Western backers lack the stamina for a long fight. But he appears willing to talk and see what he can get.
Kyiv shows no sign of giving up, but it is outgunned and outnumbered. In December, Trump’s team reportedly pledged continued aid. But whether that means letting through deliveries already under way as part of a big package approved in mid-2024 – which will likely run out a few months into 2025 – or underwriting a new tranche is unclear. Without U.S. aid, Europe, despite stepped-up arms production, will struggle to backfill, even if it purchases U.S. weaponry and even as Ukraine’s own factories churn out arms. Kyiv also has too few trained soldiers, and its offensive in Russia’s Kursk region has stretched its forces thinner. Ukrainian defences probably will not collapse anytime soon – indeed, Russian sources say they expect incremental gains, not a sudden rout – but Ukraine is in trouble.
Still, if both sides show fatigue, negotiations would be tough. The core challenge is not land. Kyiv mostly recognises, as do its Western backers, that Russia will keep, for now, the nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory it occupies. (The Kremlin also claims as part of Russia areas outside its control but Kyiv seems unlikely to surrender those or Moscow make concessions to get them.)
The sticking point is what happens to the rest of Ukraine. Putin wants a pliant neighbour outside the West’s orbit – part of his effort to redraw a post-Cold War order that he rejects as imposed at a time of Russian weakness. He demands that Ukraine demilitarise, or at least cap its army’s size, and forgo security guarantees. Kyiv and European capitals, in turn, see existential peril in such a deal. They believe, with good reason, that Russian forces would either advance again or Moscow would simply bend a defenceless Kyiv to its will. From there, they see an emboldened Kremlin cowing Moldova and menacing countries on NATO’s eastern flank.
If Ukraine and its Western backers mostly concur that deterrence is required for a ceasefire to hold, they disagree on what that should look like. NATO membership for Ukraine, despite Kyiv’s understandable desire to join, is not in the cards in the near term. Nor does Trump seem likely to offer a bilateral treaty akin to those Washington has with Japan or South Korea. For now, European capitals probably cannot make their own commitments or send troops themselves, unless the United States affirms that it would step in if necessary – effectively extending security guarantees similar to NATO membership. A strong Ukrainian army, aided by Europe, is an alternative but would require long-term Western aid.
Even if Ukraine’s Western backers could settle on an option, little suggests Putin will agree. It is still worth testing what he might accept, particularly in terms of Ukraine’s military. Even a ceasefire that puts the thorniest disputes on hold would be better than more war.
More likely … is that Russia’s offensive will grind on, with negotiations either yielding little or falling apart, with both sides keen to pin blame on the other.
More likely, though, is that Russia’s offensive will grind on, with negotiations either yielding little or falling apart, with both sides keen to pin blame on the other. Then, perhaps, Trump will point the finger at Moscow and, if he can muster sufficient arms and ammunition, escalate, running a still graver risk of direct confrontation with Russia. Or he may lose patience with Ukraine and walk away. Kyiv, reliant on European support and its own arms manufacturing, would face at best some vulnerable months as Europe scrambled to muster weapons.
Trump, for now, appears more inclined to force Europeans to spend more on defence than withdraw from the alliance altogether. But ambiguity could lead Putin to probe – perhaps in or around the Baltic or Black Sea. A major crisis in Europe would be hard for Washington to sit out, however bent Trump is on doing so.
Israel-Palestine
Israel’s assault on Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, has laid waste to the strip. The campaign, according to local authorities, has killed upwards of 45,000 Palestinians. Most were civilians – at least a third of them children. Thousands more bodies are missing, presumably under the rubble. Two thirds of buildings and infrastructure are damaged or in ruins, with entire neighbourhoods levelled.
While many Hamas leaders have been killed and the group’s military assets decimated, Western officials and even some Israelis quietly acknowledge that no authority can govern Gaza or carry out civil functions without Hamas’s acquiescence.
Israel’s operations are reshaping Gaza’s geography. It has dug into the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow buffer zone along the Gaza-Egypt border. It has split Gaza through the Netzarim Corridor, in which a large military base now sits, and reportedly plans to bisect the strip’s south, too. It has besieged and all but emptied the area north of Gaza City, ostensibly to better combat or force out Hamas fighters, but in effect expelling hundreds of thousands of starving civilians. It has also expanded a pre-existing buffer zone along the strip’s perimeter with Israel.
What change incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will bring is unclear. He has reportedly told Netanyahu that he wants the Gaza war to end before he assumes office but without hinting at his terms. Overall, his cabinet picks mostly seem inclined to give Netanyahu an even freer hand.
Talks mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States have yet to yield a ceasefire. Diplomats still suggest that Hamas, in exchange for a pause, might release some hostages (roughly 100 captives, seized on 7 October, remain in Gaza, at least a third of whom are presumed dead). Such an agreement might, in principle, envisage further phases, with Israeli troop withdrawals, reconstruction, or some form of local rule.
But given the mood in Israel, it is hard to imagine subsequent phases happening, even if there is a deal. More likely is that the army stays in Gaza, keeping most Palestinians cornered in the south, surviving on humanitarian aid. Israeli sources suggest that vetted Palestinians might eventually move to “humanitarian bubbles”, with policing and aid delivery falling to foreign contractors or locals with ties to Israel, though it is hard to see that working. Either way, society in Gaza cannot recover any time soon.
Another battle lies in the West Bank, which Israel appears poised to annex.
Another battle lies in the West Bank, which Israel appears poised to annex. Under ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Israel is transferring the territory’s management from military to civilian control, extending sovereignty, ordering more Palestinian homes demolished, and legalising settler outposts. Even without formal annexation, Israel could further accelerate tactics it has used for years: moving more settlers in and squeezing Palestinians into tinier pockets by force.
Israel has weathered international opprobrium during previous Gaza wars, only for it to subside as the occupied territories returned to a grim routine. This time, though, the war’s aftermath is less clear because Israel has discarded even the pretence of political accommodation in favour of unapologetic repression. By trying to crush not only Hamas but Palestinian hopes of self-determination, Netanyahu and Israel’s political leaders appear to have made a series of bets: that security can be maintained through force without credible Palestinian partners; that international institutions and justice remain largely toothless; that Israel’s supporters will hold onto power in the United States and other Western capitals, despite mounting horror at what its army has done to Gaza; and that, in the end, Arab leaders will respect Israel’s might, notwithstanding its treatment of the Palestinians.
Perhaps the best, albeit slim, hope lies in the Gulf. Trump still wants Saudi Arabia to normalise diplomatic ties with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords, the centrepiece of his first-term Middle East policy. Perhaps Riyadh, which rules out normalisation without a path to Palestinian statehood, can persuade him to lean on Israel to keep that option viable.
In Gaza, the U.S. failure to stop Israel’s campaign, despite supplying the bulk of the military aid it has relied on, and extract from Netanyahu a day-after plan has left the Israeli far right and military logic to define the strip’s future. It is all too plausible that the same happens for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict writ large.
Iran vs. U.S. and Israel
In the first half of 2024, Iran saw its Axis of Resistance – the Assad regime in Syria, and a collection of militant groups, including Hizbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq and Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza – as still providing the Islamic Republic a measure of protection and region-wide influence.
What a difference a few months can make. In July, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran. In September, Israel detonated hundreds of Hizbollah’s pagers and other devices, taking out much of its mid-level command. Airstrikes and a ground offensive followed, killing Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and decimating its ranks and military assets, while razing many villages. Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of October degraded its air defences and missile stores. As Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad in early December, Iran lost an ally it had spent billions propping up, as well as the primary air and land routes it used to resupply Hizbollah.
Tehran still has thousands of ballistic missiles (in October, around 30 of 180 penetrated Israeli defences), plus allied militias in Iraq and the Houthis, which continue to fire on Israel from Yemen. Hizbollah may yet regroup. But around Israel’s perimeter, the Axis of Resistance, which Iran saw as a deterrent against Israeli or U.S. attacks, is broken. From Tehran’s perspective, it is also worrisome how capable Israel’s intelligence agencies are and how high its risk tolerance has become.
Tehran’s losses have not shifted its nuclear calculations yet, despite the obvious incentive to acquire the ultimate deterrent. Advances in Iran’s program since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal mean its breakout time – the days needed to produce fissile material for a warhead – is virtually nil (mounting the warhead would take additional months). Clamour within the Iranian system for a bomb is getting louder. Yet, for now, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei still seems to see nuclear concessions as a ticket to getting sanctions lifted and jumpstarting a stalled economy. He may also worry that Israeli or U.S. intelligence agencies could detect a dash toward weaponisation.
Some of Trump’s advisors, like some Israelis, see in Iran’s weakness a chance to cripple its nuclear program or even its government. Trying to topple the regime, which is unpopular but not brittle, would be folly. Its demise would trigger chaos like that of post-2003 Iraq, with the hardline Revolutionary Guards likely coming out on top. Even destroying nuclear sites, nestled deep underground, would require an air campaign involving bunker-busting munitions. Such strikes might push the regime, seeing existential peril, to respond with everything it has. While Tehran’s reach has often been overstated, thousands of missiles fired at Israel, together with attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Houthi strikes on Red Sea shipping lanes, could drag the United States into a war that Trump does not want.
A rebooted maximum pressure effort – ramping up sanctions and military action along the lines of Trump’s first-term policy, perhaps aimed at forcing Iran into greater compromise down the line – would be less bad but still dangerous. Certainly, sanctions can help diplomacy, but maximum pressure would throw fuel on a region already on fire. Gulf Arab powers, which cheered on Trump’s hawkish first-term approach but have since patched up relations with Tehran, warn that a repeat could bring escalation. Piling on pressure could also shut a window for diplomacy that is currently open. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian appears to have Khamenei’s blessing to engage.
A better bet would be to start with talks, threatening to turn up the heat if they fail. Defining limits on Iran’s nuclear program will be harder than a decade ago, but full access for inspectors and eliminating enriched uranium stockpiles at near weapons-grade would be a start. Other provisions might be easier. The 2015 deal’s main flaw was its failure to curb Iran’s missile program and support for Middle East proxies, which underlay Gulf Arab discontent with the deal. This time around, with those proxies reeling or on their knees, a region-wide bargain might be more feasible. A chastened Iran might entertain previously unimagined concessions: not only nuclear checks but halting weapons shipments to Russia or an end to its support for militants in exchange for the United States pledging to not attack Tehran, or even an informal nonaggression pact with Israel.
Haiti
Many Haitians’ hopes that a new government and a Kenya-led multinational police mission could loosen criminal gangs’ grip on the country have been shattered.
Since President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in July 2021, the gangs have seized much of Haiti. Historically used by elites for profiteering or to take out rivals, such groups have grown more powerful and autonomous. In early 2024, an alliance of previously warring gangs, known as Viv Ansanm, besieged the capital of Port-au-Prince. Ariel Henry, an unpopular prime minister who took over after Moïse was killed, was in Nairobi at the time overseeing the creation of the police mission and unable to fly home. Henry resigned, under pressure from Caribbean neighbours, the United States and others. A transitional presidential council, with representatives of major political and social forces, took over. In June, Kenyan forces started to arrive, mandated to work with the Haitian police to fight the gangs, whose members number an estimated 12,000.
But the new council and foreign forces have not brought calm. Politicians have squabbled, and corruption scandals shorn the council of credibility. Fresh elections – the last vote was in 2016 – to instal authorities that enjoy more legitimacy are unlikely amid the chaos. Nairobi’s decision to deploy paramilitaries was commendable, as was Washington’s to supply most of the funds, but the force is too small (at only 400 police thus far rather than the planned 2,500). It lacks helicopters, drones, or boats and has barely pushed out of downtown Port-au-Prince.
Gangs are again emboldened, attacking areas previously seen as safe havens, including upscale neighbourhoods in Pétion-Ville, home to politicians and businesspeople, and broadcasting via livestream. In 2024 alone, violence involving gangs killed more than 5,300 people, displaced 700,000, and left almost half of Haitians facing acute food insecurity. Gangs’ gunfire has stopped U.S. commercial airlines flying to Port-au-Prince. Essentially left to defend themselves, some communities have organised brigades, with seemingly police-linked militias killing suspected gang members, stirring alarm that Haiti could descend into a form of civil war.
The transitional government has called on the United Nations to send a full peacekeeping mission, despite the world body’s checkered legacy in Haiti (including past scandals of peacekeepers spreading cholera and sexually abusing Haitians).
Whether a UN mission will deploy is unclear. Russia and China are sceptical, pointing to the lack of a political solution to the crisis or vision as to how blue helmets can subjugate gangs. Many Western experts quietly concur. Given Republicans’ antipathy toward the UN, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump seems unlikely to champion a mission. He appears keener to deport Haitian migrants than to bankroll reinforcements for the country’s police.
Haiti’s further collapse could trigger another wave of migrants fleeing to Florida, a Trump stronghold.
Still, once in the White House, he may rethink. Haiti’s further collapse could trigger another wave of migrants fleeing to Florida, a Trump stronghold. UN peacekeepers would, at the very least, bring more soldiers, equipment, a stronger deterrent and perhaps expertise on demobilising combatants.
Another question is whether talks with gang leaders or a truce is in the cards. Haitians overwhelmingly loathe gangs and reject the idea of bargaining with them. But the gangs’ seizure of the capital and main thoroughfares suggests that national authorities will struggle to eradicate them. Careful dialogue that does not undercut the Haitian state’s integrity might offer part of a route back to peace.
U.S.-Mexico
Mexico is already reeling from violence involving criminal gangs that resembles some of the world’s worst wars. During the U.S. election campaign, Donald Trump – now the president-elect – promised to slap high tariffs on the United States’ southern neighbour, send back millions of migrants, and even bomb cartels.
Since 2006, when then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels, perhaps half a million Mexicans have been killed and another 100,000 people disappeared in violence that followed. The government killed kingpins and dismantled big criminal organisations but set off conflicts among smaller groups, heavily armed mostly with weapons imported from the United States.
These groups profit from producing and transiting drugs to feed demand from the north. Fentanyl, a synthetic opiate that is estimated to have killed more than 80,000 people in the United States in both 2022 and 2023, has replaced cocaine and methamphetamine as the primary drug for export. The tentacles of these gangs also extend into extortion, other forms of crime, and even legal activities.
Successive leaders have failed to curb the bloodshed. Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador left office in 2024 with high approval ratings, defying the anti-incumbent sentiment sweeping the world. But he made few inroads against gangs, despite putting more soldiers on the streets than ever before.
Mexico’s murder rates are still among the world’s highest. Homicide rates have dipped slightly in the past two years, though this is largely due to informal deals involving local authorities that have left criminals entrenched and profiting.
López Obrador’s successor and protégé – Claudia Sheinbaum, who won election in June – now has to contend not only with drug violence, but also with a Trump team that has Mexico in its crosshairs.
Rep. Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick to become the next national security advisor, co-sponsored legislation last year asking for authorisation to use force against cartels. That sounds far-fetched, but clamour for unilateral military action – whether through airstrikes on fentanyl labs or special forces operations to kill leaders – is growing among U.S. Republicans.
Trump may try to send back millions of Mexicans if his promised mass deportation of undocumented migrants begins. In late November, he threatened high tariffs on Mexican goods unless the flow of migrants and fentanyl stops – in effect tying other demands to trade policy, which – given the importance of exports to Mexico’s flagging economy – is likely to be Sheinbaum’s priority.
Sheinbaum has assured Mexicans that relations will survive. After all, López Obrador came to power defending the Latin American migrants who Trump denigrated, but the two presidents ended up getting along just fine. Mexico cracked down on migration and agreed to accept foreign migrants who had illegally entered and applied for asylum in the United States until their cases were resolved. Trump inked a new trade deal, due for revision in 2026, and despite the odd threat to strike drug traffickers, let the matter rest.
Sheinbaum has countered Trump’s threats, suggesting that – absent Mexico’s cooperation – migrant caravans heading to the north would resume. She has asked Washington to deport migrants to their countries of origin, not Mexico. She, too, may hope that reinforcing Mexico’s role as a migrant buffer or tighter counternarcotics coordination will placate Trump.
Without cooperation, expect a bumpy ride. Mass deportations, especially if they happen suddenly, could trigger upheaval in parts of Mexico as poorer states struggle to assimilate returns. Unilateral military action against cartels would almost certainly backfire. Taking out more gang leaders would set off more turf wars and fragmentation, while doing nothing to curb drug production. Fentanyl labs are low-tech and easily rebuilt.
Mexico would retaliate, perhaps with moves against U.S. economic interests. Tanking relations between two countries interconnected by trade, investment and family ties would spell disaster for both.
Myanmar
Midway through 2024, Myanmar’s military regime appeared to be teetering, as rebels had seized large tracts of the uplands as well as key military bases. Since then, China, fearing a disorderly collapse, has thrown military leader Min Aung Hlaing a lifeline. But the junta still faces determined resistance. A vote in 2025, if it proceeds as planned, will bring further bloodshed.
The civil war that has torn Myanmar apart since the military seized power in 2021 has set the country back decades: More than 3 million people are displaced internally, health and education systems have crumbled, poverty has skyrocketed and Myanmar’s currency, the kyat, has crashed.
In late 2023 [Myanmar’s] army started losing ground, particularly to ethnic armed groups that had fought it for decades.
In late 2023, the army started losing ground, particularly to ethnic armed groups that had fought it for decades and, in some cases, found common cause with new resistance groups. In the north, one rebel coalition, the Three Brotherhood Alliance, captured much of northern Shan state, including the army’s regional command in Lashio. China appears to have greenlit the offensive, frustrated at the regime’s inability to curb scam centres in the borderlands. Elsewhere, other ethnic rebels and resistance forces, sensing the regime’s weakness, launched their own attacks.
In August, Beijing changed tack, throwing its weight behind the junta. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Min Aung Hlaing in Myanmar for the first time since the coup, and Beijing sent the army fighter jets and pressed Brotherhood groups to withdraw from key areas, notably Lashio. Chinese President Xi Jinping blames the regime’s 2021 power grab for damaging Chinese investment in Myanmar and sees Min Aung Hlaing himself as anti-China. But Xi has preferred to stave off the regime’s downfall than risk the chance that a Western-leaning administration would take power. Beijing views the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) and most resistance forces as Western stooges.
Still, the military remains on the back foot. The Arakan Army, ethnic insurgents from Rakhine state, in Myanmar’s west, is close to expelling the army from that region. In 2017, the military forced some 750,000 Rohingya out of Rakhine into neighbouring Bangladesh. Now, Rohingya insurgents have begun battling the Arakan Army, hoping to carve out their own enclave. The further deterioration of intercommunal relations will likely make prospects of the Rohingya’s return even dimmer.
Elsewhere, another rebel group, the Kachin Independence Army, has seized rare-earth mines, giving it control of Myanmar’s $1.4 billion rare-earth oxide trade with China. The mines are the world’s largest source of critical heavy rare-earth elements, giving the group leverage with Beijing as it seeks to reap the considerable revenue it needs to fund its military operations and administer its expanded territory.
In return for support, China insists that the junta hold elections. Beijing has wanted a vote since the coup, hoping to dilute Min Aung Hlaing’s power and bring greater stability. But polls will be a violent mess. In current conditions, a vote would result in a military-backed administration governing according to the unpopular military-drafted 2008 constitution. It would be as loathed as today’s regime and likely offer no vision for a better future. China probably will not change course; it is hard to imagine Beijing pushing for negotiations with the NUG, for example, which, in any case, the junta would reject. But Beijing will gain little from a vote that triggers more upheaval, entrenches military rule, and deepens anti-China popular sentiment.
Korean Peninsula
2024 started with a surprise speech by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in which he dropped North Korea’s decades-old policy of peaceful unification with South Korea and declared Seoul to be Pyongyang’s principal foe. The year ended with Kim ratifying a mutual defence pact with Moscow and deploying thousands of North Koreans to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine – as well as a botched self-coup attempt by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol that ended with parliament voting for his impeachment.
With much in flux, the Korean Peninsula is set for an edgy 2025.
In his January speech, Kim aimed to further seal off North Korea, especially from South Korean cultural exports – K-Pop, in other words – while tightening his grip on the economy. But further cutting ties, including virtually all inter-Korean communication, leaves the countries with few options to manage incidents at a time of mounting friction.
Already, shortly after Yoon assumed power in 2022 and adopted a harder line toward Pyongyang, the two Koreas had abandoned an accord that disarmed border guards and set up no-fly zones as well as land and sea buffer areas.
Kim has also been flexing his military muscle. Since 2019, when the last round of nuclear diplomacy – championed during U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s first term – fell apart, the North Korean leader has eschewed nuclear tests, likely in part because he saw warhead tests conducted two years earlier as having already established deterrence. Pyongyang has, however, built up and tested its arsenal of missiles. Kim is also threatening to redraw North Korea’s maritime borders with South Korea. Both sides have stepped up naval exercises. Seoul has reportedly flown drones over Pyongyang.
Kim’s pact with Moscow – and the subsequent deployment of an estimated 10,000 elite North Korean troops to Russia’s Kursk region – links the military balance on the Korean Peninsula to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Europe. Closer ties to the Kremlin reinforce Kim’s rule, and Russia is paying for the troops, who will presumably get valuable combat experience.
The question is what else Pyongyang gets in return. Russia probably will not send nuclear know-how, which would infuriate China. Despite Beijing’s ties to both Moscow and Pyongyang, Chinese leader Xi Jinping almost certainly dislikes the mutual defence pact, likely fearing that Russia’s sway over Kim could undercut his own. Fast advances in North Korea’s nuclear program or military provocations by Kim risk destabilising the peninsula or attracting more U.S. military assets to the region – the last thing that Xi wants.
But U.S. intelligence suggests that Putin has promised Kim fighter jets. He could help Pyongyang with ballistic technology, especially in placing multiple warheads – with the capacity to hit multiple targets – on a missile, thus making it easier to penetrate U.S. and Asian defences.
In Seoul, Yoon’s failed power grab likely heralds further upheaval. In early December, Yoon declared martial law, citing what he called the opposition’s obstructionism. Military officers refused to detain legislators, who quickly vetoed the emergency provisions and eventually impeached Yoon the second time that the assembly voted.
Trump’s return adds another layer of uncertainty. Despite his distaste for allies, he is unlikely to pull Washington out of its defence treaty with South Korea or withdraw U.S. forces. But he may demand that Seoul pay more for protection. That will boost calls, especially among ordinary South Koreans, for Seoul to acquire its own nuclear arsenal. Any ambiguity about Washington’s commitments to Seoul also risks emboldening Kim.
A return to nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang, if Trump’s team has the bandwidth, would be difficult but worth a shot.
A return to nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang, if Trump’s team has the bandwidth, would be difficult but worth a shot. During his first term, Trump was reported to be close to getting North Korea to close its Yongbyon plant – not its only nuclear facility, but the main one – in exchange for partial sanctions relief. This time around, negotiations would be tougher. North Korea’s program is more advanced, and Kim’s pact with Russia gives him less incentive to compromise.
Despite warnings from Korea watchers, Kim seems unlikely to launch a full-blown war, which would risk going nuclear, spell catastrophe for Asia and the world economy, and likely culminate in his own demise.
Rather, the main danger lies in miscalculation. Perhaps evidence surfaces of, say, Russian missile technology transfers. Or Kim, animated by his Russia ties, upheaval in Seoul and mixed signals from Trump, pushes the envelope with some form of provocation. In both cases, the United States and its allies would face pressure to respond.
China-U.S.
After a choppy patch, U.S.-China relations have been on a more even keel since a November 2023 summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden. The two countries reopened military-to-military channels, vital for managing the risk of unintended collisions between Chinese and U.S. warships in the Pacific or planes overhead, and China reportedly took tentative steps to stem the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States. Still, President-elect Donald Trump will take office with the rivalry far more entrenched than it was eight years ago.
Trump’s Asia policy is as unpredictable as his approach to other arenas. Some cabinet picks believe the United States is engaged in a global struggle with China, one in which it must prevail. Others in Trump’s circle think Washington should limit itself to deterring Beijing in Asia. Tech executive Elon Musk, who does business in China, wants friendlier relations. Trump himself has sent mixed signals: confrontational on trade, lukewarm on Taiwan’s defence, cantankerous about U.S. commitments to Asian allies, and often admiring of Xi’s authority.
Trump’s campaign promise to impose tariffs of at least 60 per cent on Chinese goods … seems more likely to be an opening salvo in talks than prelude to a trade war.
Trump’s campaign promise to impose tariffs of at least 60 per cent on Chinese goods – a sharp hike of his first-term tariffs, which Biden mostly maintained – seems more likely to be an opening salvo in talks than prelude to a trade war. Tariffs would undercut China’s slowing growth, but Beijing could hit back – as it has already begun to – by banning critical mineral exports, for example, or launching antimonopoly probes into U.S. tech giants.
How grave a danger Trump poses to the delicate peace around Taiwan is unclear. For decades, the United States has aimed to deter China from invading Taiwan by reinforcing the island’s defences, without extending explicit security guarantees, all the while discouraging Taipei from declaring independence or otherwise provoking Beijing. But Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, has been more adversarial than his predecessors. China has stepped up incursions into Taiwan’s airspace and aggressive drills around the island, including a recent December exercise – its largest maritime operation in decades according to Taiwan – that involved nearly 90 naval and coast guard vessels.
Once he is in office, Trump might again express scepticism about whether defending Taiwan is feasible or try to get the island, which he regularly accuses of free-riding off U.S. largesse, to cough up more for its defence. Or he could also authorise quicker sales of offensive weapons to Taiwan and more U.S. naval operations in the Taiwan Strait. Either path could prompt a response.
Although Xi has tied his legacy to restoring mainland rule over what Chinese leaders regard as a renegade province, breaching Taiwan’s defences would be tough, and tumult within the top echelons of the Chinese military suggests that he distrusts its professionalism. Still, if Beijing senses that U.S. resolve is weakening, it might squeeze Taiwan even harder; if U.S. support increases, it might lash out in frustration.
More precarious is the South China Sea, where China’s maritime claims overlap with those of other states (as confirmed by a 2016 special tribunal ruling regarding the Philippines, though Beijing rejected the verdict). Around disputed rocks and reefs off the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, friction has escalated into clashes at sea. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has sought closer ties to the United States, granting access to more Philippine military bases, including some close to Taiwan, conducting joint exercises, and cooperating more closely with other U.S. allies. Xi accuses Manila of playing up incidents to get extra U.S. military gear and investment, and Washington, in turn, of exploiting friction to draw Asian governments into an anti-China web.
A clash that results in a Philippine fatality could lead Marcos to invoke his country’s defence pact with Washington. Trump, even if reluctant to respond forcefully, would face pressure from Defense Department officials to do so. The trick will be to avoid an escalatory spiral without signalling passivity that could embolden Beijing, especially if Chinese leaders discern other signs of flagging U.S. ties to allies.
Other U.S. allies, including Japan and South Korea, have already increased their defence spending, spooked by both Chinese conduct and U.S. inconsistency. Large constituencies in Tokyo and Seoul believe their countries should acquire their own nuclear deterrents. Speculation about a Trump-Xi grand bargain hardly calms nerves, even if such a deal seems far-fetched. Amid intensifying rivalry between the world’s two major powers, Trump’s dim view of alliances rattles Asia almost as much as it does Europe.
