The G-Zero is getting worse: Why no one’s stepping up to solve today’s biggest wars

The lack of global leadership that characterizes our G-Zero world is getting worse.

As I explained during my annual “State of the World” speech in Tokyo last night, this leadership vacuum is most obvious in the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, where everyone claims to want peace but no one is both willing and able to make it happen.

The United States has abdicated its leadership responsibility in the Middle East. It is by far the most powerful friend of Israel, but it has used none of its influence to bring the conflict to an end. The US hasn’t just been sitting on the sidelines – it has been actively supporting Israel’s capacity to wage a war that’s destroying the Palestinian and now Lebanese people.

China has likewise abdicated its leadership responsibility in Eurasia. It is by far the most powerful friend of Russia, but it has used none of its influence to bring the conflict to an end. China hasn’t just been sitting on the sidelines – it has been actively supporting Russia’s capacity to expand an illegal invasion and bring itself to the precipice of war with NATO.

As for the rest of the world? We’re just getting used to the higher level of instability that comes when the world’s most powerful actors – but especially a politically divided and dysfunctional America – step back.

None of the major conflicts in the world today are heading toward sustainable resolution. Ukraine is on a path to partition. The Palestinians are set to be removed from their territory and once again forgotten. Americans are fighting Americans. This is our present trajectory, and it’s not remotely sustainable.

Ukraine’s path to partition

Ukraine lacks the manpower and weaponry to take back all its land, and Vladimir Putin isn’t going to return it voluntarily. Alas, there is no magical third option. With or without a peace deal, Ukraine will eventually be de facto partitioned.

The real question is whether a post-war Ukraine can expect a safer and brighter future with deeper integration into the rest of the world, free from the constant threat of Russian aggression. Ukraine’s ability to achieve that depends on how much diplomatic, economic, and security support Kyiv receives from its Western allies over the next two to three years.

Diplomatic support remains a strong bet. EU integration will take many years and face growing resistance as populist and Russia-friendly parties gain ground across Europe. But with unanimous European support for the overall goal and a strong and pro-Ukraine EU leadership in place for another term, accession will remain on track.

Economic support will likely continue but diminish from present levels. Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure has sharply increased funding needs while undermining Ukraine’s productive capacity, at the same time as Western willingness and ability to provide aid is waning.

Security support – specifically, NATO membership or a similarly strong kind of formal security guarantee – remains the most challenging, though not impossible, area. It’s Putin’s brightest red line but also Ukraine’s primary and unconditional demand for accepting a cease-fire that cedes any territory. Without it, there’s nothing to deter Russia from trying to take additional Ukrainian territory in the future, and Kyiv will never come to the table. With it, NATO risks direct war with Russia.

Even if that offer is eventually made, Russia has a veto. If Putin doesn’t agree to a cease-fire and Russia is still launching missiles at Ukrainian cities, then NATO membership for Ukraine would be tantamount to an automatic NATO declaration of war on Russia. Dangerous … but still constructive if this trade of membership for land can earn international support for Ukraine and put pressure on Russia to end the war.

In the meantime, we should expect limited Russian advances at great human cost and missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure to continue. We should also expect more asymmetric warfare from Ukraine, along with the real risks of military escalation that come with it.

All the while, the West will continue in an undeclared hybrid war against a rogue Russia as Putin grows older, more isolated, further from day-to-day decision-making, and more prone to impulsive mistakes. And Russia’s alliance with Iran and North Korea – two other rogue states committed to sowing chaos on the global stage – will grow stronger and less predictable.

So even if the war in Ukraine stabilizes over the next few years, Russia’s broader struggle with the West will undoubtedly become more dangerous.

The Middle East’s paradox

The dynamic in the Middle East is precisely the opposite. There is no outcome of the war in Gaza that is acceptable for both Israelis and Palestinians. But the regional and global risks may prove less severe than in the Russia-NATO case.

Though a cease-fire remains elusive and Palestinian suffering continues, the Gaza war is effectively over. Israeli forces have largely achieved their military objectives, with most IDF troops now withdrawing and many redeploying to Lebanon.

The war has radicalized Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, who face dire economic prospects, worse security, and no hope of creating a better life for themselves or their families. Israeli settlers in the West Bank have grabbed even more occupied territory in recent months. No matter what happens, Palestinians are more willing than a year ago to follow leaders who call for revolutionary action against Israel. The risk of deadly terrorist attacks – in Israel and elsewhere – has risen sharply and will remain high for a generation. Meanwhile, Israeli attitudes have hardened against Palestinian statehood across the political spectrum – even among Netanyahu’s opponents.

Yet the broader Middle East outlook is more stable.

The Abraham Accords persist. Saudi Arabia now officially demands the creation of a Palestinian state as its price to normalize relations with Israel, but behind the scenes, Saudi-Israeli economic and security engagement continues apace. It’s not inconceivable that Riyadh will quietly drop its demand once the war is over.

For its part, Iran – now with normalized relations with Saudi Arabia – has shown restraint against Israel, even as Israel has crossed Tehran’s red lines, killed Hezbollah’s leaders, crippled its military capacity, and invaded southern Lebanon. Yemen’s Houthis, another heavily armed, well-funded Iranian proxy, continue to carry out strikes in the Red Sea. But that’s not enough to ignite a broader Middle East war, which none of the major powers in the region want.

Hezbollah, the Houthis, and even Iran itself know they can’t win an all-out war with Israel, and even the IDF’s very aggressive push into Lebanon hasn’t persuaded these enemies to launch effective counterattacks, because while they’re much more powerful than Hamas, Israel has established clear escalation dominance in the war.

The most likely long-term outcome of the war is that longstanding friends and allies in the West will keep Israel’s government more at arm’s length. Younger Europeans and Americans will view Israeli actions with deeper suspicion. But Israel will remain a small, asymmetrically powerful country in military, economic, and technological terms. It will continue to defend itself effectively. The plight of Palestinians, meanwhile, will gradually fall from the headlines. The Middle East will stabilize because the region’s most powerful actors know that they don’t want and can’t afford a regional war.

America vs. itself

Perhaps most concerning is the United States’ war against itself. Unlike the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the growing crisis of American democracy is a structural cause rather than a symptom of the vacuum in global leadership.

With the presidential election less than two weeks away, the problem is not just who's going to win (although there are certainly risks in that, too, and the outcome is anyone’s guess). The bigger problem is that most Americans strongly agree that there are forces inside the United States intent on destroying democracy – they just disagree on the nature and identity of those forces. The left sees Trump’s attempts to overturn 2020’s results, current legal maneuvers, and hyperbolic rhetoric as dire warnings. The right believes globalist elites and “deep state” bureaucrats have already subverted democracy by persecuting Trump, committing large-scale voter fraud, and enabling widespread lawlessness and illegal immigration.

The post-election period is uniquely dangerous, as nearly half of the country will view the outcome as illegitimate. No matter who wins, tens of millions of Americans will find evidence that their political system is broken. And they’re not entirely wrong.

While America’s economic and geopolitical fundamentals are resilient, its political dysfunction will reverberate around the world. Allies and adversaries are headed toward a world where the once-indispensable nation cannot be counted on to uphold global security, free trade, and the rule of law. Yet as long as most Americans’ daily lives remain unperturbed, US political woes will matter much more for the rest of the world than for the US itself.

That’s precisely why the G-Zero is going to get worse before it gets better: Nothing short of a “come to Jesus” moment can get the United States to finally confront its political division and dysfunction. Jan. 6 was clearly not enough of a jolt to elicit a response. Maybe this year’s post-election theatrics will do it – or perhaps it’ll take a run on the dollar or a military defeat to shake Americans out of their complacency. Until then, though, the country’s political crisis will continue to fester, and the global leadership crisis will grow accordingly.

Looking ahead

Nature abhors a vacuum. The deepening of the G-Zero world order has left us uniquely vulnerable to escalating geopolitical conflict and disruption. Without effective global leadership, these crises feed on each other and make responding much harder.

Yet despite these challenges, some of the greatest opportunities in human history still lie ahead. Other “crises” aren’t as bad as they may seem. In next week’s newsletter, we’ll explore why – despite everything I’ve outlined above – I remain cautiously optimistic about our capacity to build a more prosperous, equitable, and peaceful world.