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A look back at the Top Risks of 2024
Every January, Eurasia Group, our parent company, produces a report with its forecast for the top 10 geopolitical risks for the world in the year ahead. Its authors are EG PresidentIan Bremmerand EG ChairmanCliff Kupchan. The 2025 report will drop on Jan. 6.
But first, let’s look back at the 2024 Top Risks report – you can read the full report here –to see where Bremmer and Kupchan hit or missed the mark.
1. The United States vs. itself
The argument: The US political system has become more dysfunctional than that of any other advanced industrial democracy. In 2024, the presidential election will deepen the country’s political divisions, testing American democracy to a degree the nation hasn’t experienced in 150 years and undermining US credibility internationally. With the election outcome close to a coin toss, the only certainty is damage to America’s social fabric, political institutions, and international standing.
The verdict: The election certainly further polarized the electorate, and President-elect Donald Trump survived two assassination attempts, the first by a frighteningly narrow margin. Fortunately, we’ll never know how chaotic and potentially violent the election season might have turned had Trump not turned his head at just the right moment during that rally in Pennsylvania. This risk might also have inflicted more damage had Trump not won by a clear enough margin that Democrats accepted the results.
2. Middle East on the brink
The argument: The fighting in Gaza will expand in 2024, with several pathways for escalation into a broader regional war. Some could draw the US and Iran more directly into the fighting. The conflict will pose risks to the global economy, widen geopolitical and political divisions, and stoke global extremism. No country involved in the Gaza conflict wants a regional conflict to erupt. But the powder is dry, and the number of players carrying matches makes the risk of escalation high.
The verdict: Here’s another risk that was dead-on but could have been much more destructive than it turned out to be.The war in Gaza expanded into the West Bank, Lebanon, and the shipping lanes of the Red Sea. Israel and Iran traded direct strikes, though Israel sustained little damage, and the US remained largely on the sidelines. Few predicted Israel would score such a decisive win over Hamas and Hezbollah in 2024, and no one foresaw the fall of Bashar Assad.
3. Partitioned Ukraine
The argument: Ukraine will be de facto partitioned this year, and Russia now has the battlefield initiative and a material advantage. 2024 is an inflection point in the war, and if Ukraine doesn't solve its manpower problems, increase weapons production, and set a realistic military strategy soon, its territorial losses could prove permanent and may well expand. Kyiv will take bigger military risks this year, including strikes on more targets inside Russia that provoke unprecedented Russian responses and could pull NATO into the conflict.
The verdict: Another strong call for Bremmer and Kupchan. The Russians still have the battlefield initiative, though it has come with an estimated 600,000 Russian casualties. And, as the report predicted, Ukraine also became more aggressive as the mood across the country soured. The report foresaw more Ukrainian strikes deeper into Russian territory, but it certainly didn’t predict a Ukrainian invasion of Russia’s Kursk region that continues to embarrass the Kremlin.
4. Ungoverned AI
The argument: Technology will outstrip AI governance in 2024 as regulatory efforts falter, tech companies remain largely unconstrained, and far more powerful AI models and tools spread beyond the control of governments.
The verdict: We did see AI distort politics in places like Romania, South Korea, and Pakistan this year, but these technologies remain in their infancy, and far greater disruptions are surely still ahead of us. The extraordinary influence on Donald Trump of Elon Musk, who owns his own AI company, makes that even more likely.
5. Axis of rogues (and America’s dangerous friends)
The argument: In 2024, Russia, North Korea, and Iran will boost one another’s capabilities and act in increasingly coordinated and disruptive ways on the global stage. Meanwhile, even Washington’s friends — the leaders of Ukraine, Israel, and (potentially) Taiwan — will pull the US into confrontations it wants to avoid.
The verdict: This was another solid prediction, though the report may have overestimated the impact of Iran, which now finds itself backed into a corner by Israel with its most important proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels – reeling and Syria’s ousted president Bashar al-Assad now sharing a small one-bedroom apartment in Moscow with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych (kidding). The report underestimated North Korea’s willingness to support Russia, including by sending un-battle-tested NK troops to the Ukraine war’s front lines.
6. No China recovery
The argument: Absent an unlikely loosening of President Xi Jinping’s grip on power or a radical pivot toward large-scale consumer stimulus and structural reform, China’s economy will underperform throughout 2024. Beijing’s failure to reform the country’s sputtering economic growth model, the country’s financial fragilities, and a crisis of public confidence will expose gaps in the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership capabilities and increase the risk of social instability.
The verdict: As predicted, China’s stagnant economy had both political and economic impacts in 2024. Politically, it revealed once again that Xi is not Vladimir Putin, a leader who responds to his country’s weakness by becoming more belligerent. Instead, China mainly kept to pragmatically managed relations with the US this year and worked to solidify and extend relations with Europe, India, and others. Economically, China’s slow recovery kept global growth below hoped-for, post-COVID benchmarks. Given its importance for other risks, this one could have been #4 on the list rather than #6.
7. The fight for critical minerals
The argument: In 2024, governments around the world will intensify their use of industrial policies and trade restrictions that disrupt the flow of critical minerals, crucial components in virtually every sector that will drive growth, innovation, and national security in the 21st century, from clean energy to advanced computing, biotechnology, transportation, and defense.
The verdict: Politically motivatedrestrictions on trade in critical minerals among the US, China, and Europe were certainly on the rise in 2024, but this risk is much more likely to deserve mention in a Top 10 report over the next two to three years, particularly as Trump’s aggressive approach toward China removes some of the relationship’s guardrails.
8. No room for error
The argument: The global inflation shock that began in 2021 will continue to exert an economic and political drag in 2024. High interest rates caused by stubborn inflation will slow growth around the world, and governments will have little scope to stimulate growth or respond to shocks, heightening the risk of financial stress, social unrest, and political instability.
The verdict: Stubbornly high prices and slow growthcertainly played a featured role in anti-incumbentelection results in India, South Africa, France, the UK, Japan, and the US. Bremmer and Kupchan were wise to keep this risk low on this year’s list given that we didn’t see the developing world debt defaults — or the large-scale social unrest in multiple countries that would surely have followed.
9. El Nino is back
The argument: After a four-year absence, a powerful El Nino climate pattern will peak in the first half of this year, bringing extreme weather events that trigger food insecurity, increase water stress, disrupt logistics, spread disease, and foment migration and political instability.
The verdict: El Nino did help the planet set a heat record in 2024. It also triggered severe droughts, water shortages, and crop failures with predictable economic fallout. But the worst of the damage was limited to southern Africa, helping to avert much broader disruption in Asia and the Americas.
10. Risky business
The argument: Customers, employees, and investors — mostly on the progressive side — have brought the US culture wars to corporate offices, and now courts, state legislatures, governors, and activist groups — mostly conservative ones — will hit back. Companies caught in the political and legal crossfire will face higher uncertainty and costs.
The verdict: Given the Trump victory in the US, American companies generally fared poorly with diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; environmental, social, and governance standards; and other “woke” corporate messaging. But this risk could be even higher in 2025 as more companies find themselves caught between a Trump-inspired re-evaluation of the commercial impact of these campaigns and the inevitable anti-Trump backlash among his critics on the left. #FirstDoNoPolitics
Disclaimer: Willis Sparks has contributed to these Eurasia Group Top Risks reports for the past 20 years.