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The rise of a leaderless world: Why 2025 marks a turning point, with Francis Fukuyama

Listen: On the GZERO World Podcast, we’re taking a look at some of the top geopolitical risks of 2025. This looks to be the year that the G-Zero wins. As longtime listeners will know, a G-Zero world is an era when no one power or group of powers is both willing and able to drive a global agenda and maintain international order. We’ve been living with this lack of international leadership for nearly a decade now. But in 2025, the problem will get a lot worse. We are heading back to the law of the jungle. A world where the strongest do what they can while the weakest are condemned to suffer what they must. And the former—whether states, companies, or individuals—can't be trusted to act in the interest of those they have power over. It's not a sustainable trajectory. But it’s the one we’re on. Joining Ian Bremmer to peer into this cloudy crystal ball is renowned Stanford political scientist Francis Fukuyama.

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Assad's fall in Syria creates both opportunities & risks, says US national security advisor Jake Sullivan
- YouTube

Assad's fall in Syria creates both opportunities & risks, says US national security advisor Jake Sullivan

When Assad fled Syria, shocking the world, President-Elect Trump made his thoughts clear on the region. In short, he said "stay out, America." But can the world's most powerful nation afford to ignore Syria's uncertain future? This is a good news story, says US national security advisor Jake Sullivan, that could turn bad very quickly.

"The minute Damascus fell, ISIS began to look for any opportunity it could take to reconstitute, grow, spread, and ultimately recreate a platform from which to threaten the United States and Americans around the world."

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A view is being seen of the northeast of Tehran at sunrise on August 17, 2012.

Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Reuters

Iran’s energy crisis pushes economy to the breaking point

After weeks of increasingly severe blackouts caused by massive natural gas shortages in Iran, the state power company warned manufacturers on Friday that they need to brace for power cuts that could last weeks and cost billions of dollars. The government is facing a difficult choice between cutting fuel for power plants or for residential heating — and are taking the first option in a bid to keep a lid on public discontent.

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A look back at the Top Risks of 2024
- YouTube

A look back at the Top Risks of 2024

Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: As 2024 comes to a close, we always look back on our Top Risks. How we did at the beginning of the year. I back in January, referred to this as the "Voldemort of years," at least geopolitically. The year that must not be named because of three major conflicts that we expected were going to only get worse over the course of the year. The Russia-Ukraine war, the war in the Middle East, and the war between the United States and itself. Those absolutely played out.

First, the risk on Russia-Ukraine, where we said that Ukraine would effectively be partitioned. Not a popular thing to say back in January, and not something that we were hoping for. Just something that we believed was going to happen, even irrespective of how the US elections turned out. The fact that Ukrainians were going to be much more overstretched in the ability to fight. The fact that the Russians would be able to maintain the war machine, and the fact that the Europeans and the Americans were increasingly tiring of a war with lots of attention in other places.

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Jake Sullivan on the biggest threats to US national security in 2025
- YouTube

Jake Sullivan on the biggest threats to US national security in 2025

From Russia to China to the Middle East, what are the biggest threats facing the US? On GZERO World, outgoing National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan joins Ian Bremmer in front of a live audience at the 92nd Street Y in New York City for a wide-ranging conversation on America’s view of the world, President Joe Biden’s foreign policy legacy, and how much will (or won’t) change when the Trump administration takes office in 2025. Despite major differences between the two administrations, Sullivan says he’s seen “more alignment” with his successor Mike Waltz than he expected and that they agree on “big ticket items” like making sure US adversaries don’t take advantage of the US during the presidential transition. Reflecting on his time and office and how the global threat environment has changed, Sullivan digs into risks and opportunities in Syria, the US-Israel relationship, China’s global ambitions, and Putin’s miscalculations in Ukraine.

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Foreign policy in a fractured world: US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on global threats and Joe Biden's legacy

Listen: Outgoing US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan joins Ian Bremmer in front of a live audience at the 92nd Street Y in New York City for a rare and wide-ranging GZERO World interview about the biggest geopolitical threats facing the United States, Joe Biden’s foreign policy legacy, and how much will (or won’t) change when the Trump administration takes office in 2025. The world has changed dramatically since Biden entered the White House in 2021, and Sullivan has been the driving force behind some of the administration’s most consequential–and controversial–decisions over the past four years. The outgoing National Security Advisor reflects on his time in office, from managing strategic competition with China to supporting Ukraine in the face of Russia’s invasion to navigating the US-Israel relationship. He warns that bad actors see presidential transitions as moments of opportunity, so it’s imperative that we send a “clear and common message” to both friends and adversaries during what he calls “a huge, plastic moment of turbulence and transition” in global politics.

Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday Israeli troops will continue to occupy Mount Hermon in Syria for the foreseeable future.

via REUTERS

A mountain of tension: Israel plans to occupy Mount Hermon

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday Israeli troops will continue to occupy Mount Hermon in Syria for the foreseeable future. After Bashar Assad’s regime collapsed at the hands of Syrian rebels two weeks ago, Israel took the opportunity to decimate their neighbor’s military infrastructure and take control of the strategically important peak.

Although the mountain overlooks the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, with — believe it or not — an Israeli-operated ski resort further down its slopes, its summit was a demilitarized buffer zone separating Israel and Syria until two weeks ago.

Why does Israel want Mount Hermon? The Israeli government originally justified the encroachment to secure their own borders, but they may be tempted to stay on Syria’s highest peak because of its vantage point over Syria and Lebanon. Placing a radar on the high point would greatly strengthen Tel Aviv’s surveillance capabilities and early-warning capacities.

Netanyahu’s announcement follows his approval of a plan to expand Golan Heights settlements, a move that could double the area’s population and, Tel Aviv hopes, improve its defensive posture. Approximately 20,000 Druze, a small ethno-religious group, live on the Israeli-occupied portion of the heights. They have a history of strong support for Israel, and have advocated for the outright annexation of the area into Israel. We have our eye on how Syrian Druze react to the new government forming in Damascus.


However, the rest of Syria and the Middle East are not keen on Tel Aviv keeping command of the mountain. We will be watching to see whether Israel’s adversaries in the region take action — but at present the occupation seems a fait accompli

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A woman uses a phone next to a fighter of the ruling Syrian body, after members of the ruling Syrian body ousted Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in the Damascus old city, Syria, December 12, 2024.

REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Trump may follow Biden's line on Syria

On Saturday, not long after Syrian dictator Bashar Assad fled to Russia, Donald Trumpwrote — in all caps — that the United States should stay out of Syria: “This is not our fight,” he wrote. “Let it play out. Do not get involved.”

Trump, Vice-President-elect JD Vance, and Tulsi Gabbard, his nominee as Director of National Intelligence, are all skeptical of American military involvement in the Middle East. But experts think the next US administration will end up taking a position similar to the one taken by President Joe Biden, mostly because it is in the interest of the United States to prevent Syria from becoming a safe haven for international terrorists.

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