Trending Now
We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
{{ subpage.title }}
Opinion: Vladimir Putin 25 years later
An aging, visibly infirm president is about to hand off power to an authoritarian-minded successor with a mandate to restore “order” and “sovereignty.”
Sound familiar? Da. It’s New Year’s Eve 1999, and a bloated, barely intelligible Boris Yeltsin is handing the Kremlin over to a shifty young spook named Vladimir Putin. “Take care of Russia,” he famously said before staggering out of the room.
When Vladimir Vladimirovich first took power 25 years ago, the world was a different place. Cell phones weren’t smart yet. Lou Bega was burning up the charts with “Mambo Number Five.” The most feared hacking group in the world wasn’t called “Fancy Bear” or “Salt Typhoon” but “Napster.”
It was also a world in which the US was at the pinnacle of post-Cold War triumphalism. The disputed elections, disastrous wars, and crippling financial crises of the 21st century remained – just barely – in the future.
History, as we knew it at that time, had ended, or at least been paused. Uncle Sam had won the Cold War, and free markets, free trade, and liberal democracy were now on the march globally, gloriously, and inevitably. So too, it seemed, was NATO, which began expanding eastward in the 1990s.
Putin did not like this world, which – from his perspective – treated Russia either as an afterthought or as a charity case. He resented the high-handed moralizing from the West about “democracy.” He dreamed of a “multipolar” world where the US couldn’t boss Russia around or humiliate the Kremlin and its friends.
Now, five US presidents, three Russian invasions, and countless predictions of his demise later, Putin is still standing. And as a result, he has lasted long enough to witness the return of Donald Trump to the White House – this time not with an asterisk but with a real mandate.
In a way, Trump’s return means Putin has finally won. Not because of the silly notion that Trump is a “Russian agent” – but because it closes the door finally and fully on the era of post-Cold War triumphalist globalism that Putin encountered when he first came to power.
Trumpism is itself a crisp and in some ways timely rebuke to the pieties that globalism would trump nationalism, that free trade and open societies had an inherent appeal, and that there were international “norms” that the US was responsible for policing.
Trump isn’t interested in even the pretense of a high-handed foreign policy based on abstract “values.” He doesn’t care whether Russia is a democracy. He questions the net benefit of decades-old US alliances like NATO, and he has no political pieties. He has already blown apart what Robert Lighthizer, his first-term trade czar, calls the “free trade theology” that held sway in Washington for decades.
His worldview is a much more mercantilist, zero-sum, realpolitiker, hyper-nationalistic one. Putin, in many ways, can relate. When Trump talks about using force to take over the Panama Canal, Greenland, or Canada because these things would be in America’s national interest as a hemispheric power, for example, he is speaking a political language from before the “end of history.” A language Putin speaks fluently. Panama isn’t quite Crimea, but you get the idea.
At his annual marathon press conference a few weeks ago, Putin reflected on the past quarter century, telling BBC’s journalist Steve Rosenberg that he was proud to have “pulled Russia back from the abyss,” after inheriting a deeply indebted, politically fragmented, and listless country from Yeltsin.
Perhaps that’s true, but Russia today is a country locked in a costly conflict of Putin’s choosing, with a shrinking and aging population, a war-warped economy, and a flagging technological base. Shorn of its traditional partners in Europe, Moscow is increasingly dependent either on rogue pariahs like North Korea and Iran, or a superpower China that dwarfs Russia in economic and military capacity.
Over the past 25 years, Putin outlasted the “post-Cold War” world that he resented. But it’s less obvious that he has “taken care of Russia” well enough for it to thrive and prosper over the next quarter century of whatever comes next.
Unpacking the biggest global threats of 2025
With political instability plaguing US allies, from Canada and South Korea to Japan and Germany, 2025 promises plenty of geopolitical storms. To get you up to speed, GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon sat down with Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer, Cliff Kupchan, and Jon Lieber, as well as the New Yorker’s Susan Glasser, to discuss the 2025 Top Risks report.
One name came up over and over again: Donald Trump. The incoming US president promises tariffs that could upend the global economy, crash relations with China, and worsen the chaos in ungoverned spaces. With Russia still running rogue, Iran badly bruised on the world stage, and AI changing geopolitics — not necessarily for the better — Kupchan characterized the current situation as the riskiest since World War II.
Bremmer said that all of the above, from Washington to Ouagadougou, is merely a symptom of the biggest risk facing the planet: that the G-Zero world, one in which no power can bring order to the international system, is on the rise.
Take a deep dive with the panel in our full discussion, livestreamed on Jan. 6.
Putin's New Year's wishes, again and again!
This is the twenty-fifth time that Vladimir Putin has greeted the new year as ruler of Russia. To mark the occasion, he takes a look back at just how far he has come. Do you remember what was on the billboard charts when he first took power? #PUPPETREGIME
Watch more of GZERO's award-winning PUPPET REGIME series!
Ian Bremmer explains the 10 Top Risks of 2025
Every January, Eurasia Group, our parent company, produces a report with its forecast for the world's Top 10 Risks in the year ahead. Its authors are EG President
Ian Bremmer and EG Chairman Cliff Kupchan. Ian explains the Top 10 Risks for 2025, one after the other. He also discusses the three Red Herrings.
Read the full report here.
Red Herrings
Trump Fails: Over time, Trump’s transactional foreign-policy approach will weaken US alliances, erode America’s influence on the global stage, heighten geopolitical volatility, and make the world a more dangerous place. But in 2025, Trump is score likely to score victories than to fail.
Europe Breaks: Economic malaise, security threats, and defense shortcomings will test Europe’s unity in 2025. But as with the Eurozone crisis, Brexit, the pandemic, and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the EU will likely overcome, or at least muddle through, these latest challenges.
Global Energy Transition Stalls: The return of Donald Trump has raised anxieties in sustainability circles that the global energy transition will be thrown into reverse this year. But the global energy transition survived the first Trump administration, and it will survive the second, especially since it has much more momentum now than in 2017.
Risk #10: Mexican Standoff
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has a strong mandate and few checks on her executive power. Still, she will face formidable challenges this year in her relations with the Trump administration at a time of ongoing constitutional overhauls and fiscal stresses at home. Her diplomatic and governance skills will soon be tested.
Risk #9: Ungoverned spaces
The deepening G-Zero leaves many places thinly governed. Conflict in the Middle East has left ungoverned spaces within Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. In Africa, the aftermath of the war in Ethiopia and the ongoing civil war in Sudan have worsened humanitarian conditions. In Myanmar, more than three million civilians have been displaced since the coup in 2021. In Haiti, political turmoil, civil unrest, gang violence, and natural disasters compound the misery of its people. These neglected spaces and people won’t pose broader geopolitical risks in 2025, but the consequences of the neglect will eventually be felt far beyond the countries directly affected.
Risk #8: AI unbound
Some notable AI governance initiatives came to fruition in 2024. Still, without strong, sustained buy-in from governments and tech companies, they will not be enough to keep pace with technological advances. The deteriorating state of global cooperation resulting from the G-Zero leadership vacuum compounds these risks.
This year will mark another period of relentless technological development unbound by adequate safeguards and governance frameworks. Given the incentives to build ever more powerful AI, meaningful constraints will likely emerge only when developers hit hard limits on data, compute, energy, or funding access. Until then, the technology’s capabilities and risks will continue to grow unchecked.
Risk #7: Beggar thy world
The US-China rivalry will export disruption to everyone else this year, short-circuiting the global recovery and accelerating geoeconomic fragmentation at a time when global growth is tepid, inflation remains sticky, and debt levels stand at historic highs.
New governments promising better times ahead will face harsh realities as global economic pressures turn political. Many emerging and frontier economies must decide between raising taxes or slashing spending. Even within the G7, budget battles toppled a French government last year, and Canada's finance minister resigned over fiscal disputes. Few countries face imminent risk of sovereign default, but cracks in government stability will undermine investor confidence.
Risk #6: Iran on the ropes
The Middle East will remain a combustible environment in 2025 for one big reason: Iran hasn’t been this weak in decades. The country’s geopolitical position has been dealt a series of devastating blows in recent months. Israel has crippled its most potent proxies—Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran’s ally, Bashar al Assad, has been driven from Syria.
Tehran is wounded, but it still has a massive missile and drone arsenal, and it could be provoked into another direct exchange of missiles with Israel. Any accident or miscalculation that kills a significant number of Israelis or Americans could trigger an escalatory spiral with material implications for the supply and price of oil.
Risk #5: Russia still rogue
Russia is now the world’s leading rogue power by a large margin, and Vladimir Putin will pursue more policies that undermine the US-led global order despite a likely ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia will take hostile action against EU countries with cyber, sabotage, and other “asymmetric attacks”; it will also build on strategic military partnerships with Iran and North Korea in 2025. Putin will continue attempts at arson and even assassination while using Telegram to propagate pro-Kremlin views across Europe. Russia will do more than any other country to subvert the global order in 2025.
Risk#4: Trumponomics
In January, Trump will inherit a robust US economy, but his policies will bring higher inflation and lower growth in 2025.
First, Trump will significantly hike tariffs to reduce America’s trade deficits, leading to fewer affordable options for many goods and increased US inflation. Higher interest rates and slower growth will result. The dollar will strengthen, making US exports less competitive. Some countries targeted by Trump will retaliate, raising the risk of disruptive trade wars. Second, the Trump administration could deport up to one million people in 2025 and up to five million over four years.
Reduced illegal immigration and mass deportations would shrink the US workforce, driving up wages and consumer prices and limiting the economy’s productive capacity.
Risk #3: US-China breakdown
Trump's return to office will unleash an unmanaged decoupling in the world’s most important geopolitical relationship. That, in turn, risks a major economic disruption and broader crisis. Trump will set new tariffs on Chinese goods to pressure Beijing for concessions on a host of issues, and China’s leaders, despite real economic weakness at home, will respond more forcefully to prove to both Trump and China’s people that they can and will fight back. Tensions over Taiwan will probably rise, though a full-blown crisis remains unlikely in 2025.
Technology policy will be the true frontline in this conflict. Battles over trade and investment in everything from semiconductors to critical minerals will erupt in 2025.
Risk #2: Rule of Don
Trump will enter office more experienced and better organized than in 2017. He will populate his administration with loyalists who better understand how the federal government works. He will have consolidated control of Congress and a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority.
From this solid foundation, Trump will purge the federal bureaucracy of professional civil servants and replace them with political loyalists, particularly at the Justice Department and the FBI. The erosion of independent checks on executive power and an active undermining of the rule of law will leave more of US policy dependent on the decisions of one powerful man rather than on established and politically impartial legal principles.
Democracy itself will not be threatened. The US isn’t Hungary. But Trump’s indifference, and in some cases hostility, to longstanding American values will set dangerous new precedents for “political vandalism” by future presidents of both parties.
Risk #1: The G-Zero wins
The 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 lived with this lack of international leadership for nearly a decade now, but in 2025, the problem will get much worse.
Expect new and expanding power vacuums, emboldened rogue actors, and a heightened risk of dangerous accidents, miscalculations, and conflict. The risk of a geopolitical crisis is now higher than at any point since the 1930s or the early Cold War.
Russia and China remain challengers to the Western-led security order, though in very different ways. Rising inequality, shifting demographics, and warp-speed technological change have persuaded a growing number of citizens in advanced industrial democracies that “globalism” hasn’t worked in their favor. And the world’s military superpower will again be led by the only post-WWII president who rejects the assumption that a US global leadership role serves the American people.
This Top Risk is not a single event. It’s the cumulative impact of the deepening G-Zero leadership deficit.
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.
“The Cold War era is over. There's a competition underway for what comes next. It is challenging. It is at times turbulent,” Sullivan warns, “What the United States has to do is try to strengthen its fundamental hands so it can deal with whatever comes next and there will be surprises.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
- How Trump 2.0 could reshape US foreign policy, with the New York Times' David Sanger ›
- US and China set up back-channel meetings as pressure over Yemen grows ›
- Sullivan trip sets up Biden-Xi call ›
- Putin isn't winning in Ukraine, says US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan ›
- EXCLUSIVE: An Interview with outgoing US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan ›
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks with journalist Pavel Zarubin after his annual televised year-end press conference and phone-in held in Moscow, Russia December 19, 2024. Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Pool
Russia and the world according to Putin
A brief summary of key points:
Has he succeeded in his goals for Ukraine? Yes, said Putin, claiming he pulled Russia from the “brink of the abyss.” Before the February 2022 invasion, Russia was in danger of losing its independence, he explained, and that’s no longer true. The loss of tens of thousands of troops, the exodus from Russia of hundreds of thousands of young people, the expansion of NATO to Sweden and Finland, the loss of Russia’s best customers (in Europe) for its most valuable exports (oil and gas), a domestic inflation rate above 9% and interest rates above 21% for an economy increasingly dependent on weapons production is apparently a small price to pay.
Putin also says he looks forward to negotiations to end the war in Ukraine with “no preconditions.” Except for one: Putin won’t speak with Volodymyr Zelensky, because Putin doesn’t consider him Ukraine’s “legitimate” president. He refused to speculate on when Ukrainian forces might finally be driven out of Russia’s Kursk region.
On Syria, the sudden overthrow and flight to Moscow of President Bashar Assad, a leader Russia has supported militarily, financially, and politically for many years, is not a “defeat” for Russia, Putin insisted. The Kremlin continues negotiations with the HTS, now in power in Damascus, to keep its ships in the Syrian port of Tartus and its nearby military bases in operation.
Finally, Putin warned the West “stands no chance” of defending itself against Russia’s hypersonic ballistic missile, known as the Oreshnik. Used once during the war in Ukraine, these weapons will now be mass-produced, he says.
We’re watching how this strongman rhetoric plays out as Russia and the West aim for a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.
Putin isn't winning in Ukraine, says US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
Filmed live before an audience at New York City’s iconic 92nd Street Y, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sat down for an in-depth conversation with Ian Bremmer as part of GZERO World, Bremmer's PBS global affairs TV series. Marking one of his final public interviews as President Biden's top foreign policy advisor, Sullivan offered a candid assessment of global geopolitics, with a sharp focus on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and its broader implications.
In a striking moment, Sullivan dismantled the perception of Russian success in Ukraine: “They set out on a strategic objective of taking the capital Kyiv, wiping Ukraine as we know it off the map... and they have failed in that. And they will fail in that,” he declared. Sullivan emphasized that while the war imposes profound costs on Ukraine, the resilience of its people and the steadfast support of allies have kept the nation standing.
The revealing conversation also touched on the shifting dynamics within NATO, the economic strain on authoritarian regimes, and the critical path toward a just peace for Ukraine. Reflecting on the broader picture, Sullivan noted, “We tend, as democracies, to think, ‘Oh, we’re not doing so great.’ But let’s not forget: Kyiv stands. Ukraine stands. Ukraine will stand at the end of this.”
Watch the full interview with Jake Sullivan on GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television beginning this Friday, December 20. Check local listings.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).
Russia and Iran just lost their "crown jewel" in the Middle East - Kim Ghattas
Was Assad ever truly a stabilizing force? On GZERO World, Kim Ghattas, a contributing editor at the Financial Times and author of Black Wave, unpacks Syria’s collapse, Iran and Russia’s strained influence, and what’s next for Tehran on the global stage.
Ghattas challenges the notion that Iran and Russia willingly abandoned Syria in the days before Assad's fall, arguing instead that their diminished capacities forced their retreat. "The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russians don’t give up easily on the crown jewel of their influence in the Mediterranean," she asserts, explaining how the war in Ukraine has strained Russia’s resources. Similarly, Iran's "axis of resistance," a cornerstone of its regional strategy, is faltering as the country faces internal transitions and external threats. “They’ve stretched themselves too thin… from Yemen to Syria, their investments are crumbling,” Ghattas observes.
As the discussion pivots to Iran’s next steps, Bremmer asks whether the Islamic Republic will seek engagement with adversaries or double down on its nuclear ambitions. Ghattas believes both paths are possible, emphasizing that Iran is grappling with profound internal changes. “They want to be accepted by the international community,” she notes, referencing Iran’s historical yearning for legitimacy. However, with its proxy forces unraveling and vulnerabilities exposed, Tehran’s future remains precarious. “This is, in essence, the end of Iran's strategy of proxy militias around the region,” Ghattas says.
Watch full episode: Syria after Assad.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).