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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 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.
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.
All of that meant that Ukrainians would increasingly be desperate. And we really saw that in particular with this spectacular Ukrainian attack into Kursk taking Russian territory, but needing 40,000 of their troops to accomplish it away from their front lines. As the year comes to a close, Ukraine is losing territory faster than at any point since the beginning of the war. And they increasingly recognize not only that they need to start negotiations, but they're going to have to end up trading some land for peace and for security guarantees from the West. So indeed Ukraine today, de facto partitioned.
Number two, the war in the Middle East, which we believed was going to expand significantly. At the beginning of the year, we were talking about Gaza. Now of course, we're talking about the 'Axis of Resistance,' a year when in Yemen the Houthis were popping off rockets and missiles against civilian tanker traffic going through the Red Sea and also against the United States and other military assets in the region, and the Americans and others hitting them back. We saw the war open to include Hezbollah and Lebanon. We saw the war also threaten to bring Israel and Iran together directly as they exchanged fire against each other and as the Israelis were able to decimate Iran's proxies.
Some good news on this front. First of all, the fact that ultimately the United States, Israel, and most importantly, Iran, showed restraint and risk aversion in what would've been a much more devastating fight. And what would've led oil prices to go well over a hundred if that war broken out. That did not occur. And also the fact that the Israelis have been able to show military dominance, which meant that there is no more effective 'Axis of Resistance' at the end of this year. In fact, the big surprise that not only did the war expand, but Assad is gone. Not because of Obama who said that over 10 years ago, but rather because they were unable to respond to HTS supported by Turkey, a rebellion against Assad, and the Russians, and the Iranians. Assad's support base were inadequate to keep him in power. He now sits in Moscow.
And now finally, the US versus itself. A year of only more significant division and polarization inside my own country, the United States. And we've seen that play out. First of all with a Biden that was running for the presidency and had no capacity to serve for another four years, refused to step down, was finally essentially forced out, forced to step down by everyone around him, including former President Obama, former speaker Pelosi, and all of the rest. On the Trump side, two, not one, attempted assassinations, one by this much. And if that had occurred, we'd be in a hell of a lot more difficult position now as a country. The election did go off without a hitch, and was accepted as free and fair, thankfully. And now the United States looks forward to a new president. But the divisions inside the US, the weakening of America's political institutions only growing over the course of 2024.
So those were our top three risks. You can look at all 10, and see how we did go back and check it out on the link that we have here. And also take a look in early January. Watch out for our Top Risks of 2025. It will be something you do not want to miss.
- Eurasia Group’s Top Global Risks 2024 ›
- Why 2024 is the Voldemort of years ›
- 2024's top global risks: The trifecta of wars threatening global peace ›
- A world of conflict: The top risks of 2024 ›
- Ian Bremmer explains the 10 Top Risks of 2025 - GZERO Media ›
- Unpacking the biggest global threats of 2025 - GZERO Media ›
- Podcast: The Top Geopolitical Risks of 2025, a live conversation with Ian Bremmer and global experts - GZERO Media ›
- Top Risks 2025: America's role in the crumbling global order - GZERO Media ›
How Russia, North Korea, and Iran will sow chaos in 2024
Russia, North Korea, and Iran are the world’s most powerful rogue states. They have been working to strengthen their cooperation since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, united by the draconian sanctions levied against them, their shared hatred of the US, and their willingness to violate international law to disrupt a global status quo they believe serves Western interests at their expense. These rogues are agents of chaos in today’s geopolitical order, bent on undermining existing institutions and the governments and principles that uphold them.
Once seen by Russia as a nuisance at best and a liability at worst, North Korea has become an essential resource for Vladimir Putin’s war effort in Ukraine thanks to its pariah status, militarized economy, and large stocks of Soviet-standard artillery ammunition. Meeting in Russia’s Far East in September 2023, Kim Jong Un and Putin struck a deal that sends North Korean artillery shells, rockets, and ballistic missiles to Russia in exchange for Russian food, energy, and – most importantly – technological assistance, especially on satellite development and deployment.
Russia and Iran, longtime partners in a bid to protect Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, have also upgraded their relationship from a limited tactical alliance to a more comprehensive and strategic military and economic partnership. Tehran has supplied Moscow with kamikaze drones to terrorize Ukrainian cities – now also being built in Russia – and has drawn on its decades of experience to help Moscow evade Western sanctions. For its part, Russia has become Iran’s chief external weapons supplier, its top source of foreign investment, and a key trading partner. Moscow also provides diplomatic cover for Tehran’s nuclear program at the UN Security Council and has developed warm relations with Iranian proxies at war with the United States and Israel in the Middle East.
While less prominent than Russia’s bilateral ties within the axis, North Korea and Iran have a decades-long history of cooperation on nuclear and ballistic missile development. This cooperation has reportedly extended to North Korea supplying weapons and missile designs to Hamas, the Houthis, and other Iranian-backed militant groups.
In 2024, coordination among these rogue states will increase. Deepening alignment and mutual support will pose a growing threat to geopolitical stability as they boost one another’s capabilities and act in increasingly disruptive ways on the global stage.
Russia will be the primary actor here, seeking to bolster its warfighting capabilities in Ukraine while working to deflect Western attention elsewhere. In exchange for North Korean artillery shells and rockets to sustain its war of attrition, Moscow will provide Pyongyang with technologies and know-how to advance its missile, submarine, and satellite programs, with major repercussions for Northeast Asian security. And in exchange for stepped-up provision of Iranian drones, munitions, sanctions relief, and ballistic missiles with which to strike Ukrainian cities, Moscow will supply Tehran with fighter jets and advanced weapons technology. Along with growing Russian support for Iran’s proxies, this will alter the regional balance of power in Iran’s favor at a time when Tehran and its proxies represent a much more direct security challenge to the West. Both bilateral deals will strengthen Russia’s hand in Ukraine and increase that war’s damage and costs.
The severity of existing Western sanctions against all three rogue states and the close cooperation among them means they will not be deterred by fear of further sanctions and isolation. This will unleash them to wage asymmetric warfare (short of direct military attacks) on the US and Europe, including via cyberattacks, support for terrorism, and disinformation campaigns designed to disrupt elections and sow chaos. More generally, the axis’s coordinated sanctions-busting and rule-breaking will undermine the compellent and deterrent power of Western sanctions, emboldening other would-be rogues.
It bears noting that China is not a member of the axis of rogues. Beijing did not openly condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine, but neither did it endorse the invasion or do much to help Putin’s war effort beyond purchasing discounted oil and allowing flows of dual-use goods to continue. (If India and the UAE were less friendly to the United States, analysts would be likening their Russia policies to China’s.) Beijing has looked on warily at the deepening security cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang – in fact, Chinese officials didn’t know Kim was going to Russia until after it was publicly announced … and they were piqued by it. And while it has ramped up oil imports from and diplomatic support for Tehran, Beijing has no desire to jeopardize its more strategically important interests in the Gulf (particularly its ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) by helping Iran make regional trouble.
That said, China is often well-served by the three rogues’ anti-Western operations and maintains a de facto policy of pro-axis neutrality. Indeed, without active acquiescence from China, the axis’s rogue activities would be less impactful. Short of violating international sanctions or jeopardizing its own interests, expect Beijing to continue to do business with and legitimize the axis as it undermines the US and its allies this year.
Three caveats are in order. First, Russia, Iran, and North Korea leaning on each other is a sign of their desperation and weakness on the global stage. When your best (and near only) friends are two rogue states, you’re in trouble. Second, all of them seek to avoid an active shooting war with the West, which means continued caution when escalating direct attacks on the United States or its core allies. And third, despite their common interest in sowing chaos, dictators have trouble trusting each other, making the entente a fragile one. This axis is a marriage of convenience and opportunity; its members are neither strategic nor ideological bedfellows – they are focused primarily on regime survival and geopolitical gain. As such, their relationships will remain largely transactional.
Still, the disruptive potential of their growing cooperation – especially with a boost or at the very least a blind eye from Beijing – should not be underestimated.
Off to war again?
No matter how cold it is in your community, it is even colder in the deep winter of discontent that has hit the 2024 political world … aka Mordor.
The year ahead presents two kinds of challenges to the US and Canada: external ones from growing conflicts and internal ones, from US isolationism and what I call “Canadian insulationism.” At the moment, it’s a toss-up which ones are more dangerous.
Let’s look at the external challenges, including the raging conflicts in Israel-Gaza, the Red Sea, and Ukraine – all of which look to worsen in 2024.
Here at Eurasia Group, one of our Top Risks of 2024 is a Partitioned Ukraine — with Russia essentially ending up with about 18% of Ukraine, something once unimaginable. But is that the end? After two years and hundreds of thousands of casualties, will 18% of Ukraine satisfy Putin’s expansionist appetite, or simply whet it for more? The second option is more likely.
Putin has converted his country into a war economy, with over 6% of his GDP going to military spending, and, despite sanctions, there is enough growth there to fuel concern about inflation.
As he sees critical US military support for Ukraine fade and a potential Trump administration on the horizon, Putin is ready to ramp up his aggression. I was at a meeting with a group of ambassadors to the UN yesterday, and many expressed a strong view that Ukraine is still just the start of Russian aggression, not the end. So it is no surprise that next week NATO will start its largest military exercise in over 20 years, with more than 90,000 troops taking part in Steadfast Defender.
This means they are getting ready for a widening war, and that is sobering.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East and North Africa, the Israel-Hamas war churns on, and efforts to contain it are looking increasingly futile. Hamas has not been sufficiently degraded to give up fighting, it still holds hostages, and it has gained wide support around the world, something the once-isolated terrorist group never enjoyed. One of the group’s greatest victories has been the “Hamasification” of the entire Palestinian cause, meaning their radical, annihilationist cause, once a marginal part of the diplomatic conversation, is now THE cause, overtaking the voice of the Palestinian Authority. And because they remain a terror group whose goal is to eradicate Israel, it makes any two-state solution or prospects of a new governance partner in Gaza extremely thorny.
Meanwhile, Israel under the extremist and embattled leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, is gearing up for a much longer battle in Gaza — and the West Bank. He also does not want a two-state solution and never really has. Just today, in shocking remarks, Netanyahu said he does not want a Palestinian state and then said, “in the future the state of Israel has to control the from the river to the sea.” That was a provocative appropriation of a Palestinian rally cry that many Israelis regard as a call for genocide. The radical cycle is now in full spin.
Meantime, after 100 days of brutal bombings that have stunned even Israel’s closest allies, there is no real end in sight. The sophisticated tunnel systems that are discovered daily reveal the resilience of the Hamas military operation, and it is yet another aspect of the situation Bibi badly underestimated and miscalculated.
With the current Israeli and Hamas leadership, there is very little hope for anything but more war.
While most post-Oct. 7 efforts of containment centered on Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, a surprise player emerged: the Houthis. The Shiite militant group in Yemen, which fought a decade-long war against Sunni Saudi-backed forces, is launching ballistic missiles into the Red Sea near the critical Bab el-Mandeb Strait, aka Gate of Tears, which is living up to its name.
The Strait and the Suez Canal account for about 12% of total global trade, so naturally the US and a coalition of 20 countries steamed into the area to protect this critical supply line. This has a long precedent. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson sent the US Navy to fight the so-called Barbary Pirates in North Africa to protect US shipping. Today, the corsairs are Iranian-supplied ballistic missiles, but not much else has changed.
In any case, it has done no good. The Houthis flipped the Ballistic Bird at the US and launched over 30 missile attacks, driving much of the shipping business out of the Red Sea and having an immediate impact on the global economy.
The US and the UK, with the support of countries like Canada, counterattacked with a series of intensive bombing missions targeting Houthi military installations, and once again … nothing changed. This is the Houthi Trap. Red Sea shipping is a Red Line for the global economy, so as long as the Houthi attacks continue and shipping insurance rates go up, the US and its allies will have to respond. Maritime choke points like the Bab el-Mandep, the Strait of Hormuz, the Straits of Malacca, or the Panama Canal (which is too dry right now for some ships to use) – are the Achilles heels of the global economy. When any one of them is under threat, it means one thing: expanded conflict.
The internal threats in the US and Canada, however, make dealing with the external ones significantly harder. The US Republican Party is in the grip of a deep isolationism. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told President Joe Biden yesterday that there will be no deal for tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine unless he cracks down on the US border. Johnson’s job is on the line, and he knows that if he approves aid to Ukraine, far-right members of his party will make a motion to vacate and dump him, just as they did with the last speaker. And with Donald Trump in full ascension as the likely Republican nominee, US aid to Ukraine is likely coming to an end. America First means America Gone in many parts of the world, and that’s not a good sign when there are expanding wars everywhere.
Canada doesn’t have an isolationist problem. It has a long history of global involvement and is committed to multilateral originations. The problem it suffers from is an insulationist strain. It simply won’t put its money where its multilaterals are.
For example, Canada spends about 1.3% of its GDP on defense – a far cry from the 2% NATO guideline – and there has been deep concern about another CA$1 billion cut from the force this year.
Proximity to the US and being protected by three oceans have given Canadians a sense of insulation from a dangerous world, so there is no political urgency to keep up national defense. You might not buy home insurance if you don’t think your home will ever collapse, but it doesn’t work that way.
As the 2024 world tips toward widening wars, the isolationism of the US and the insulationism of Canada will make things much worse.
As my Dad used to say, the cheap man pays twice. Trying to save now by shirking responsibility in places like Ukraine and getting off easy on defense spending will only make the inevitable bill twice as expensive when it comes. And the security bill is coming.
Global politics in 2024: It’s not all doom and gloom
You might’ve come out of last week’s newsletter – and Eurasia Group’s 2024 Top Risks report – feeling a little scared about the year ahead. And sure enough, this will be an unprecedentedly challenging year from a political and geopolitical standpoint, marked by three ongoing and expanding wars: Russia vs. Ukraine, Israel vs. Hamas, and the United States vs. itself. But there are plenty of bright spots, too.
For starters, 2024 will be the biggest election year in history, with more than half of the world’s population in over 60 countries going to the polls between now and December. With so much at stake, people are understandably worried. Yet most of these elections, especially the big ones, aren’t troubled at all.
In the European Union, although far-right, populist, and euro-skeptic parties will make gains in June’s European Parliament election, the centrist coalition that has ruled the bloc for the last five years will keep its majority. Yes, Europe will face economic challenges in 2024, weakening incumbent governments across the continent. And there will be plenty of anger directed at Brussels bureaucrats and much resistance to more centralized EU decision-making. But a series of crises over the past decade – the pandemic, climate change, and the Russian invasion, made worse by the trauma of Brexit – has solidified the multinational political commitment to the world’s most ambitious experiment in supranational governance. As we enter 2024, the EU’s social contract has never been stronger, more resilient, or more necessary.
Then there’s India, which for all its many shortcomings is a politically stable democracy, an increasingly important contributor to the global economy, and the emerging leader of the Global South. The world’s most popular democratic leader with 77% approval, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party will easily win a third consecutive five-year term and single-party majority in next spring’s general elections. Reelection will allow Modi, who has privately indicated this will be his last term, to complete his ambitious economic reform program, strengthen India’s relationship with the US (regardless of whether President Joe Biden or Donald Trump wins in November), and assert the country’s role as a crucial geopolitical bridge between the Global South and the West.
We’ve also got Mexico, where the ruling Morena coalition of term-limited President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (aka AMLO) – the second-most-popular world leader after Modi – is on track to secure a victory in June’s upcoming elections on the back of a solid economic performance. AMLO’s handpicked successor, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, is a committed technocrat with strong relations with the domestic and foreign business communities. She will surround herself with like-minded cabinet members, deliver a high degree of policy continuity, and drive even more growth and investment as Mexico continues to benefit from its robust trading relationship with the US and growing nearshoring trends.
And I could keep going …
To be sure, there are some places where the elections won’t go as well, but they’re not a surprise at all. Who are Russians going to vote for? Putin or Putin? Maybe Putin? The same goes for North Koreans and Venezuelans. In all these cases, we know who's going to “win,” and the outcome is not going to affect anything. The exception, of course, is the election taking place in the most powerful country in the world, which also happens to be the most politically divided and dysfunctional of any advanced industrial democracy. But putting the US aside, the biggest election year in history will be a big whoop.
The most surprising cause for optimism in 2024, however, may be the relative calm that will prevail between the US and China. There’s no question that the most strategically important bilateral relationship in the world is still fundamentally adversarial and marked by mistrust, and several conflict flashpoints (from Taiwan and the South China Sea to technology competition) will exacerbate tensions throughout the year. But with all the fighting going on in the world, neither country is looking for reasons to start another conflict – especially not when the Chinese economy and the US domestic polity are so troubled and all-consuming for Presidents Xi Jinping and Biden. The two largest economies will accordingly behave like geopolitical adults in 2024, preferring stability to chaos and engagement to major decoupling or conflict.
The wild card, more than ever, is technology – specifically, artificial intelligence. AI will disrupt our economies, societies, and geopolitics in ways we can’t yet predict, but it will also become the most powerful human development tool the world has ever seen, helping people live longer, healthier, and more productive lives than at any time in history. And this will happen much sooner than you think. With AI capabilities doubling roughly every six months, three times faster than Moore’s law, the upsides will start materializing more dramatically as new applications find their way into every major corporation across every economic sector. And as hundreds of millions of people begin to upskill themselves in their jobs, AI will become a copilot before it takes over their jobs. This will create a new globalization, one exponentially faster and more transformative than the globalization unleashed by free global trade and investment in recent decades.
The flip side is that the technology is also advancing far faster than the ability to govern it, and a technopolar world for artificial intelligence – i.e., tech companies rather than governments are in control of AI development and deployment – means crisis response and reaction will come only after things break … and then, it might be too late. Let’s just hope in 2024 those things aren’t that big.
***
We've entered a year of grave concern, but supported by the hope that tough times will bring out the best in us. This isn't going to be particularly enjoyable, especially for our fellow citizens here in the United States. It's personally painful to watch my country go through a tumultuous time, with those I care about affected by it. It's nothing compared to what we've been seeing in Ukraine, Gaza, or South Sudan … and yet for a nation that has spent too much time presuming “it can't happen here,” 2024 is a necessary wake-up call.
As you know, I spent the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 in the South Pole. Having the entire world on my shoulders – even if for just a moment – felt like the right thing to do to prepare for the year ahead. Antarctica is an entire continent that's been kept peaceful and pristine, for humanity and our animal friends, for generations now. Yeah, we're melting it. But otherwise, it turns out we can be capable global custodians when we set our minds to it. Let’s try to remember that.
Podcast: Trouble ahead: The top global risks of 2024
Listen: In a special edition of the GZERO podcast, we're diving into our expectations for the topsy-turvy year ahead. The war in Ukraine is heading into a stalemate and possible partition. Israel's invasion of Gaza has amplified region-wide tensions that threaten to spill over into an even wider, even more disastrous, even ghastlier conflict. And in the United States, the presidential election threatens to rip apart the feeble tendrils holding together American democracy.
All those trends and more topped Eurasia Group's annual Top Risks project for 2024, which takes the view from 30,000 feet to summarize the most dangerous and looming unknowns in the coming year. Everything from out-of-control AI to China's slow-rolling economy made this year's list.
GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon sat down with Eurasia Group Founder and President Ian Bremmer and Chairman Cliff Kupchan to work through their list of Top Risks for 2024 alongside Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker and co-author of "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021"; Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, CEO & President of the International Peace Institute and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; and Marietje Schaake, International Policy Fellow, Stanford Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. The big throughline this year? Events spiral out of control even against the wishes of major players. Whether it's possible escalation between Israel and Iranian proxies, Chinese retaliation to the result of the Taiwanese election, or central banks finding themselves squeezed into a corner by persistent inflation, the sheer number of moving parts presents a risk in and of itself.
Take a deep dive with the panel in our full discussion, recorded live on January 8.
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.
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What would a second Trump term mean? Think Jurassic Park
From Donald Trump's perspective, what was the biggest mistake of his first term? Appointing folks who turned out to be establishmentarians might be a strong candidate, according to Susan Glasser, staff writer at The New Yorker and co-author of "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021."
Based on over 300 interviews with people intimately familiar with Trump's first experience in the White House, she expects a second term will differ in tone and tactics. One source even likened it to the infamous scene in 1993's "Jurassic Park" in which velociraptors learn to open doors.
"That is a pretty scary moment when a very senior US national security official tells you that that's what's going to be happening in Trump's second term," she said while discussing the subject with GZERO in a livestream discussion on January 8 about Eurasia Group's Top Risks for 2024. "Take it seriously."
Watch the full livestream discussion with Ian Bremmer, Cliff Kupchan, Susan Glasser, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, Marietje Schaake, and Evan Solomon.
Check out Eurasia Group's 2024 Top Risks report.
2024's top global risks: The trifecta of wars threatening global peace
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here and a Quick Take to kick off your year. Happy Top Risks to all who celebrate. It is our annual report that we've been putting out for decades now, looking at the biggest things going bump in the night that are going to hit over the coming year. And this year, there are a lot of them, the annus horribilis, the Voldemort of years, the year that must not be spoken. This is 2024. And you can see videos we've put together and slides and the rest on all the individual risk. But I want to give you a sense of the big themes that are out there.
And the biggest is that we are facing three wars, not one, not two, but three that are significantly dangerous in the geopolitical environment, none of which are likely to be contained. The principal adversaries fighting each other have no ability or willingness together to stop these wars. They don't even share basic facts about what they're fighting about. And the prospects of diplomacy slowing them down or containing them, at least in the coming months, seem negligible. I'm talking, of course, about the Russians fighting the Ukrainians, the Israelis fighting Hamas and the United States fighting itself. All of these things likely to get worse, not better, very likely over the coming months. A turning point in the Russia-Ukraine war making us feel worse about where it is heading. Certainly for the Ukrainians. And an expansion of the Israeli war against Hamas, very, very unlikely to be able to contain it within the present territorial confines of that conflict.
And the United States, with an election that is almost certain to be seen as illegitimate in outcome by large numbers of the population who are not on the winning side. We've never had a geopolitical environment in our lifetimes that had faced that level of simultaneous international conflict in places that have big impacts around the world.
There are other concerns that are on the report, in particular the existence of an axis of rogues. Russia as a rogue state, increasingly coordinating with their buddies, and there aren't many of them, but they're dangerous. Iran and North Korea. At the same time, dangerous friends of the United States. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, Israel's Bibi Netanyahu. And maybe we'll find out in a week. Taiwan's William Lai. All strong, abiding friends of the United States on the global stage with individual leaders who provoke greater risk that are hard to contain for the US and for others around the world. AI technology moving a lot faster than the ability to govern it. That's great for economic opportunity, but it's also challenging for geopolitical and domestic political and societal dangers. Plenty of others to focus on. But before I stop, let me talk about some of the optimistic things that are happening in the world too. So many people are talking about this being the year of all of these elections, causing uncertainty and volatility and danger.
But outside of the United States, that's not really true. In fact, the big other elections, the non-American elections going on, are pretty stable. The European Union is going to return a coalition of parties running the EU that looks largely the same as the last five years. You've got India with Modi at 75% approval ratings coming off of very strong wins in three state elections in the last few weeks. He'll win easily and continue with economic reform for what is likely to be his last five-year term. Mexico. You've got a president, López Obrador, who is very likely to be able to secure the victory of his preferred candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, who is more technocratic in orientation and a former climate scientist that will lead to more growth in Mexico. I can keep going. There are some places that the elections don't go so well, but they're not a surprise at all. Russia. Who are you going to vote for? Putin or Putin? Maybe Putin? Maybe Putin! One of those people. But either way, I think I know who's going to win and I don't think that's going to affect anything.
So the elections are not really that big deal outside of, well, the one country that happens to be the most powerful in the world. Yeah, it's a bit of a challenge. Also, one of the thing I would mention, the most important geopolitical relationship in the world, US-China, which doesn't have any trust and plenty of areas where there's conflict. I look at Taiwan and I look at technology and I look at the South China Sea and those things aren't going away. But this year, the relationship is going to be more stable than you think. It's been like managed decline, but the focus is more on the decline part over the last few years. This year it's more on the managed part.
There are a couple of reasons for that. One is because the US is fighting on all of these fronts. They don't need another fight with the Chinese. Biden especially doesn't want that problem running into his own reelection campaign in November. While the Chinese are seriously underperforming economically and they really don't want anything else that's going to lead to additional pressure, making it harder for their economy to rebound. Huge structural challenges there. So this year at least, at least up until the elections, US and China will have plenty of rockiness, but shouldn't be a serious challenge or a crisis, a sudden crisis impacting the geopolitical order.
So that's it for me. I hope you take a look at the report, enjoy the videos and all the rest, and I'll be talking to you all real soon.
Check out Eurasia Group's 2024 Top Risks report.