Persistent conflict in Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine; rising tensions with Mexico, China, and North Korea; the consequences of climate change and emerging technologies; and a second Trump presidency may pose heightened risks this year
2025 risks deeper strife, conflict, and uncertainty in an unsettled, contested world. Fears of a Rogue America unraveling the very global order the U.S. created after WW2; growing global—and most troubling—developing nation debt, worsening already fragile and failing states; trending toward a climate tipping point; and confrontation with Mexico are among the top things to worry about in 2025. Some risks from this past year have continued with new layers of conflict in the Middle East, a downward spiral in U.S.-China relations, and the dangers of a governance deficit in rapidly advancing Artificial Intelligence capabilities round out the Top Ten Risks.
Introduction
“Trump may be one of those figures in history, Henry Kissinger observed in 2018, ”who comes along from time to time to mark the end of an era and forces it to give up its pretenses.” This eighth edition of our annual foresight exercise, Top Ten Global Risks, is drawn from our forecasting experience at the National Intelligence Council.
It comes as both the nation and the world braces for a historic shift in the US global role at a moment of grave uncertainty in a contested, turbulent world on edge. Any assessment of the risks ahead must begin by grasping that the election portends one of the most disruptive, if not transformational, presidencies since FDR. Trump appears as much the vessel as the driver for this authoritarian, ‘burn-it-all-down’ sentiment, suggesting that most of the US public is anxious for systemic change.
This creates some, and colors all the risks we anticipate. 2025 will be an interregnum between a waning old era, yet with no unifying vision for a new concept of world order.
We have medium-to-high confidence in all the probabilities we have assigned to each of the risks, given the “credible” to “high-quality” level of information that is available. As it is for intelligence estimates, a “high or medium confidence” judgment still carries the possibility of it being wrong.
The Risks
Rogue America
Probability:
The most immediate peril is disruption and chaos as the new administration seeks to pursue contradictory competing goals (tariffs vs. lower prices and strong dollar; anti-’globalist ‘America First’, yet stronger global Primacy, with competing policy entrepreneur factions) at a time when the world is messier, more complex and dangerous than in Trump’s first term.
Trump may be the first post-American Exceptionalist President that is not enamored with democratic values. He thrives in a Hobbesian, transactional, all-against-all world. MAGA disdain of ‘globalism’ portends unilateral economic interventionism to protect the US economy. Yet his fear of war means military interventions will be limited and reactionary, as in his first term.
Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and UN along with US regional alliances that have been the pillars of a US-led world order face a receding US commitment, if not hostility. For the rest of the world, a stand-offish U.S. under Trump will fuel doubts about the country’s reliability and interest in extended deterrence along with promoting more hedging behavior.
Most consequential will be Trump’s economic policies, centered on promised new tariffs of 10-20% on all trade—and 60% or more on China—and 25%-100% on Mexican and Canadian exports that risk slowing growth, price hikes, inflation, and reduced productivity in the US. A cycle of costly retaliation with Europe, and competitive currency devaluations will increase the risks to global financial stability, potentially resulting in an all-out economic war with China. Under Trump, there will likely be an acceleration in global economic fragmentation and greater protectionist trends that the IMF says could reduce GDP by 1.6% by 2026.
Yet Trump’s view of himself as a deal-maker could have a positive side if he seeks to use his coercive bargaining techniques to persuade China against increased dumping, strike a bargain with Iran that lowers regional tensions, and encourage more alliance burden-sharing. However, from North Korea and China to Afghanistan, Trump’s previous efforts do not inspire confidence this time around.
A Spate of Wicked Problems in the Middle East
Probability:
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria wrought is adding layers of risk on top of the Gaza and Lebanon wars and the Palestinian dilemma. These include the possibility of a new phase of civil conflict in Syria, as external powers like Turkey, Israel, the US, Russia, and internal parties compete to shape a post-Assad Syria; escalating Israel-Iran conflict, and prospective civil strife in a weakened Iran facing succession of 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
The Trump Administration may not understand how much the Middle East is being transformed and that the old tools employed in the first term—Israeli-Arab normalization and maximalist pressure against Iran—may be more likely to heighten dangers and conflict than resolve them.
Assad’s demise, enabled by Israeli military success in severely degrading the capabilities of Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, allowed Turkish-backed Islamist rebels to swiftly rout the regime. But even so, Gaza is not pacified, Netanyahu has no clear post-conflict plan, the ceasefire in Lebanon, is fragile and Hezbollah not defeated.
With Trump giving the Israelis the green light and the nomination of Mike Huckabee as ambassador, a strong believer in Israel’s land claims, the Netanyahu government’s partial or full annexation of the West Bank may be the next shoe to drop – and with it an end to Saudi-Israeli normalization and a new set of regional conflicts that the U.S. could be easily sucked into.
Cascading Clashes in Mexico
Probability:
Trump’s team has reportedly been debating whether to invade and clear out the drug lords. Trump abruptly threatened 25 percent tariffs to stop the flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl, and seal the southern border. Mexico’s largest-ever fentanyl bust in December may be a welcome response. Mexican President Sheinbaum has vowed to retaliate any against tariffs which Deutsche Bank estimates would raise core US inflation by over one percentage point—and disrupt a deeply integrated North American car market.
Trump needs Mexico’s help if he wants to deport 11 million illegal migrants or, as a practical matter, even 1 million. Mexico reportedly has a plan for receiving deported Mexicans, but Sheinbaum wants to convince Trump to keep many of them. While it has been stopping Central American caravans from reaching the border, Mexico temporarily shut down deportations in 2024. A review of the USMCA signed in Trump’s first term is up for 2026 and in preparation Trump wants to ban Mexican exports produced with Chinese help, such as EVs.
From possible military clashes, a costly trade war blowing up the USMCA accord, and the impact of mass deportation, Trump’s declared agenda could plunge bilateral ties into a full-scale crisis.
That would send Mexico’s already slow growth economy into a tailspin. Because of its longstanding free trade agreements with the US, Mexico’s economy has been historically closer to the U.S. than much of Latin America. Trump’s declared agenda could plunge bilateral ties into a full-scale crisis for Mexico, with already booming Mexico-China trade and investment, tipping the balance toward China.
A Bad Deal or Walkaway in Ukraine
Probability:
Trump is intent on ending the Ukraine war and blaming Biden for allowing it to happen. The new President wants to decrease European dependence on the US for its security and stopping the Ukraine war would be a first step. There is growing Republican opposition against any more assistance for Ukraine, which is helping to bring Zelenskyy to the table. With Ukrainian losses increasing, Kyiv appears—without openly admitting it—desperate for a ceasefire, but Trump may allow Putin to tip the scales.
Trump will face domestic and allied opposition if he presses Ukraine too hard for territorial concessions while squashing Zelensky’s demand for NATO membership, offering instead bilateral security guarantees. Putin will want assurances against substantial NATO defense assistance for a neutral Ukraine. Putin reportedly is making any ceasefire conditional on wider talks on European security arrangements and may want some sanctions eased and restored access to Western financial markets to improve Russia’s gloomy economic outlook.
The New START treaty expires in 2026 and both sides have an interest in avoiding an arms race. The recent US decision to deploy missiles in Germany may be a worry, and Moscow may want to revive the INF treaty. Negotiations with Trump offer Putin the best opportunity for establishing limits on the US’s involvement in European security. The twin dangers are Trump pressing Ukraine into a Putin-shaped deal or Trump walking away when there is no early agreement and declaring it Europe’s problem. Trump already reportedly told European leaders during his recent visit that they would have to shoulder most of the burden of supporting Kyiv during the implementation of any ceasefire. Trump’s failure to deliver a ceasefire agreement might result in further Russian gains, eroding Ukraine’s ability to function as a sovereign nation and putting pressure on Europe to defend itself without US help.
China Strikes Back
Probability:
Tension looms between China Hawks and business-centered advisors in the cabinet appealing to Trump’s penchant for deal-making. There was continuity from Trump to Biden in defining China as a strategic competitor seeking to displace US influence.
But as his policy architects argued, Biden sought to create a framework to manage competitive coexistence—a “steady state”—balancing and constraining Beijing, while creating guardrails to avoid conflict. Thus, Biden maintained and expanded tariffs, tightened tech and investment restrictions, imposed sanctions, and strengthened US deterrence in the Asia-Pacific, but also bolstered risk-reduction mechanisms such as military to military talks.
Trump and many of his advisors, plus Congressional Republicans, criticize Biden for trying to manage competition; they view the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an existential threat and define an endgame not of coexistence, but ‘victory,’ where the CCP, which pending Congressional bills seek to sanction, is somehow replaced by a friendlier regime.
The plan, such as it is, is to put maximum pressure on China as a way to weaken it in all spheres, beefing up US military posture in Asia and more aggressively responding to Chinese coercion on Taiwan and the South China Sea. This will deepen the action-reaction spiral. The impending shift would be from derisking to decoupling, trying to fully disentangle the US from China’s economy. Pending legislation in the House and Senate seeks to remove normal trade status from China. This would hit the prices of imports and ripple across global supply chains using Chinese components.
But, Beijing, less dependent on the US market than in Trump’s first term, has prepared for retaliation. This could include counter-tariffs, currency devaluation, and banning exports of rare earth minerals on which US defense equipment, EVs, and AI chips depend—which Xi did recently in an unexpectedly strong response to Biden’s final AI chip equipment ban.
Moreover, Trump may impose additional tariffs on nations like Mexico, Vietnam, and India – whose US exports have skyrocketed as US investors have moved production there using Chinese components. The projected setback to both economies from an all-out economic war might, after much Sturm und Drang, yield a deal.
North Korean Aggression
Probability:
It was a portent of the coming world war when, in 1935, Mussolini and Hitler sent military aid and troops to aid fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Kim Jong Un sent 10,000 troops to Ukraine was a worrying echo of the Fascist move.
The burgeoning Eurasian entente is one of several strategic shifts unfolding since the failed Trump-Kim 2019 Hanoi Summit that has resulted in a predicament more dangerous than at any time since 1950. Kim has undermined core assumptions of US and South Korean nuclear diplomacy over the past 30 years: the twin goals of denuclearization and North-South Korean reconciliation.
Kim discarded a long-standing priority of normalizing US ties after the Hanoi failure and embarked on a break-neck, multi-year, major nuclear and missile buildup including solid-fuel ICBMs, multiple warhead missiles, tactical nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Along with Kim’s emphatic statements that Pyongyang will not give up its nukes (now embodied in North Korea’s constitution and pre-emptive nuclear doctrine) and his defense pact with Moscow, this has emboldened Kim and altered the strategic balance on the Korean Peninsula. In addition, last January, Kim abandoned a 70-year-old policy of reunification, what both North and South Korea defined as a divided family, and declared South Korea an “enemy state,” changing the constitution.
Donald Trump says Kim “misses him,” and may try to rekindle Trump-Kim negotiations, but Kim, if interested at all, will only discuss arms control, not denuclearization, a problematic agenda.
If Ukraine escalates or if China attacks Taiwan and US troops intervene in either conflict, as wargames suggest, Kim may see the diversion of US focus and resources as an opportunity to attack South Korea, risking a two-front war with nuclear powers. The immediate risk is of escalatory North-South military confrontation, over their disputed maritime border.
Climate Tipping Point
Probability:
The world is approaching a climate tipping point, where change may become irreversible. Limiting temperature increases to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and “well below 2C“ is the goal of the Paris Accord. Yet, 2024 was the hottest year on record, with temperatures rising over 1.5C degrees, after a decade of the warmest weather on record, and more frequent and extreme weather.
To meet Paris climate targets, global emissions would need to be reduced 43% by 2030 to reach net zero by 2050, requiring a transformation of global energy systems. At present, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have reached record levels, projected to be 41.6 billion tons of CO2 in 2024. Though renewable energy is growing at exponential rates – 415% since 2000, it still produces only 13% of total world energy, which the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts to grow to 20% by 2030. Fossil fuels—oil gas, coal—account for about 82%of world energy production and are flat, not significantly declining.
This paradox of sustained fossil fuel use amid soaring renewable investment—two-thirds of some $3 trillion in global energy investment in 2024—is epitomized by China, which accounts for 40% of the world’s deployed renewable energy and 60% of the world’s EVs, yet has built 1000 new coal plants since 2000. By 2050, when Paris Accord adherents pledge zero net GHG emissions, fossil fuels are projected to be in use, though reduced by 50%.
This helps explain why efforts at the UN climate meeting, known as COP29 to agree on a timeline to phase out fossil fuels failed. Six nations (China, US, EU, India, Russia, and Brazil) account for nearly two-thirds of GHG emissions – and deciding how to divide current and historical responsibilities is a thorny diplomatic problem.
Trends suggest deepening risk: Trump will promote fossil fuels and rollback US climate commitments, and new energy demands from AI data centers and cryptocurrencies increase the damage.
A Lost Decade for the World’s Poorest
Probability:
Around 3.3 billion people live in nations that spend more on debt than on health and education. Growing deficits and debt are a global problem. The IMF’s Fiscal Monitor has warned that global public debt will likely exceed $100 trillion, or about 93 percent of global gross domestic product by the end of 2024, which is 10 percentage points of GDP above 2019 .
Even before the pandemic, least developed countries debt (LDCs) ] was growing: between 2009 and 2019, the median debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 30.8% to 41.6%. The pandemic worsened the situation, with debt ratios consistently exceeding 50% after 2020. In 2023, many LDCs’ debt-to-GDP ratio were higher than other developing countries for the first time, despite LDCs’ lower repayment capacity. There are fears that higher Western interest rates or devastating climate change-related disasters could worsen the outlook.
There is a tragic irony in the fact that the most climate-vulnerable poor countries are already “spending more than twice as much to service their debts as they receive to fight the climate crisis.” Official Development Assistance (ODA) by rich states is declining, and the Baku COP29 Summit agreement to boost assistance for poor countries won’t do much to help.
As the LDC outlook worsens, the number of active state-based armed conflicts has reached the highest level ever recorded by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program with gang violence also at a historically high. Rich countries delude themselves in thinking the conflicts won’t spill over and affect their futures.
Are Pakistan and Nigeria Too Big to Fail?
Probability:
Pivotal middle powers, such as Nigeria and Pakistan are suffering the plight of the poorer developing states. If stabilized, they could be critical anchors, if they fail, they will be hubs of instability.
Former Nigerian President Obasanjo labeled his country a “failing state” recently, citing leadership failure and such underlying problems as youth restiveness, discord and divisions, corruption and conflict. To the north, the Sahel is mired in multiple conflicts that Nigeria’s Boko Haram has helped to fuel.
Currently the sixth largest state, with 224 million people, and slated to be the third largest in 2050, Nigeria’s debt-to-GDP ratio has grown to 55%, above the LDC average thanks to heavy domestic borrowing and currency depreciation.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan, the world’s 5th largest state, is tittering on the precipice becoming the world’s first failed nuclear power. It has received 23 IMF bailouts in the roughly 75 years since its creation. Its debt has soared since 2007, fostering a “consumption-focused imported-addicted economy,” according to Tabadlab, a think-tank in Islamabad. Pakistan’s tepid growth cannot create enough jobs for the under-30-year-old youth, which constitute half of the country’s population. A majority of working age women don’t work, crippling Pakistan’s economic potential. There’s a political crisis over jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan that recently sparked riots in Islamabad, along with a wave of militant attacks earlier this year in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan.
AI/Tech Governance Deficit
Probability:
The fear of AI dominating humans rather than vice-versa, is growing. Large Language models of generative AI are rapidly improving their capacity, and some predict breakthroughs in super-intelligence, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), by 2030. A Musk-backed push on frontier AGI could be dangerous.
Yet financial analysts worry that the $1 trillion in AI investment is lacking in commercial applications. How will Trump’s best buddy, Elon Musk, whose PAC gave $200 million to Trump and the tech lobby, impact still uncertain norms and regulations for AI and other emerging tech? There are neither national nor global standards for AI, though there are over 120 bills pending in Congress and 45 states have pending AI legislation.
To offset legislative dysfunction, the Biden administration sought to create standards and a regulatory framework for “safe and trustworthy AI” by executive order in 2023, followed by a memorandum last October to align AI with national security goals. Biden put the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) at the center of public-private partnership efforts to realize AI goals
Trump may undo this strategy as Elon Musk’s program of budget cuts and streamlined government puts his stamp on the tech sector. Trump has already vowed to cancel Biden’s AI executive order.
It’s unclear how government scientists and engineers be impacted by planned changes to the civil service. The EU and China have launched their own separate regulations. Trump is unlikely to harmonize standards and regulations with global partners or competitors; the future may be a race to the bottom – or there may be as yet undreamt-of possibilities.
Top Ten Global Risks for 2025
By Mathew Burrows • Robert A. Manning
Grand Strategy
Originally published in Foreign Policy
2025 risks deeper strife, conflict, and uncertainty in an unsettled, contested world. Fears of a Rogue America unraveling the very global order the U.S. created after WW2; growing global—and most troubling—developing nation debt, worsening already fragile and failing states; trending toward a climate tipping point; and confrontation with Mexico are among the top things to worry about in 2025. Some risks from this past year have continued with new layers of conflict in the Middle East, a downward spiral in U.S.-China relations, and the dangers of a governance deficit in rapidly advancing Artificial Intelligence capabilities round out the Top Ten Risks.
Introduction
“Trump may be one of those figures in history, Henry Kissinger observed in 2018, ”who comes along from time to time to mark the end of an era and forces it to give up its pretenses.” This eighth edition of our annual foresight exercise, Top Ten Global Risks, is drawn from our forecasting experience at the National Intelligence Council.
It comes as both the nation and the world braces for a historic shift in the US global role at a moment of grave uncertainty in a contested, turbulent world on edge. Any assessment of the risks ahead must begin by grasping that the election portends one of the most disruptive, if not transformational, presidencies since FDR. Trump appears as much the vessel as the driver for this authoritarian, ‘burn-it-all-down’ sentiment, suggesting that most of the US public is anxious for systemic change.
This creates some, and colors all the risks we anticipate. 2025 will be an interregnum between a waning old era, yet with no unifying vision for a new concept of world order.
We have medium-to-high confidence in all the probabilities we have assigned to each of the risks, given the “credible” to “high-quality” level of information that is available. As it is for intelligence estimates, a “high or medium confidence” judgment still carries the possibility of it being wrong.
The Risks
Rogue America
Probability:
The most immediate peril is disruption and chaos as the new administration seeks to pursue contradictory competing goals (tariffs vs. lower prices and strong dollar; anti-’globalist ‘America First’, yet stronger global Primacy, with competing policy entrepreneur factions) at a time when the world is messier, more complex and dangerous than in Trump’s first term.
Trump may be the first post-American Exceptionalist President that is not enamored with democratic values. He thrives in a Hobbesian, transactional, all-against-all world. MAGA disdain of ‘globalism’ portends unilateral economic interventionism to protect the US economy. Yet his fear of war means military interventions will be limited and reactionary, as in his first term.
Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and UN along with US regional alliances that have been the pillars of a US-led world order face a receding US commitment, if not hostility. For the rest of the world, a stand-offish U.S. under Trump will fuel doubts about the country’s reliability and interest in extended deterrence along with promoting more hedging behavior.
Most consequential will be Trump’s economic policies, centered on promised new tariffs of 10-20% on all trade—and 60% or more on China—and 25%-100% on Mexican and Canadian exports that risk slowing growth, price hikes, inflation, and reduced productivity in the US. A cycle of costly retaliation with Europe, and competitive currency devaluations will increase the risks to global financial stability, potentially resulting in an all-out economic war with China. Under Trump, there will likely be an acceleration in global economic fragmentation and greater protectionist trends that the IMF says could reduce GDP by 1.6% by 2026.
Yet Trump’s view of himself as a deal-maker could have a positive side if he seeks to use his coercive bargaining techniques to persuade China against increased dumping, strike a bargain with Iran that lowers regional tensions, and encourage more alliance burden-sharing. However, from North Korea and China to Afghanistan, Trump’s previous efforts do not inspire confidence this time around.
A Spate of Wicked Problems in the Middle East
Probability:
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria wrought is adding layers of risk on top of the Gaza and Lebanon wars and the Palestinian dilemma. These include the possibility of a new phase of civil conflict in Syria, as external powers like Turkey, Israel, the US, Russia, and internal parties compete to shape a post-Assad Syria; escalating Israel-Iran conflict, and prospective civil strife in a weakened Iran facing succession of 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
The Trump Administration may not understand how much the Middle East is being transformed and that the old tools employed in the first term—Israeli-Arab normalization and maximalist pressure against Iran—may be more likely to heighten dangers and conflict than resolve them.
Assad’s demise, enabled by Israeli military success in severely degrading the capabilities of Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, allowed Turkish-backed Islamist rebels to swiftly rout the regime. But even so, Gaza is not pacified, Netanyahu has no clear post-conflict plan, the ceasefire in Lebanon, is fragile and Hezbollah not defeated.
With Trump giving the Israelis the green light and the nomination of Mike Huckabee as ambassador, a strong believer in Israel’s land claims, the Netanyahu government’s partial or full annexation of the West Bank may be the next shoe to drop – and with it an end to Saudi-Israeli normalization and a new set of regional conflicts that the U.S. could be easily sucked into.
Cascading Clashes in Mexico
Probability:
Trump’s team has reportedly been debating whether to invade and clear out the drug lords. Trump abruptly threatened 25 percent tariffs to stop the flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl, and seal the southern border. Mexico’s largest-ever fentanyl bust in December may be a welcome response. Mexican President Sheinbaum has vowed to retaliate any against tariffs which Deutsche Bank estimates would raise core US inflation by over one percentage point—and disrupt a deeply integrated North American car market.
Trump needs Mexico’s help if he wants to deport 11 million illegal migrants or, as a practical matter, even 1 million. Mexico reportedly has a plan for receiving deported Mexicans, but Sheinbaum wants to convince Trump to keep many of them. While it has been stopping Central American caravans from reaching the border, Mexico temporarily shut down deportations in 2024. A review of the USMCA signed in Trump’s first term is up for 2026 and in preparation Trump wants to ban Mexican exports produced with Chinese help, such as EVs.
From possible military clashes, a costly trade war blowing up the USMCA accord, and the impact of mass deportation, Trump’s declared agenda could plunge bilateral ties into a full-scale crisis.
That would send Mexico’s already slow growth economy into a tailspin. Because of its longstanding free trade agreements with the US, Mexico’s economy has been historically closer to the U.S. than much of Latin America. Trump’s declared agenda could plunge bilateral ties into a full-scale crisis for Mexico, with already booming Mexico-China trade and investment, tipping the balance toward China.
A Bad Deal or Walkaway in Ukraine
Probability:
Trump is intent on ending the Ukraine war and blaming Biden for allowing it to happen. The new President wants to decrease European dependence on the US for its security and stopping the Ukraine war would be a first step. There is growing Republican opposition against any more assistance for Ukraine, which is helping to bring Zelenskyy to the table. With Ukrainian losses increasing, Kyiv appears—without openly admitting it—desperate for a ceasefire, but Trump may allow Putin to tip the scales.
Trump will face domestic and allied opposition if he presses Ukraine too hard for territorial concessions while squashing Zelensky’s demand for NATO membership, offering instead bilateral security guarantees. Putin will want assurances against substantial NATO defense assistance for a neutral Ukraine. Putin reportedly is making any ceasefire conditional on wider talks on European security arrangements and may want some sanctions eased and restored access to Western financial markets to improve Russia’s gloomy economic outlook.
The New START treaty expires in 2026 and both sides have an interest in avoiding an arms race. The recent US decision to deploy missiles in Germany may be a worry, and Moscow may want to revive the INF treaty. Negotiations with Trump offer Putin the best opportunity for establishing limits on the US’s involvement in European security. The twin dangers are Trump pressing Ukraine into a Putin-shaped deal or Trump walking away when there is no early agreement and declaring it Europe’s problem. Trump already reportedly told European leaders during his recent visit that they would have to shoulder most of the burden of supporting Kyiv during the implementation of any ceasefire. Trump’s failure to deliver a ceasefire agreement might result in further Russian gains, eroding Ukraine’s ability to function as a sovereign nation and putting pressure on Europe to defend itself without US help.
China Strikes Back
Probability:
Tension looms between China Hawks and business-centered advisors in the cabinet appealing to Trump’s penchant for deal-making. There was continuity from Trump to Biden in defining China as a strategic competitor seeking to displace US influence.
But as his policy architects argued, Biden sought to create a framework to manage competitive coexistence—a “steady state”—balancing and constraining Beijing, while creating guardrails to avoid conflict. Thus, Biden maintained and expanded tariffs, tightened tech and investment restrictions, imposed sanctions, and strengthened US deterrence in the Asia-Pacific, but also bolstered risk-reduction mechanisms such as military to military talks.
Trump and many of his advisors, plus Congressional Republicans, criticize Biden for trying to manage competition; they view the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as an existential threat and define an endgame not of coexistence, but ‘victory,’ where the CCP, which pending Congressional bills seek to sanction, is somehow replaced by a friendlier regime.
The plan, such as it is, is to put maximum pressure on China as a way to weaken it in all spheres, beefing up US military posture in Asia and more aggressively responding to Chinese coercion on Taiwan and the South China Sea. This will deepen the action-reaction spiral. The impending shift would be from derisking to decoupling, trying to fully disentangle the US from China’s economy. Pending legislation in the House and Senate seeks to remove normal trade status from China. This would hit the prices of imports and ripple across global supply chains using Chinese components.
But, Beijing, less dependent on the US market than in Trump’s first term, has prepared for retaliation. This could include counter-tariffs, currency devaluation, and banning exports of rare earth minerals on which US defense equipment, EVs, and AI chips depend—which Xi did recently in an unexpectedly strong response to Biden’s final AI chip equipment ban.
Moreover, Trump may impose additional tariffs on nations like Mexico, Vietnam, and India – whose US exports have skyrocketed as US investors have moved production there using Chinese components. The projected setback to both economies from an all-out economic war might, after much Sturm und Drang, yield a deal.
North Korean Aggression
Probability:
It was a portent of the coming world war when, in 1935, Mussolini and Hitler sent military aid and troops to aid fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Kim Jong Un sent 10,000 troops to Ukraine was a worrying echo of the Fascist move.
The burgeoning Eurasian entente is one of several strategic shifts unfolding since the failed Trump-Kim 2019 Hanoi Summit that has resulted in a predicament more dangerous than at any time since 1950. Kim has undermined core assumptions of US and South Korean nuclear diplomacy over the past 30 years: the twin goals of denuclearization and North-South Korean reconciliation.
Kim discarded a long-standing priority of normalizing US ties after the Hanoi failure and embarked on a break-neck, multi-year, major nuclear and missile buildup including solid-fuel ICBMs, multiple warhead missiles, tactical nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Along with Kim’s emphatic statements that Pyongyang will not give up its nukes (now embodied in North Korea’s constitution and pre-emptive nuclear doctrine) and his defense pact with Moscow, this has emboldened Kim and altered the strategic balance on the Korean Peninsula. In addition, last January, Kim abandoned a 70-year-old policy of reunification, what both North and South Korea defined as a divided family, and declared South Korea an “enemy state,” changing the constitution.
Donald Trump says Kim “misses him,” and may try to rekindle Trump-Kim negotiations, but Kim, if interested at all, will only discuss arms control, not denuclearization, a problematic agenda.
If Ukraine escalates or if China attacks Taiwan and US troops intervene in either conflict, as wargames suggest, Kim may see the diversion of US focus and resources as an opportunity to attack South Korea, risking a two-front war with nuclear powers. The immediate risk is of escalatory North-South military confrontation, over their disputed maritime border.
Climate Tipping Point
Probability:
The world is approaching a climate tipping point, where change may become irreversible. Limiting temperature increases to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and “well below 2C“ is the goal of the Paris Accord. Yet, 2024 was the hottest year on record, with temperatures rising over 1.5C degrees, after a decade of the warmest weather on record, and more frequent and extreme weather.
To meet Paris climate targets, global emissions would need to be reduced 43% by 2030 to reach net zero by 2050, requiring a transformation of global energy systems. At present, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have reached record levels, projected to be 41.6 billion tons of CO2 in 2024. Though renewable energy is growing at exponential rates – 415% since 2000, it still produces only 13% of total world energy, which the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts to grow to 20% by 2030. Fossil fuels—oil gas, coal—account for about 82%of world energy production and are flat, not significantly declining.
This paradox of sustained fossil fuel use amid soaring renewable investment—two-thirds of some $3 trillion in global energy investment in 2024—is epitomized by China, which accounts for 40% of the world’s deployed renewable energy and 60% of the world’s EVs, yet has built 1000 new coal plants since 2000. By 2050, when Paris Accord adherents pledge zero net GHG emissions, fossil fuels are projected to be in use, though reduced by 50%.
This helps explain why efforts at the UN climate meeting, known as COP29 to agree on a timeline to phase out fossil fuels failed. Six nations (China, US, EU, India, Russia, and Brazil) account for nearly two-thirds of GHG emissions – and deciding how to divide current and historical responsibilities is a thorny diplomatic problem.
Trends suggest deepening risk: Trump will promote fossil fuels and rollback US climate commitments, and new energy demands from AI data centers and cryptocurrencies increase the damage.
A Lost Decade for the World’s Poorest
Probability:
Around 3.3 billion people live in nations that spend more on debt than on health and education. Growing deficits and debt are a global problem. The IMF’s Fiscal Monitor has warned that global public debt will likely exceed $100 trillion, or about 93 percent of global gross domestic product by the end of 2024, which is 10 percentage points of GDP above 2019 .
Even before the pandemic, least developed countries debt (LDCs) ] was growing: between 2009 and 2019, the median debt-to-GDP ratio rose from 30.8% to 41.6%. The pandemic worsened the situation, with debt ratios consistently exceeding 50% after 2020. In 2023, many LDCs’ debt-to-GDP ratio were higher than other developing countries for the first time, despite LDCs’ lower repayment capacity. There are fears that higher Western interest rates or devastating climate change-related disasters could worsen the outlook.
There is a tragic irony in the fact that the most climate-vulnerable poor countries are already “spending more than twice as much to service their debts as they receive to fight the climate crisis.” Official Development Assistance (ODA) by rich states is declining, and the Baku COP29 Summit agreement to boost assistance for poor countries won’t do much to help.
As the LDC outlook worsens, the number of active state-based armed conflicts has reached the highest level ever recorded by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program with gang violence also at a historically high. Rich countries delude themselves in thinking the conflicts won’t spill over and affect their futures.
Are Pakistan and Nigeria Too Big to Fail?
Probability:
Pivotal middle powers, such as Nigeria and Pakistan are suffering the plight of the poorer developing states. If stabilized, they could be critical anchors, if they fail, they will be hubs of instability.
Former Nigerian President Obasanjo labeled his country a “failing state” recently, citing leadership failure and such underlying problems as youth restiveness, discord and divisions, corruption and conflict. To the north, the Sahel is mired in multiple conflicts that Nigeria’s Boko Haram has helped to fuel.
Currently the sixth largest state, with 224 million people, and slated to be the third largest in 2050, Nigeria’s debt-to-GDP ratio has grown to 55%, above the LDC average thanks to heavy domestic borrowing and currency depreciation.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan, the world’s 5th largest state, is tittering on the precipice becoming the world’s first failed nuclear power. It has received 23 IMF bailouts in the roughly 75 years since its creation. Its debt has soared since 2007, fostering a “consumption-focused imported-addicted economy,” according to Tabadlab, a think-tank in Islamabad. Pakistan’s tepid growth cannot create enough jobs for the under-30-year-old youth, which constitute half of the country’s population. A majority of working age women don’t work, crippling Pakistan’s economic potential. There’s a political crisis over jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan that recently sparked riots in Islamabad, along with a wave of militant attacks earlier this year in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan.
AI/Tech Governance Deficit
Probability:
The fear of AI dominating humans rather than vice-versa, is growing. Large Language models of generative AI are rapidly improving their capacity, and some predict breakthroughs in super-intelligence, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), by 2030. A Musk-backed push on frontier AGI could be dangerous.
Yet financial analysts worry that the $1 trillion in AI investment is lacking in commercial applications. How will Trump’s best buddy, Elon Musk, whose PAC gave $200 million to Trump and the tech lobby, impact still uncertain norms and regulations for AI and other emerging tech? There are neither national nor global standards for AI, though there are over 120 bills pending in Congress and 45 states have pending AI legislation.
To offset legislative dysfunction, the Biden administration sought to create standards and a regulatory framework for “safe and trustworthy AI” by executive order in 2023, followed by a memorandum last October to align AI with national security goals. Biden put the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) at the center of public-private partnership efforts to realize AI goals
Trump may undo this strategy as Elon Musk’s program of budget cuts and streamlined government puts his stamp on the tech sector. Trump has already vowed to cancel Biden’s AI executive order.
It’s unclear how government scientists and engineers be impacted by planned changes to the civil service. The EU and China have launched their own separate regulations. Trump is unlikely to harmonize standards and regulations with global partners or competitors; the future may be a race to the bottom – or there may be as yet undreamt-of possibilities.
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