As we enter 2024 what lies ahead on the global stage may seem more uncertain than it has in years. <\/p>\n
To help you make sense of it, here are some key themes to watch. <\/p>\n
The new year begins with\u00a0Israel\u00a0pushing its offensive further into the Gaza Strip in response to Hamas\u2019 October 7 attacks. <\/p>\n
International pressure is mounting on Israel to limit the duration and intensity of its war amid global outcry over Gazans being trapped in mortal danger, without critical supplies or access to healthcare, as disease spreads through crowded humanitarian camps. Despite this, Israel has doubled down on its efforts and vowed its war on Hamas will rage for many months. <\/p>\n
The risk of a wider Middle East conflict is escalating. <\/p>\n
There are increasing cross-border exchanges between the Iran-backed, Islamist paramilitary group Hezbollah and the Israel\u00a0Defense Forces (IDF) on the Lebanon-Israel border. <\/p>\n
Proxy attacks by Iran-backed factions in Iraq \u2013 like the recent strike on the US embassy in Baghdad \u2013 are becoming bolder and more common. And\u00a0further attacks by Yemen\u2019s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on global shipping routes through the Red Sea and Suez Canal could make energy prices soar. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a risk of other extremist groups in the region being fueled by opportunism and\/or grievances. It goes without saying that any formal normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a deal that appeared close before October 7, is now off the table. <\/p>\n
The United States\u2019 early unequivocal support of Israeli attacks on Gaza has damaged the image it projects as a guarantor of human rights and international law \u2013 a reputational hit from which Washington is unlikely to recover in the short term, despite a decisive shift in tone. <\/p>\n
Going into 2024, the US and its allies must strike a balance between retaliation for and deterrence of proxy attacks, while keeping their responses under a threshold that would trigger a wider conflict. <\/p>\n
In February,\u00a0Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine will enter its third year. <\/p>\n
Neither Russia nor Ukraine shows any signs of achieving victory or a willingness to compromise on their\u00a0incompatible\u00a0objectives. Ukraine is fighting for its survival,\u00a0territorial integrity and sovereignty, while Russia is intent on what it calls the \u201cdenazification\u201d and demilitarization of Ukraine, and the prevention of its aspiration to join NATO and other Western bodies.\u00a0The Russian framing of its unprovoked invasion as \u201cdenazification\u201d has been dismissed by historians and political observers.\u00a0<\/strong> <\/p>\n Putin starts\u00a0the year\u00a0more confidently than he did the year before. <\/p>\n Ukraine\u2019s long-anticipated 2023 counteroffensive did not recapture the momentum Kyiv had gained by the end of 2022. Russia\u2019s war stockpiles are\u00a0being replenished by\u00a0both\u00a0Iran and North Korea. Plus, the world\u2019s largest-by-area country always has its numerical advantage to rely on in terms of troops, unlike Ukraine, which will suffer increasingly from a manpower shortage next year. <\/p>\n Europe is limited in the ammunition and military hardware it can supply to Ukraine, with its own sad stocks depleted. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2019s worst fears of cracks in Western unity have also materialized: Political division in the US and Europe is now obstructing the delivery of military and economic aid. Zelensky\u2019s December trip to Washington, DC, resulted in $200 million \u2013 instead of the $61 billion he wanted \u2013 for new munitions because congressional Republicans wouldn\u2019t budge on the border policy changes they demanded in return. <\/p>\n Days later, Hungary blocked a European Union aid package of\u00a050 billion\u00a0euros ($55 billion)\u00a0to Ukraine. This trend will likely continue to stymie Ukraine\u2019s military efforts next year as both the US and EU will prioritize domestic issues ahead of their elections. <\/p>\n Ukraine might then focus on a defensive approach, training new recruits, and defense production. Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, will continue to be the strategic prize which Ukraine seeks to strike and challenge Russia\u2019s Black Sea dominance. <\/p>\n Although Ukraine is now formally on its EU membership path , the rhetorical and institutional embrace from allies will likely continue to stand in contrast to their actual military and financial support at times. <\/p>\n Naturally, the future of this conflict hinges in large part on who is at the helm of Ukraine\u2019s biggest source of financial and military aid \u2013 the United States. Moscow favors a return of the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump this fall. <\/p>\n Elections are always significant, never more so than when so many key players are on the ballots at a moment of global instability. In 2024 2 billion people will go to the polls in a bumper year for voting. <\/p>\n The\u00a0United States\u2019\u00a0<\/strong>elections on November 5 could potentially see\u00a0Trump return to the White House. Trump has a commanding lead over his Republican rivals\u00a0for their party\u2019s nomination, but the Colorado Supreme Court judgment that he cannot run in the state due to the 2021 insurrection case, followed by a similar decision in Maine,\u00a0may foreshadow the obstacles he will face. <\/p>\n There is no precedent for a candidate running under indictment. The mobilizing impact Trump\u2019s claims of a legal \u201cwitch hunt\u201d has had on his base is unlikely to translate to the wider electorate. However, President Joe Biden is not energizing Democrats \u2013 opinion polls suggest the majority of voters think the octogenarian is too old to be reelected\u00a0and his approval ratings are low. As ever, the places to watch are the swing\u00a0states. <\/p>\n India<\/strong> will hold the world\u2019s largest democratic elections throughout April and May. <\/p>\n Incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi alongside his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is expected to secure a third term with a popular but religiously divisive brand of politics. Despite issues around inflation and purchasing power, Modi enjoys broad support\u00a0among India\u2019s Hindu majority\u00a0based on patriotism and a confident foreign policy.\u00a0Critics counter that India\u2019s once secular and democratic founding ethos is taking a back seat and that minorities feel unsafe. <\/p>\n Russia<\/strong>\u00a0goes to the\u00a0polls on March 17.\u00a0With prominent opposition leader Alexey Navalny incarcerated in a remote Siberian penal colony and comprehensive suppression of independent media, there won\u2019t be any surprises here. However, the level of turnout will be revealing. If\u00a0Russia\u2019s\u00a0<\/strong>elections offer limited indication of the government\u2019s popularity, a low turnout could add pressure on the Kremlin and its stalling invasion of Ukraine. Fellow autocracies\u00a0Belarus\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Iran<\/strong> also hold elections. <\/p>\n There will be an early election flashpoint when, in less than two weeks, Taiwan<\/strong> votes, setting the tone with China for the next four years. If the winner is\u00a0Democratic Progressive Party\u2019s Lai\u00a0Ching-te, previously a hardline advocate of Taiwanese independence, relations with Beijing are expected to deteriorate or remain frozen.\u00a0The competing Kuomintang (KMT) and Taiwan People\u2019s Party <\/strong>candidates promise to create less friction with China although all three parties oppose the \u201cone country, two systems\u201d principle espoused by Beijing. <\/p>\n Elsewhere,\u00a0for the first time\u00a0since it came to power three decades ago,\u00a0South Africa\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0African National Congress (ANC)\u00a0faces a real risk of losing its parliamentary majority in the 2024 elections.\u00a0Unemployment, an unstable economy and crime have broken the ANC\u2019s dominance.\u00a0Party leader\u00a0and\u00a0President Cyril Ramaphosa, who took office in 2018\u00a0after his scandal-plagued predecessor Jacob Zuma was effectively pushed out of office, himself faced questions over alleged corruption, which he denied. <\/p>\n As the wars\u00a0in Eastern Europe and the Middle East show, we are at in inflection point in geopolitics. <\/p>\n The tilt toward authoritarianism and long-predicted fracturing of Western hegemony has finally come home to roost. There has been a definitive shift away from American unipolarity, with China and Russia taking advantage of this retreat. The geopolitical axes of power are loosely realigning, with the US and EU on one side and an anti-US axis of China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea on the other. This is leading to bolder, less predictable actions and a more dangerous and uncertain global environment. <\/p>\n We will continue to witness this shift, which could be exacerbated by the posturing of non-aligned countries and the rise of competitive blocs such as BRICS. <\/p>\n Territorial disputes and revanchism are on the rise.\u00a0Azerbaijan\u2019s lightning seizure of the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh\u00a0region is just one instance. <\/p>\n India and China continue to fight about and militarize\u00a0the world\u2019s longest-disputed border, which separates them. Smaller powers can take advantage of the Western\u00a0disengagement\u00a0and the blind eye that ascendant great powers will turn to their expansionist ambitions. <\/p>\n All the while, the increased use of United Nations Security Council veto power is paralyzing and inspires little confidence in the ability of supranational institutions to deter or respond to a world experiencing the most conflict since the second world war. <\/p>\n The inability of regional and international policymakers to negotiate a rapid return to civilian rule in response to\u00a0a\u00a0wave of coups in Africa\u00a0also\u00a0signals an absence of effective sanctions and leadership. <\/p>\n This raises the risk of contagion, with other countries potentially following suit \u2013 especially with the world\u2019s attention fixed on the Middle East and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine. <\/p>\n 2024 looks set to see a tension between exponential\u00a0artificial intelligence\u00a0(AI) growth and attempts to regulate it, from governing institutions\u00a0notoriously lacking in\u00a0tech savvy. <\/p>\n Generative AI \u2013 which generates new data, like text, images or designs, by learning from existing data \u2013 dates back to the 1950s (we have to give Alan Turing his props here.)\u00a0But it is only now that we are truly witnessing the paradigm shift as AI technology is widely available and impacting all aspects of our lives. <\/p>\n What does that mean in practice? Huge progress in image generation, design, speech synthesis, translation and automation. The rise of AI assistants and personalizing your tech interactions.\u00a0Instead of text models like ChatGPT, image-generating models like\u00a0DALL-E 2, and speech models being separate, they will be combined for a more holistic interface. <\/p>\n As we know, the rapid advancement of AI also brings\u00a0new\u00a0ethical challenges. <\/p>\n As AI systems become more advanced, questions about privacy, bias, and accountability become increasingly pertinent. How do we ensure that AI systems respect human rights and freedoms? How do we monitor and prevent AI\u00a0interference\u00a0in democratic processes? How do we mitigate the risk of bias in AI decision-making? These are just some of the questions that policymakers, researchers, and society at large must grapple with. <\/p>\n Increasingly sophisticated AI systems require serious processing power \u2013 which will mean an industry emphasis on expensive chips and quantum computing. The latter of\u00a0those\u00a0is the next frontier in pioneering research which relies on the peculiar and counterintuitive principles of subatomic physics. The information processing speeds of quantum computing and its analysis of data is\u00a0in a different stratosphere.\u00a0The integration of quantum computing into AI will mean models are trained faster with far enhanced capabilities for self-evolution. <\/p>\n AI experts cannot even comprehend the future extent and implications of the technology \u2013 an unsettling thought given the pace of change and its pervasive impact on humanity. But baked in to the open-ended and uncertain, even the pessimistic, is the potential for surprise and unexpected progress. On the cusp of 2024, humanity can at least cling to that proven constant. <\/p>\n\n As we enter 2024 what lies ahead on the global stage may seem more uncertain than it has in years. To help you make sense of it, here are some key themes to watch. 1. Israel-Hamas war threatens to spill over The new year begins with\u00a0Israel\u00a0pushing its offensive further into the Gaza Strip in response <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} 3. Elections, certain and uncertain<\/h2>\n
4. Territorial disputes<\/h2>\n
5. AI comes of age<\/h2>\n