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Hold us accountable: Our biggest calls for 2023
Every year, Eurasia Group releases its Top 10 geopolitical risks for the year ahead. You’ll see the 2024 edition next Monday. But an honest analyst looks back at past forecasts to see (and acknowledge) what he got right and wrong, and I’m going to do that here and now.
Here’s the 2023 full report. To remind you, our Top 10 risks for 2023 were:
- Rogue Russia
- Maximum Xi
- Weapons of Mass Disruption
- Inflation shockwaves
- Iran in a corner
- Energy crunch
- Arrested global development
- Divided States of America
- TikTok boom
- Water stress
Let’s take these one at a time …
1. Rogue Russia
Our top risk last year was that the war between Russia and Ukraine would be no closer to resolution and that Russia would be on track to become the world’s most dangerous rogue state.
Check and check.
Another year of brutal fighting brought hundreds of thousands of casualties – and barely budged the war’s frontlines. Russia, still led by a president considered a war criminal in the West, now faces even more sanctions, and it has therefore drawn closer to Iran and North Korea to procure much-needed military supplies from both.
Russia has also picked up the pace of cyberattacks on Ukrainian targets and continues to target cities across the country with airstrikes. Putin has kept Russia’s asymmetrical attacks incremental to avoid escalation and exacerbating divisions in the West, but Russian disinformation attacks are picking up in support of Kremlin-friendly politicians and political parties inside NATO countries.
For 2024, Putin will have new options. More on that next week.
2. Maximum Xi
This call fared well too. We expected Xi Jinping’s consolidation of political power to create big economic and policy challenges through increasingly arbitrary and capricious central decision-making. We saw that most dramatically early in 2023 when a sudden U-turn from the world’s tightest zero-COVID policies produced a bad hangover for the Chinese economy.
Making matters worse, the expected economic bounce-back hasn’t materialized, and the unpredictability of government decision-making led to growing capital flight and a sharp turnaround in foreign direct investment, weakening the economy further.
In fairness, Xi Jinping responded to the economic weakness later in the year with a friendlier and more open foreign policy than we feared. Relations with the United States and Europe have been far better managed in recent months.
Do we expect that trend to last in 2024? We’ll tell you much more about that next week too.
3. Weapons of Mass Disruption
Here’s where I think we were furthest ahead of the curve. A year ago, very, very few political leaders were actively thinking about the disruptive power of artificial intelligence. Now, the hopes and fears are front and center in every region of the world – but especially for decision-makers in America, China, and Europe. The UN is on the case now too.
We learned this year that new AI tools represent a unique technological breakthrough with implications for every sector of the economy. They’re already driving a new phase of globalization. But they’re also creating serious risks because AI will enable disinformation on a massive scale, fuel public mistrust in governing institutions, and empower demagogues and autocrats in both politics and the private sector. More on that next week too.
4. Inflation shockwaves
Here our forecast mainly missed the mark. We expected that inflation at levels not seen in generations would lead to a restrictive policy stance by major central banks, reducing global demand and causing financial stress and social and political instability. We were thinking mainly of countries already under pressure, but we considered the United States vulnerable too.
The US did experience a banking crisis of confidence following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic in 2023, but stronger-than-expected growth and continued low unemployment helped contain the fallout.
The global impact was less than we expected. Yes, China underperformed, but Europe absorbed the shocks created by the transition away from imports of Russian energy, and overall US performance stuck close to the “Goldilocks” scenario of slow economic cooling while avoiding recession. The risk of a major financial crisis was avoided.
With hindsight, inflation deserved to be on the list, but not at #4.
5. Iran in a corner
This one cut both ways in 2023. On the one hand, as we expected, there was no breakthrough with the Biden administration to restore the Iran nuclear deal, and that led Tehran to step up uranium enrichment and stockpiling. It also upped its military cooperation with the Kremlin, particularly with drone transfers that boosted Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine.
We also finished the year with serious concerns about an expansion of the regional war between Israel and Hamas, a conflict in which Iran would be a key player. Their various proxies in the region were already stepping up attacks on Israel and US forces in the region as 2023 came to an end.
But the positive surprise was a breakthrough we didn’t foresee — brokered by China — between Iran and Saudi Arabia. That diplomatic opening has facilitated better economic relations, and following the outbreak of war, leaders of the two countries have been in regular communication, helping to stabilize the region for now.
6. Energy crunch
This was the biggest miss in our 2023 top risks report. We forecast that supply-limiting geopolitical challenges coupled with higher global energy demand would push oil prices beyond $100 a barrel by the end of the year. But there was no energy crunch in 2023 because the wars and the best efforts of OPEC+ to bolster prices couldn’t outweigh reduced demand from sluggish economic growth in China or a dramatic expansion of US oil production despite its commitment to a faster and more expansive energy transition. Oil topped out just under $95 and quickly backed down. Despite the entirely unexpected risks in the Middle East, the price has lately bounced between $75-$80 per barrel.
7. Arrested global development
Though the pandemic is over, human development indicators overall continue to suffer, thanks to the Russia-Ukraine war, global inflation, climate change, the Israel-Hamas war, and a number of other military coups and conflicts in places like Haiti, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Armenia-Azerbaijan that receive very little attention from Western media.
The result is lower levels of economic and political security for most of the world’s population. This should have come higher on our list.
8. Divided States of America
Given the structural political dysfunction (ask former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the parade of his hapless would-be replacements) and the continued erosion of public confidence in US political institutions, this deserved to be on the list. Given the trajectory, we should have had it a little higher.
The 2024 election season is now in full swing, and in many ways, it is more problematic than in 2020. The international impact has so far been limited, and other governments are only just starting to grapple with the post-November uncertainties in US policymaking. More on that next week.
9. TikTok boom
Gen Z certainly became a bigger player in 2023, and not just on climate or issues of equality and identity politics. The Israel-Hamas war has created early challenges for the Biden reelection campaign, with both support for Palestinians and anger at the Israeli government becoming more intense as 2024 begins.
10. Water Stress
Water stress became more of an issue in 2023. Record rains made a big positive difference in the United States, facilitating a political deal for water-sharing in western US states and giving farmers a medium-term lease on life.
But other water-stressed parts of the world have experienced more pain. Northern Mexico remains in serious trouble. Agriculture and overall fiscal strain across Europe will require new political thinking. Sub-Saharan Africa now faces more starvation, especially in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, adding to forced migration trends. Too many governments are focused only on crises, leaving longer-term plans for new institutions capable of marshaling long-term resources on the drawing board.
So, that’s my look back at 2023. Beginning next Monday, you’ll be reading much more about our expectations for a historically turbulent 2024.
Biden's 2024 election vulnerabilities and strengths
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi, everybody. Ian Bremmer here. And a Quick Take to kick off your week on a Monday here in New York City. And yeah, everyone, everyone talking about those polls, New York Times and Siena showing that Biden is behind Trump, not just in overall popularity, but also specifically in how voters in key swing states will vote. And, of course, that's the Electoral College. That's how you actually get elected president of United States. So, yeah, Biden supporters very concerned about that. But we are a year away, so it is early.
Having said that, a few things that I think are worth paying attention to. Number one, 71% of Americans say Biden, 80-year-old Biden is too old to run for president. Look, very few people actually work regularly with an 80-year-old. So I get it. And in a year's time, I'm fairly confident he's going to be a year older. So this is not something that Biden can do much of anything about. And there is material downside. Having said that, Biden is more obviously aging physically where intellectually, you know, one one-on-one in small meetings, he's still actually able to hold down meetings reasonably well.
Trump, on the other hand, at least if you've watched him recently and I've seen a couple of his rallies, is very physically robust, intellectually seems to be losing a lot more of the zip on his fastball. And I suspect that once he gets the nomination, which is virtually certain at this point, he's going to get a lot more real time coverage, more people are going to see that. So it plays definitely against Biden. But I don't think it's quite as dramatic a gap as we presently see.
Other issues out there I think are harder to address. Illegal immigration, for example, which is now not just about border red states, but it's about blue sanctuary cities that were happy being sanctuary cities when they have many illegal immigrants coming in. But you suddenly bring them in. They say, wait a second, we were fine with sanctuary city in theory, but in practice, this isn't going to work. And you see this happening in New York. You see it happening in San Francisco, in Chicago, in a bunch of cities around the country, and also hard to address because you had very limited immigration. While the pandemic was on, people weren't moving. Two and a half years of pent up demand. Now they are. And the willingness of Biden to play hardball, specifically with the Mexican government and the southern Mexican border, which is where the people are coming up through so far, has not been what it needs to be. Hard to imagine that issue gets much better.
The one that can get better for Biden is the economy, where increasingly the US economy is significantly outperforming those of other advanced industrial democracies post-Pandemic. And while inflation is high, it is coming down, though from a high base. And rates, no one expects they're going to continue to be raised by the Fed. In fact, indeed, they may well come down a little bit next year and that soft landing will likely help soften Biden's numbers on that side. Having said all of that, foreign policy is now becoming a vulnerability for Biden in a way that it really hasn't been over the last year or so. And few Americans actually vote on foreign policy. But when you talk about a huge issue, like 100 billion US dollars going to support Ukraine for a war that increasingly looks like a stalemate, where the counter offensive talked about for many months looks like a failure, and where it was a bipartisan issue of support for Ukraine, it's now become a partisan issue of Democrats strongly supporting more money for the Ukrainians. Republicans saying that's been too much money for the Ukrainians. And when Trump gets the nomination, the Republican Party presently voting more with the Dems likely to shift away from that support. And so I can easily see an environment where Ukraine feels like it's getting partitioned, which no one will accept and therefore is an unacceptable reality when Biden is running for reelection. That's been a signature foreign policy of his and he will be vulnerable to the Republicans.
The other issue, of course, is the Middle East. Now, if you can contain the Middle East war to Gaza and Israel, probably won't have much impact come next November. But if it expands, the impact on oil prices as well as the likelihood that US forces in the region are directly involved in some of the fighting with Iranian Shia proxies across the region, Yemen and Syria and Iraq and Lebanon and maybe even with Iran itself. That's a vulnerability too. Not to mention the fact that right now Biden's getting only just above 20% support from Arab American voters in the United States who are really important in places like Michigan, where they're 5% of the voting population, or Pennsylvania, where they're over 2%, both of which are larger than Biden's actual victory in those states back in 2020 elections.
So he has vulnerabilities there. And increasingly, the Biden administration is worried that, you know, this is going to be a challenge and there's not a lot of things they can do to ensure outcomes that are better. So in an environment where domestic policy looks okay, but people aren't focused as much on it, they're not as happy as they want to be on a couple of core issues. And suddenly foreign policy is a vulnerability, that to me feels challenging. Now against all of that, you have the fact that Biden is the president and incumbent presidents always historically do better in the United States, even unpopular ones. They get a bump because they can drive the agenda and they can drive the media coverage. That continues to be true for Biden. It's one of the strongest arguments for him to actually run a second time.
Beyond that, you've got the abortion issue, which continues to play strongly for Biden, very badly for Republicans. It was a conservative Supreme Court with key Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump that rid the country of Roe versus Wade, which ended up which was a quite popular decision by the Supreme Court for the majority of red and blue voters across the country. And there's a backlash that you see there. It's also one of the reasons why Kamala Harris is no longer seen as much of a drag on the Biden administration. In fact, in many ways, Biden is seen as much of a drag as Kamala is, especially in this last vote. And that's because she's been given not just immigration, which is a loser issue, but she's also been given abortion, which has been a winner issue. And as she's talked around the country, she's done better on that front.
Final point, of course, is Trump's unfitness. And while this is all played in 91 indictments, some of which are very real cases, some of which are politicized, but this is going to become a bigger turnoff for independent votes as people spend more time focusing not on Democrat versus Republican, but Biden versus Trump once the nominations happen. That's a vulnerability, too. So a long electoral cycle that no one wants to deal with, with two candidates that most people are very unexcited about. I guess we're going to have to talk about it more. But that's where we stand right now.
That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Jane Harman: Trump trial a distraction away from urgent global crises
GZERO caught up with former US Rep. Jane Harman at the US-Canada Summit in Toronto, hosted by the Eurasia Group and BMO Financial Group.
She shares her thoughts on why Donald Trump's trial in New York helps the former US president politically, and why Finland joining NATO is good for the Finns — and the West.
Harman also weighs in on why the US and Canada are still unprepared for all cybersecurity threats, and the big global problem Washington and Ottawa should try to solve together right now.
Ian interviews Mitt Romney: US political divisions & tough foreign policy calls
Note: This interview appeared as part of an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, "Sen. Mitt Romney on DC dysfunction, Russian attacks, and banning TikTok" on February 6, 2023.
On GZERO World, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate sits down for an exclusive interview with Ian Bremmer to talk debt ceiling drama, Ukraine war fatigue, and pondering war with China. He also has thoughts on the "woke-ism" debate and whether the US should ban TikTok.
Back in 2012, as a presidential candidate, Romney was mocked by Barack Obama during a debate for claiming that Russia was America’s top geopolitical threat. Now, he shares his views about the risk that Russia poses today, where China stacks up in the mix, and much more.
Ukraine: Biggest foreign policy test for the Biden administration
Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington, shares his perspective on Biden's strategy on the Ukraine crisis.
How has Biden's response to the Ukraine crisis been so far?
Well, Ukraine is emerging as a major foreign policy test for the Biden administration who came into office seeming to want to set the Russia issue aside so they could focus on US policy in Asia. The Biden administration wants a diplomatic response because diplomacy is probably all they have. In public opinion polling, Americans say they do not want to get involved militarily in Ukraine, even if Russian invades, but near majority of Americans say they're not following the issue closely either, which means many of them could probably be convinced one way or the other. The White House efforts to deterrence have included a clever play to foil Russia's invasion plans by releasing intelligence about misinformation President Putin was planning on releasing as a pretext for invasion.
But one thing they have not yet done are sanctions, which members of Congress are pushing for to do in advance of a Russian invasion. If Putin invades, sanctions are likely to come very fast for Russian state-owned banks, individuals involved in the invasion, and against anyone globally for trading in new Russian debt. This will cut off a number of critical financial lifelines for the Russians. It'll have significant cost for the West, however, as it could dramatically increase energy prices and potentially cut off supplies for Western European countries that rely on Russian gas.
Politically, if the Biden administration's unable to stop an invasion, it will contribute to a narrative that undermines the foreign policy credibility that Biden ran on in 2020, and will be another major drag on Biden's approval ratings, which have already suffered due to high inflation and the ongoing pandemic.
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Russia and the U.S. are playing chicken over Ukraine
Russia and the U.S. are playing chicken over Ukraine
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a two-hour meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday, in an effort to lower the temperature after weeks of tense negotiations over Ukraine ended in deadlock. Lavrov described the discussion as "constructive, useful."
The first round of talks between Washington, NATO and Moscow had made little progress, with Russian officials last week describing them as a “dead end” until and unless the West addresses Russia’s security concerns in writing.
Since then, hostilities have flared up.
First, there was the cyberattack targeting Ukrainian government websites and the malware attack against the country’s computer networks. Then, Russia announced the deployment of additional troops to Belarus and reportedly evacuated its Kyiv embassy staff. US intelligence has also reportedly discovered that the Kremlin is planning a false-flag operation in Ukraine to fabricate a pretext for an invasion.
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Meanwhile, the UK stepped up its arms shipments to Ukraine over the weekend, and the US is reportedly preparing new sanctions against individual separatists in Donbas. While the White House is still banking on a diplomatic solution, the administration has understandably soured on the outlook for averting Russian military intervention.
“We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point want an attack in Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Tuesday. A day later, President Biden himself predicted that Russia will “move in” on Ukraine, while speculating that Putin “still does not want any full-blown war.”
There are some pundits and officials who believe that the Kremlin does not actually want the negotiations to succeed. Rather, they think, Putin has already made up his mind to invade Ukraine, and now he’s just looking for a pretext to do so. That’s why he’s insisted on extracting such maximalist terms from the US and NATO that everyone knows they can’t possibly agree to.
While that’s a plausible interpretation of the facts, my view is different. I think Putin is using hostilities not as a prelude to an invasion but as a cudgel to force the West to take his concerns about European security seriously.
As I wrote back in December, another large-scale invasion of Ukraine would impose high human, economic, and political costs on Russia and Putin. For one, most Russians would not welcome a new war with Ukraine. The Ukrainian army is much stronger today than it was in 2014 and would inflict heavy losses on Russian forces. An invasion of any region other than Crimea would pit them against hostile local populations. In addition to the human toll, occupation doesn’t come cheap—Russia spends about $4 billion on the Donbas and $2 billion on Crimea annually, and that’s before you factor in the high cost of new Western sanctions. Finally, an invasion would bring the Americans and the Europeans closer together, and bolstering NATO is the last thing Putin wants.
That’s why I think a full-scale invasion is unlikely, and why negotiations are likely to drag on—albeit complicated by further posturing and low-grade escalation along the way. More of the same from Russia to extract concessions from the West (such as further troop or weapons build-ups, cyber operations on non-critical infrastructure, flare-ups in fighting in Donbas) will invite more targeted sanctions as well as greater military assistance to Kyiv. As long as Moscow’s moves fall short of an outright invasion, Western responses will continue to be limited in nature—making it harder for the Americans and Europeans to maintain a united front.President Biden acknowledged as much during a press conference on Wednesday, when he let it slip that NATO allies would be divided on how to respond to a “minor incursion” short of a full-scale invasion.
“It depends on what he does, to what extent we'll get total unity on the NATO front,” Biden said. That discord in and of itself would count as a win for Putin, who’s always been intent on sowing division within NATO
At the same time, we shouldn’t dismiss the chance that a breakdown in talks prompts Moscow to see overt military action as the only alternative, no matter the cost. Whether that happens or not depends on whether the Kremlin sees a clear path toward an agreement with the West. Such a deal would need to at least partially address Russia’s concerns regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership prospects, a central issue for Putin.
While a concession on this front won’t be palatable to Washington and its European allies—who in fact publicly refused to formally halt NATO expansion last week—it could be achievable in practice if not in principle given that there is no real-world path for Ukraine to enter the alliance. That could not only defuse the current crisis but also increase trust between the two sides and reduce the risk of further confrontations in the future.
But should Putin conclude that the US and NATO will not grant the security guarantees he seeks, he might look to secure his objectives by military means instead. In that sense, I don’t think Putin is bluffing. If he doesn’t get meaningful assurances from the West, he will escalate. The question is whether he may be better served by a more limited military incursion short of outright invasion that puts the Americans and the Europeans at odds with each other.
Finally, even if neither side intends to go to war—as I think is the case—they could very well stumble into it. The next few weeks will bring further rhetorical and security escalations as diplomatic avenues get explored (and exhausted). With so many troops and arms lying around and so little trust between the sides, the risk of miscommunication, miscalculation, and accidents will remain high. It wouldn’t be the first case of brinkmanship gone wrong.
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What the Afghanistan fiasco means for Biden
What the Afghanistan fiasco means for Biden
If you had asked me two days ago whether the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan would spell doom for Joe Biden at the ballot box, I would have said no.
That’s changing. Here’s why.
Voters normally don’t care about foreign affairsMost Americans care very little about foreign policy when it’s time to vote. Poll after poll show that voters tend to choose leaders based on their performance (in the case of incumbents) and positions on domestic priorities such as the economy, health care, and culture war issues. Infrastructure at home, for one, matters a lot more.
That’s why, before today, I suspected that the recent decline in Biden’s approval ratings was more about the Covid-19 surge than the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yes, Biden’s perceived competence took a hit on account of this crisis, but the next election isn’t for another 15 months and I expected this blip would be short-lived.
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After all, voters have notoriously short memories, withdrawal from Afghanistan remains broadly popular, and past administrations bear much more responsibility for the costs of a two-decade war than the president who was inaugurated 8 months ago.
As I wrote last Friday, as long as no Americans got kidnapped or killed on the ground, Biden should’ve been able to get away with it, with little damage done to his domestic agenda:
If the US manages to evacuate all Americans safely, this debacle shouldn’t weigh heavily on the president’s agenda moving forward. Tragic as it may be, insofar as the victims continue to be largely Afghan, any violence is unlikely to drastically shift US opinion about a war that has long since faded from the public interest.
That was, of course, a big if.
All bets are off
On Thursday morning, two suicide bombers affiliated with ISIS-K detonated explosions near Kabul airport, killing at least 13 US service members and injuring 14 (in addition to dozens of Afghan casualties).
Causing the first US combat fatalities anywhere since March 11, 2020, today’s attacks happened mere hours after the State Department advised US citizens to stay away from the airport, and days after the Pentagon warned of imminent security threats to the area.
While evacuations had been proceeding at an impressive pace (including 13,400 civilians on August 25 alone and 104,000 since August 14) and most US nationals are already out of Afghanistan, over 1,000 Americans remain in the country.
It’s hard to imagine the remaining evacuations will go without incident, but either way, the point is moot. Americans have already died under Biden’s watch, during a withdrawal that he oversaw whose disastrous execution he is widely blamed for.
Biden is now all but certain to pay a political price. Today’s events will erode public confidence in the president’s competence both at home and abroad. The tragic images of carnage will be used by Republicans to portray Biden as Jimmy Carter reincarnated. His approval numbers will slide further and stay lower for longer.
What to watch for
Completing the withdrawal is now more urgent than ever, but Biden faces a catch-22. Leaving Americans behind is not an option; extending the US presence to ensure their safety is incredibly risky.
On one hand, the longer the evacuation takes and American troops are on the ground, the more exposed Americans will be to further terrorist attacks. But Biden vowed on Thursday afternoon to find and rescue "any American who wishes to get out of Afghanistan."
"The mission is still to get as many Americans out as possible within the allotted timeline," he assured.
On the other hand, hundreds of Americans in need of evacuation remain outside of Kabul, and it’s possible their extraction would require an expansion of the US area of operations, which cannot be done without risking more troops. President Biden said he would grant a request to send in additional troops if the military needs them, but no requests have been made at this time.
Another challenge is that as the US transitions from withdrawing civilians to withdrawing troops, its ability to control events at the Kabul airport will diminish. Since the Taliban have shown themselves incapable of securing the airport perimeter, American forces may have to defend their own evacuation from hostile fire.
President Biden has made his resolve clear:
We can and we must complete this mission. We will not be deterred by terrorists. We will continue the evacuation. We will rescue all Americans [...] America will not be intimidated.
As he remarked on Thursday, the buck stops with him: "I bear responsibility for, fundamentally, all that's happened of late."
Taking responsibility is important. But the blame is growing.
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Why ‘America first’ means “America involved”
What's the biggest foreign policy misconception that Americans have about the US's role in the world? According to international relations expert Tom Nichols, too few Americans believe that the US, in fact, has a critical role in the world, and that the things Americans enjoy, from cheap goods to safe streets, are made possible because of American global leadership. "Americans have become so spoiled and inured to the idea that the world is a dangerous place that they don't understand that the seas are navigable because someone makes them that way. They don't understand that peace between the great powers is not simply like the weather, that just happens," Nichols tells Ian Bremmer. Their conversation is featured on an episode of GZERO World, airing on US public television – check local listings.
Watch the episode: Make politics "boring" again: Joe Biden's first 100 Days
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