This year saw no shortage of tectonic geopolitical developments: the entry of long-neutral Sweden into NATO, Ukrainian forces’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Israeli strikes in Iran and Lebanon, the election of Donald Trump, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, and the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol soon after he declared martial law.
The year also saw the continuation of longer-term trends that were no less consequential, from ever-improving AI to the increasing division of the world into blocs to the growing threat of climate change (with 2024 ranking as the hottest year on record).
As the saying goes, predictions are hard, especially about the future. But to gain some insight into the year ahead, I sat down this week with a group of CFR’s fellows to ask them what they would be looking out for in 2025.
The Middle East seems poised to dominate headlines. Will post-Assad Syria unify disparate opposition groups? Or will it remain a failed state, only this time, run by Islamists? Syria’s fate will not only define the future for the country’s twenty-three million people but also have a significant impact on its immediate neighbors: Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel.
As for Iran, will 2025 be the year the country races to develop an actual nuclear capability? On one hand, in times of crisis such as the present, Tehran tends to avoid provocations, and so it might seek negotiations with the United States, particularly before European sanctions snap back. On the other hand, given that Iran has witnessed the degradation of it major proxies (Hamas and Hezbollah), the loss of its chief client state (Syria), the fecklessness of its missile capability (against the defenses of Israel, the United States, and other partners), and the destruction of its air defenses (by Israel’s recent strikes), the regime might well be more incentivized than ever to develop the ultimate deterrent.
And then there is the Israel factor: Israeli leaders are filled with confidence after defying outside entreaties to end the war in Gaza and de-escalate their country’s conflicts with Iran and Hezbollah. Euphoric and emboldened, they may decide that this is the year to strike Iran’s nuclear program and set it back years.
What does 2025 hold for another war zone, Ukraine? Trump has promised to end the conflict there, but the fact remains that the Ukrainian and Russian visions of a settlement differ wildly, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown little interest in serious negotiations.
Rather than end, the conflict may well escalate in 2025. This week, a Ukrainian operative assassinated a high-ranking Russian general in Moscow, and earlier, Putin threatened to target “decision-making centers” in Kyiv with a new ballistic missile. But over the course of next year, Putin will likely face mounting domestic problems. Russia’s central bank has forecast economic growth of 0.5 to 1.5 percent in 2025, down from 3.5 to 4 percent in 2024, suggesting that the wartime boom may have run its course.
A related question is how far China is prepared to go in supporting its “no limits” partner, Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping has evinced little outward disapproval of Putin’s war in Ukraine—to the contrary, China is supplying vital military technology and support to Russia—but 2025 may be the year we start to see slivers of daylight between the two revisionist powers, as each tries to cut deals with Trump and the constraints on their alignment become more evident.
China remains preoccupied with Taiwan. Last week, China held its largest maritime military exercises in decades. Involving nearly ninety vessels, the drills seemed designed to send the message that Beijing had the power to blockade the island and prevent U.S. allies from coming to its rescue.
The return of Trump cuts both ways for Taiwan. On one hand, the president-elect has promised to sharpen U.S. competition with Beijing. On the other, he seems to harbor no affinity for the democratic island and has criticized its success in becoming a semiconductor powerhouse, in his view, at the United States’ expense. President Joe Biden mused about coming to the defense of Taiwan in the context of a Chinese invasion; Trump has suggested he might slap tariffs on China instead.
The biggest humanitarian crisis in the world at the moment is the civil war in Sudan, which has been raging since the spring of 2023. The crisis is only expected to get worse in 2025, as outside powers—including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia—continue to meddle in the conflict.
Elsewhere on the continent, it will be worth watching the simmering conflict between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, the chronic Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria, South Africa’s G-20 presidency, and potentially volatile elections expected in 2025 in Côte d’Ivoire, Tanzania, and Cameroon.
Latin American nations, already struggling to absorb twenty million forcibly displaced migrants, are bracing for a renewed exodus from Venezuela as Nicolas Maduro holds onto the presidency in defiance of the 2024 election results.
Against this geopolitical backdrop are some worrisome economic trends: potential tension between Trump and the Federal Reserve, the impact of tariffs—and retaliation—on China as well as on U.S. allies and partners, the unsustainable trajectory of U.S. deficits and debt. And all these trends are mounting at a time when the markets are “priced for perfection,” meaning they assume the best about the year ahead.
Some of these concerns were shared by a group of twenty-five business leaders I met with earlier in the month as part of CFR’s CEO Leadership Circle. They expressed anxiety about tariffs, about a potential clash with the Fed, and about heightened geopolitical competition with China. They also expressed unease about changes in U.S. immigration policy that could shrink the labor pool.
But overall, the CEOs were notably bullish on the U.S. economy, expecting continued strong growth, low unemployment, falling interest rates, and lower energy costs—not to mention less regulation and antitrust enforcement under the Trump administration.
Another source of optimism among business leaders: the United States’ advantage in cutting-edge technologies, especially AI. They hoped the incoming administration would strike the right balance between making sure that AI is used responsibly and encouraging innovation.
Of course, if the past is prologue, the year ahead will be filled with surprises—some good, some bad—that no one will have predicted. In 2025, the old cliché will certainly hold true: expect the unexpected.
