The critical question is whether Russia will provide reentry warhead technology to North Korea, which is a major unknown risk factor for 2025.

The Trump Administration's lalist approach will cement U.S. abdication of global leadership, and even if a multilateralist Democrat succeeds Trump, the U.S. will have permanently lost credibility due to being perceived as a country that flip-flops every four years.

We are witnessing a rare and possibly unique case in diplomatic history where a country that established the international order is now taking it down and abdicating its leadership throne, creating dangerous dynamics prone to vacuums and misperceptions.

The U.S.-China relationship is set to undergo a breakdown driven by four main factors: Trump's tariffs (50-60% range), tougher U.S. tech export controls and licensing, attempts to delegitimize the Chinese Communist Party, and Taiwan irritants.

Lebanon will remain a failing state even after a ceasefire because the government is still very weak.

Russia is now the world's leading revisionist, angry major power, and there are going to be many fuses for Russia to light over coming years as regional power vacuums emerge.

Ungoverned spaces and power vacuums are emerging across the Middle East (Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Libya) as Israeli tactics become rougher and other states fail to govern effectively.

Syria could become a power vacuum and a very dangerous one for extremism, creating space for ISIS to regenerate itself.

Approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians will be living permanently in annexed or Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine and will fall off the radar of the West, representing a forgotten population.

Global markets are riding very high right now, mostly on the back of the U.S., but the world's two largest economies are exporting disruption to the rest of the world: China is exporting overcapacity, and the U.S. under Trump will likely export higher-than-expected interest rates and a strong dollar.

Countries will face a tough choice between allowing Chinese imports to crush valuable domestic sectors (like EVs) and raising protectionist barriers, which have their own serious costs.

Iran has an 85-year-old supreme leader with serious health problems who has not figured out his succession, adding to Iran's institutional vulnerability.

The Ukraine war will get worse in the earlier part of 2025, though Zelensky will want a ceasefire because he is losing the war, while Putin will be a tougher sell because he is winning, but he faces his own manpower and economic problems that may force a pause.

The unmanaged U.S.-China decoupling will petrify mutual suspicion between the two powers, preventing the kind of dialogue needed to manage risks.

The structural weakening of post-WWII institutions (UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO) makes middle powers who relied on these institutions vulnerable to pressure from larger powers.

Trump is so committed to America First that it highlights and amplifies the dangers of a G-Zero world where everyone pursues their own interests without coordination.

Higher interest rates and a stronger dollar will tighten financial conditions, especially for emerging markets, making 2025 a tough macroeconomic environment globally.

Thinly governed space includes outer space, where the U.S. and China disagree on governance, and on the moon specifically there will be many satellites launched in 2025, creating a high chance of satellite collision or incident with radiation effects reaching Earth.

An increasingly dangerous Russia-Iran-North Korea partnership is forming, born from Russian needs during the war but now becoming more structured, with North Korea sending 11,000 troops to die in the conflict.

Ungoverned spaces and failing states exist across multiple regions: in the Middle East (Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Libya), in Africa (Sudan), in Southeast Asia (Myanmar), in Latin America (Haiti), and now in outer space (satellite collision risk).