Standing on the steps of the Élysée Palace on December 7th, Donald Trump made a for-once accurate observation: “It certainly seems like the world is going a little crazy right now,” the US president-elect said. Anyone who followed the news in 2024 would agree.
Trump’s election to a second term was part and parcel of the global turmoil. “The election of Donald Trump and the uncertainty he maintains regarding his diplomatic intentions, like his very personal practice of strategic ambiguity, act as a catalyst on the most serious crises of the moment,” Sylvie Kauffmann wrote in Le Monde.
Russian and Ukrainian forces are struggling to seize territory before Trump takes office. Russia conducts a “human safari”, picking off civilians in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson with FPV drones, and continues its advance in Donbas. North Korean troops joined combat in the Kursk province of Russia, which Ukraine had invaded. Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to use US-made Atacms missiles against targets inside Russia. Vladimir Putin retaliated by launching an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile with multiple re-entry warheads against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. The Oreshnik (“Hazelnut”) missile is designed to carry nuclear warheads; Putin’s message was clear. Ukrainian intelligence then assassinated the Russian general responsible for nuclear, biological and chemical warfare in a Moscow street.
[ Russia detains suspect over killing of general in Moscow bomb blastOpens in new window ]
The world seemed to have lost all sense of morality and justice. By December, Israel had killed more than 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, in response to the October 7th, 2023, Hamas attacks which claimed 1,200 Israeli lives. The US made itself complicit in the slaughter by continuing arms deliveries to Israel.
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Liberal democrats were ill-equipped to deal with Islamic extremism and mass immigration, phenomena which pushed western electorates to the political right
“In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I have never seen the world in a more dangerous state,” Richard Moore, the head of MI6, said on November 29th. That was nine days before conflagrations in Ukraine, Palestine and Lebanon resulted in the unforeseen overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, because Assad’s Russian allies were otherwise engaged and the Lebanese Hizbullah, who had served as Assad’s Praetorian Guard, were decimated by Israel. Iran lost its land corridor to Syria and Lebanon, a serious blow to the mullahs. Israel and Turkey, which backed the victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, looked like the new masters of the Middle East.
Back in the 1990s, the world’s future looked promising. Liberal democracy appeared to have triumphed. It was, the US academic Francis Fukuyama wrote, “the end of history”.
Globalisation benefited world elites but further impoverished the disadvantaged. Some felt alienated by progressive social policies such as marriage equality and LGBTQ rights. Liberal democrats were ill-equipped to deal with Islamic extremism and mass immigration, phenomena which pushed western electorates to the political right. A combination of economic and cultural backlash and reliance on social media fuelled the rise of nationalist populist authoritarian leaders.
Trump seems to regard the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as pesky distractions to be quickly dispensed with so he can concentrate on China and immigration. On December 16th, he reiterated that Volodymyr Zelenskiy “should be prepared to make a deal, that’s all”. Trump is unlikely to grant Ukraine the security guarantees it needs. He opposes a two-state solution for Palestine and has promised “hell” in Gaza if 100 remaining Israeli hostages are not freed by the time he takes office. He may allow the Israeli far right to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza, killing all hope of Palestinian statehood.
[ Trump says Ukraine ‘needs to reach deal’ with RussiaOpens in new window ]
Trump is part of a seemingly unstoppable wave of far-right populist nationalists, autocrats and dictators which has stretched from Asia to Latin America.
Within the EU and Nato, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, seconded by his Slovakian colleague Robert Fico, impedes attempts to help Ukraine and confront Russia. In France, Marine Le Pen may succeed the embattled President Emmanuel Macron. The far-right politicians have often shown sympathy for Putin and were heartened by Trump’s victory.
After 24 years in power, Putin is the granddaddy of the autocrats, and the leading agent of chaos. “Russia plays a special role in the autocratic network, both as the inventor of the modern marriage of kleptocracy and dictatorship and as the country now most aggressively seeking to upend the status quo,” Anne Applebaum writes in Autocracy, Inc.
Trump boasted that ‘in the first term, everyone was fighting me. In this term, everyone wants to be my friend’
Putin recently meddled in elections in Georgia, Moldova and Romania, in line with his determination to re-establish the Soviet sphere of influence. “This is not about Ukraine at all, but the world order,” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia is also stepping up “hybrid” attacks on its western adversaries, for example cutting undersea cables and shipping incendiary devices to the UK and Germany via DHL.
The new instability has unhappy echoes of the 1930s and 1940s. Putin is rehabilitating Stalin, and German parliamentarians have sought to ban the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland because they see in it a resemblance to the Nazis. During his presidential campaign, Trump denied allegations by several past close associates that he praised Hitler and Hitler’s generals.
[ Why did Israel single out Ireland and accuse Simon Harris of anti-Semitism?Opens in new window ]
Trump is not the first to proclaim “America First”. The America First Committee was an anti-Semitic, isolationist movement which in 1940/1941 opposed military aid to the UK and said Nazi Germany was not a threat to the US. Its most prominent orator was the aviator Charles Lindburgh.
In 2017, millions joined marches around the world to protest at Trump’s inauguration. Women wore pink “pussyhats” – an allusion to Trump’s assertion in the Access Hollywood tape that “You have to grab them by the pussy.”
At a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on December 16th, Trump boasted that “in the first term, everyone was fighting me. In this term, everyone wants to be my friend.” Foreign leaders, tech barons and media moguls are trooping to pay obeisance to the president-elect. In our post-truth era, no one any longer seems shocked by “alternative facts”, the evisceration of US institutions and international treaties, the betrayal of Ukraine and the Palestinians. The will to fight seems to have gone out of the body politic.
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