Diane Francis on what 2025 holds

by Diane Francis, Editor-at-Large at the National Post, columnist at the Kyiv Post, Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Eurasia Center and author, publisher on Substack

Source: Francis on Substack

The world continued to be ground down by violence at home and wars in Ukraine, Israel, and Sudan, and yet stock markets soared. Will 2025 be worse, better, or similar? Forecasting is always foolish, but signs, trends, personalities, and events point to specific probable outcomes. Technology will continue to revolutionize human existence, for better or worse. Stock markets and crypto will rise in value. Wars will continue, but the shooting in Ukraine may stop. 

However, this year, the principal geopolitical roles will be played by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, who hold opposing world views and strategies. Trump will mainly conduct geo-economic “warfare” to improve American living standards by imposing tariffs, upending trade, and backing Silicon Valley’s powerful tech oligarchy to dominate science, space, AI, and quantum computing. His “America First” approach aims to generate wealth that will underpin America’s military might and global influence. 

Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, will continue to destroy wealth to make Russia Great Again. He strides a kleptocracy and wants to recreate the Soviet Union by causing conflicts across Europe, Asia, South America, the Middle East, and Africa. Putin is the richest person on Earth. Trump is a wealthy man who heads the most prosperous and strongest nation in the history of the world. The two face off in 2025 with vastly different worldviews and ambitions, and the world awaits its fate.

The world has experienced the highest number of conflicts since World War II, thanks mainly to Putin. He launched the Ukrainian, Israeli, and Sudanese wars and stoked disruption globally. In the past three years, the number of conflict zones worldwide has increased by two-thirds. “The proportion of the world engulfed by conflict is equivalent to nearly double the size of India,” reported The Guardian. “Ukraine, Myanmar, the Middle East, and a “conflict corridor” around Africa’s Sahel region have seen wars and unrest spread and intensify since 2021.”

By December, ten countries were categorized as “extreme conflicts”: Palestine, Myanmar, Syria, Mexico, Nigeria, Brazil, Lebanon, Sudan, Cameroon, and Colombia. Other geopolitical flashpoints exist that may result in violent confrontations sometime in 2025. These include the Indo-Pacific, where bilateral disputes concerning territory and shipping routes may lead to direct confrontation. 

Tensions are rising in China-Taiwan, North Korea-South Korea, and China-Philippines. Russia’s new war alliance with North Korea this year has rattled the region. China’s intermittent saber rattling about Taiwan is a distraction but raises concern even more. Wealthy Japan and South Korea now openly debate about adding nukes to their militaries, especially if American troops in their nations are withdrawn as Trump has pledged. But China expert and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd recently said the China threat to Taiwan is nonsense. The island nation is safe because of the QUAD, a military alliance designed to contain China, comprised of the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia. “There will be no invasion of Taiwan. The QUAD is too powerful. China knows that.”

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