US presidential election List: How the world changed in 2024
Wolfgang Hansson
This is a commentary text. Analysis and positions are the writer's.
Published 06.25
Quick version
The re-election of Donald Trump is expected to dominate world politics in 2025, despite his conviction for two crimes in 2024.
The nuclear threat has increased in 2024 with Russia's threat in Ukraine
and China's and Iran's military development, while Norway awards the
Nobel Peace Prize to a group of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
War crimes and civilian casualties in Gaza have increased, and Israel is
accused of genocide while Netanyahu is facing war crimes in the
International Criminal Court.
Donald Trump. Photo: Alex Brandon / AP
Even by the standards of recent years, 2024 was a rare eventful but also dark year.
New wars started. Old ones intensified.
There were also glimmers of light, such as the fall of the dictatorial Assad family after more than 50 years of tyranny.
But none of what happened is likely to affect the world in 2025 as much as the re-election of Donald Trump.
Picking out the most important foreign policy events of the year is difficult. But here is my personal top list.
1. The US presidential election
The election campaign developed into a rare roller coaster when Joe Biden suddenly and unexpectedly threw in the towel at the end of July. The Democrats managed to avoid an internal battle and quickly nominated Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement.
She didn't run a bad campaign, but she had far too little time to make an impression on voters. Another conclusion is that it is extremely difficult for a woman to be elected president in the United States. Harris is the second to fail. Being both a woman and black is obviously even harder.
Donald Trump won a clear victory despite being convicted of two felonies during the year and facing prosecution for three more.
It is only the second time in US history that a president has been re-elected who previously lost an election.
Even though Trump has not even taken office, the world and its leaders have already begun to relate to him. Just like last time, he will dominate much of the news flow in 2025.
Russian cruise missile in Kubinka. Photo: Pavel Golovkin / AP
2. The nuclear threat
Russian President Putin has repeatedly indirectly threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine over the past year. Even though the West has largely stopped taking his threats seriously, they always create a certain amount of uncertainty. Especially when in November, in response to the US giving Ukraine the go-ahead to use US weapons to fire at military targets deep inside Russia, Putin fired a new type of missile at Ukraine that he claims no one can shoot down. The missile can be fitted with nuclear warheads but this time it had no nuclear weapons.
Putin's reckless attitude towards nuclear weapons has made it seem for the first time in decades that these terrible weapons could be used.
The US is in the process of modernising its arsenal. China is on the verge of greatly increasing the number of nuclear weapons. Iran has greatly increased its enrichment of uranium to 60 percent and is considered by experts to be very close to the possibility of developing nuclear weapons if it wanted to.
To turn the tide and remind us of the consequences of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final stages of World War II, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year's Peace Prize to the survivors' group Nihon Hidankyo.
Funeral in Gaza at the end of December. Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana / AP
3. The war in Gaza
In the eyes of many, Israel's warfare has crossed the line into what can be described as genocide. Without a doubt, Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza through its way of waging the war. It doesn't help that Hamas's terrorist act on October 7 last year is also a clear war crime.
Israel blames the many civilian deaths on Hamas using civilians as human shields. Most evidence suggests that this is exactly what Hamas is doing. However, it is still up to Israel, as a belligerent party, to do its utmost to protect the civilian population. It claims to be doing so, but the reality on the ground suggests something completely different.
There are also signs that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza and may have plans to re-establish settlements in the area.
So far, 45,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to statistics from the Hamas-controlled health authority in Gaza. The majority are said to be civilians.
Floods in Valencia, Spain. Photo: Krister Hansson
4. The climate threat
2024 is the warmest year on record. According to the EU's climate service Copernicus, it is also the first year that the world has passed 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming compared to pre-industrial times.
The climate agreement that the world's countries reached in Paris in 2015 aims to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100.
During the year, we received further evidence of the increase in extreme weather that scientists have warned about. We had the heavy rains in Valencia that resulted in floods that took the lives of over 200 people.
We had Hurricane Helene in the United States that resulted in extensive damage in states that are not normally hit very hard by hurricanes.
But instead of resulting in rapid action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the world now seems to be shrugging its shoulders.
The major climate summit in Azerbaijan was about to end in total fiasco when the world's rich countries did not want to increase their contributions to climate action in the poor world even close to what impartial observers believe is needed.
Warning sign for mines in Kamyanka, Ukraine. Photo: Niclas Hammarström
5. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine
It is becoming increasingly clear that Vladimir Putin has time on his side. The war has now been going on for almost three years, but despite the fact that Russia's economy is taking a beating, there is no indication that Russia cannot afford to continue despite extensive sanctions from the West.
The Russians are slowly taking more and more territory. The Ukrainians are war-weary and for the first time they no longer seem to believe that they can throw Russia out of the areas they occupy.
Ukraine surprised in late summer by entering Russia and occupying land in the Kursk province. A tactical maneuver that was intended to force Russia to move troops from the front in eastern Ukraine. Instead, Russia deployed soldiers from North Korea to the area.
Now, for the Ukrainian side, Kursk is mainly about having a bargaining chip in case President Trump forces some form of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in 2025.
Support for Ukraine's cause remains strong in the Nordic countries, but in Germany, for example, a third of the population questions the wisdom of continuing to send German weapons to Ukraine. An important election issue when Germany holds elections in February.
Xi Jinping. Photo: Justin Chan / AP
6. China's economic crisis
Hardly anything has dominated the news flow during the year. Probably because dictator Xi Jinping would rather hide the fact that China's old growth model no longer works.
It started with a real estate crisis where many Chinese lost their savings when housing prices collapsed.
This was followed by China stopping publishing statistics on youth unemployment.
But in the long run, China has not been able to hide the fact that many young people who have fought hard to obtain a university education cannot find jobs. An entire generation is losing faith in society.
The world is no longer as dependent on the double-digit economic growth that China used to deliver, but the fact that it is now below five percent will negatively affect the world economy.
But above all, it means that the risk of political instability in China is increasing. Under Xi's rule, repression in China has intensified, but perhaps there is a limit even in China to how far people are prepared to be pressured before they rebel.
Children being treated for malnutrition in Sudan. Photo: Patricia Simon / AP
7. Disaster in total media shadow
The civil war in Sudan is in many ways worse than what is happening in Gaza. For the second year in a row, Sudan tops the UN list of the highest number of internal refugees in the world, almost 15 million. Add to that a number of millions who have fled to neighboring countries such as Chad and Egypt.
The war is a result of the country's army chief and the head of a militia force refusing to hand over power to democratic representatives. Instead, they began to fight each other for power. As usual, the outside world intervenes to promote its interests. The government side is supported by Egypt, among others. While the Rapid Support Forces, RSF militia is supported by the United Arab Emirates, among others. Russia has switched sides from RSF to the government in order to build a naval base in Port Sudan.
The result has been pure hell for the civilian population. Women are raped and kept as sex slaves. Men are executed or forced into military service.
Neither side is allowing enough aid in. Millions of people are threatened with starvation.
But everything is happening beyond the world's eyes. There are no international media outlets on site and, unlike in Gaza, few local journalists manage to get their reports out.
The consequences usually reach us in the end anyway, in the form of increased refugee flows, among other things.
Netanyahu has been indicted for war crimes. Photo: Debbie Hill / AP
8. Netanyahu indicted for war crimes
Never before has a leader of a democratic country been indicted for war crimes at the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has the dubious honor of being the first.
One of the charges is that Israel has prevented enough food, medicine and other necessities from reaching the civilian population in Gaza. Israel is accused of using starvation as a weapon. Even US President Joe Biden has repeatedly complained that Netanyahu has not done enough to get aid in.
Neither the US nor Israel has recognized the court, but the indictment still creates major problems for Netanyahu. He cannot travel to any country that has recognized the court. This includes, among others, all 27 EU countries and the UK. If Netanyahu sets foot in any of these, they are obliged to arrest him according to the court's statutes. This also applies to Sweden.
This puts Netanyahu in the same league as Russia's Putin. It is highly doubtful that either of them will end up in one of the court's cells in The Hague, but the indictment itself severely restricts their freedom of movement.
Memorial site for Aleksei Navalny outside the Russian embassy in Stockholm in February. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT
9. The super election year
Rarely have so many people been able to go to the polls in the same year, over half of the world's population. Elections have been held in 76 countries, of which just over half are considered democracies. Elections have been held in everything from Russia to India, from the USA to Iran.
On one level, it has been a show of democracy. But in too many countries, democracy exists only on paper.
In Russia, Putin had opposition leader Alexei Navalny imprisoned, who later died in prison in Siberia.
Venezuela held a presidential election that most agree that incumbent President Maduro lost. But he cheated his way in and forced the real winner to seek asylum in Spain.
A clear trend during the super election year was that incumbents lost. The aftereffects of the pandemic and the high inflation created dissatisfaction among many citizens. It does not matter whether it was the left or the right that was in power. Those who ruled for a long time lost. Except in those countries where elections are just a way to try to give legitimacy to autocrats and tyrants.
The residents of Damascus celebrated when Assad fled the country. Photo: Niclas Hammarström
10. Freedom for Syria with question marks
One of the few positive and hopeful events of the year on the foreign front is the fall of the Syrian dictatorship. After 54 years of extremely brutal regime, the Assad family has been overthrown.
Syrians have gone out of their houses to celebrate.
At the same time, the outside world has noted with some concern that the new rulers are an Islamist rebel group with roots in the terrorist group al-Qaeda. Their leader Ahmad al-Sharaa has said all the right things and assured that the new regime will be inclusive and that all minorities will continue to be able to live in freedom.
But it is too early to say whether this is a real conversion or something he is doing to win the world's approval before turning Syria into a new Taliban country.
Regardless, there is reason to rejoice in the fall of the dictatorship, which came as quickly and surprisingly as the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But that is often the case with harsh dictatorships. The cracks are not visible until everything collapses like a house of cards.
Assad's fall is a difficult to predict consequence of the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, which triggered Israel's war against Hamas and later against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran had the power to help Assad.
It feels refreshing that this kind of thing can still happen. Iran next perhaps in 2025?
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar