The World Next Year: Wars, New Governments, and Stormy Weather to Watch in 2025

MCMAHON:
Welcome to the World Next Week's special year-end episode, the World Next Year. I'm Bob McMahon.

ROBBINS:
And I'm Carla Ann Robbins. Joining us for this special episode is Steven Erlanger, the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe for The New York Times. Steve has reported from more than 120 countries and has been bureau chief, I have to take a breath before I go through this list, London, Bangkok, Moscow, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Brussels, Prague, and Belgrade, as well as serving as The Times's chief diplomatic correspondent in Washington. He's also a really dear friend, a long-time colleague, and we've logged quite a few miles together over the years. Steve, thanks so much for doing this and welcome to The World Next Week.

ERLANGER:
Thanks Carla and Bob, it's a pleasure.

MCMAHON:
Well, Carla and Steve, 2024, which is quickly waning as we know, is the year of elections, something like eighty or so elections took place this year, and that includes the U.S. presidential election, of course. And so, in this special episode, we are going to discuss what has happened in this momentous year, as well as chew over the big issues for 2025.

ROBBINS:
Steve, let's start with what you think are going to be the big stories in the coming year. I know you're just back from the Middle East, you emailed me from the Abu Dhabi airport, that's probably the coolest place someone emailed me from this year. Although, I've been in the Abu Dhabi airport, it's probably actually not that cool.

ERLANGER:
No, it's not.

ROBBINS:
That's good. So, why don't we start there. I don't mean in Abu Dhabi, let's start in the Middle East. In the last few months, the Israelis have seen some of their strongest rivals and enemies, Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad, Iran, if not vanquished, certainly weakened. Is this the beginning of a new order in the region or is it only a temporary lull? And is there any sign that Netanyahu will take the wins or start negotiating peace deals?

ERLANGER:
Well, I think I've written this before, but October 7th, when Hamas went and invaded Israel was like the fall of the wall in 1989, it was completely unexpected, and the ripples have continued in far beyond Gaza. There's been an awful lot of death, there's been an awful lot of tragedy, but there is a new order in the Middle East, and we'll see how long it lasts, and whether Israel, as your question suggests, goes too far, which is always a temptation. The Saudis, the Gulfis are happy, Russia's weakened, Turkey's strengthened, which annoys the Sunnis to no end because Erdoğan has actually light political Islam, close to Hamas, enter the Muslim Brotherhood. And Syria, as we've just seen, is very much in play. Will Syria continue to fragment? Can it hold together? Will it be dominated by one group? Will the Turks run it from behind? It's very much in play.
Hezbollah, as you've suggested, has been suffocated by Syria's fall because it's much harder for Iran to get stuff to Hezbollah in Lebanon if Syria is contained. So, it raises the interesting question of whether Hezbollah, which has been very badly hit, might become, again, more involved with politics and charitable work, and less worried about attacking Israel. Hamas, as we know, is devastated, but what next in Gaza? There's a big discussion to be had there, if you like. Israel is basically, the war is pretty much over there, but Israel has failed to produce the political conclusion that would let them leave. And I'm not sure they want to leave.
Iran is looking quite naked, looking for a nuclear deal with Trump perhaps to forestall any chance of an Israeli attack. And also, it has to worry about internal unrest. Trump wouldn't join an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program, but he might sanction it. And also, he might not bother too much if Israel moves to annex more parts of the West Bank, like the Jordan Valley. So, there's a lot to play for, and a lot of uncertainty, but there's no question that Israel is to some degree setting the agenda now, and Iran is very much weakened.

ROBBINS:
When you say, let's see if Israel goes too far, it seems like they've been going too far for months and months and months and months. Gaza is complete rubble, Lebanon has considerable amount of rubble, at the same time, they have to feel like they're winning. Although that's sort of a short-term win, isn't it? They've created a lot of generational, potentially enemies themselves. What's the feeling inside of Israel? Do they feel like we've won, so let's take more, or do they feel like now's the time to try to negotiate a peace?

ERLANGER:
Well, the strangest thing, of course, is Bibi Netanyahu is still very, very unpopular, and people are very divided over his domestic reforms, judicial reforms, but they've been very united in the war against Hamas, and definitely the war against Hezbollah. They had been preparing a war against Hezbollah for a long time, much more than Gaza. That was the surprise. And in a way, Hamas broke the reticence, if you like. It justified a war from Israel that they could call defensive against Hezbollah. And I must say, the way the Israeli army beat Hezbollah, or attacked Hezbollah was in some sense, brilliant. Gaza remains a mess because Gaza's an orphan, nobody wants Gaza except Hamas, and maybe the crazy far-right Israelis to talk about settling it.
But I fear Gaza, in its state of ruin, will be occupied essentially by Israel for quite a long time to come, it's never going to give up security control to another grouping, particularly along its border, and they're talking about some form of Palestinian fig leaf to govern Gaza while even hiring security firms from outside to do policing. In the meantime, the Israelis are moving people out of northern Gaza, they're pushing them out, and then want to screen them before they're allowed back in. So, there's a lot unclear about what's going to happen, and the devastation is obvious, and I think Israel will feel safer for quite a long time to come, but not sustainable, and it is much more isolated in the world. Its reputation has been deeply damaged by the brutality of a lot of the war.
Now, one can argue that they were fighting a group in tunnels, and amid civilians, but the fact is they were using very, very heavy weaponry, and I'm sure we will find there have been numerous indications of overuse of force, and even war crimes. So, it is unclear what Israel has failed to do from the very beginning, partly because Netanyahu doesn't seem to want to end the war because he'll have to deal with the political consequences of the war ending. He has produced a sustainable political conclusion to a war that's effectively finished in Gaza.

ROBBINS:
So, does that mean he's going to prolong it by occupying Syria as well? Does that buy him more time politically?

ERLANGER:
I don't think that's it so much, I think, again, that's defensive. I was just in the United Arab Emirates, they're very worried about Syria too, the new leader of Syria is al-Golani, he's named himself after-

ROBBINS:
After Golan.

ERLANGER:
After the Golan Heights, right? So, Israel is a bit nervous, he's saying all the right things about inclusiveness, and one hopes that's true, but half of Syria was displaced or in exile, the country we call Syria doesn't exist anymore. So, I think Israel's very worried that there will be a fragmented Syria. Assad was horrible, but he kept the border calm, and now there's a lot of anxiety. So, I hope it's just a temporary protection to seize the buffer zone, but I think Netanyahu is feeling his oats, and I no longer fully feel I understand him, to be honest.

MCMAHON:
Steve, I had one more question on the Middle East before we go on to talking about Ukraine, which, there's a lot to discuss there too. But as you traveled through the region, I'm just wondering whether you could say a little bit more about how surprising the development was in Syria, and whether there's other places we should maybe be looking for where you might see something like that emerge. This was a, as you say, it was this festering conflict, huge amount of displaced, and it turned out to have a hollowed out regime sitting on top of it. Should we be looking at Yemen or even parts of Iraq for something surprising to happen, or is that a little bit too speculative?

ERLANGER:
No, I think that's a very good question. Syria happened, why? Because Iran's weaker, Russia's weaker. Russia's preoccupied in Ukraine, Iran is very, very badly damaged. And so, the Turks, because the Turks drove this in Syria, the Turks said go, and everything collapsed, as in Afghanistan. It was rotten. The Turks are now going to be very powerful inside Syria, and again, that's not something that pleases the Saudis or the Gulfies. First of all, because Turks aren't Arabs, and they're not Sunni, and they're very close, as I said, to the Muslim Brotherhood. I'm worried about Iran, frankly, or maybe Iran should be worried about itself, because there is already a lot of political, domestic unrest, a lot of unhappiness, it's one of the reasons the Supreme leader allowed the so-called reformer, Pezeshkian to be elected as president, and he is trying to create a circumstance to lift economic sanctions.
So, they've made an approach to the Trump people, the view in Iran, though it's controversial, is let's give Trump a chance to do a new nuclear deal because Trump has the Senate, and he could do a sustainable deal, and get some economic relief to calm people down at home, and if we're engaged doing that, then Israel's not going to attack us to get rid of our nuclear program. But if it fails and the timing is quite short, they'd have to have a deal in the next six months or so. And it gets complicated, but there are international sanctions that would snap back in October, which would double the pain for Iran. If that doesn't work, then I fear there's a lot of IRGC interest in going ahead to have a nuclear deterrent, which could produce Israeli bombing using very powerful American bombs that Trump might give them and Biden would not have given them. So, I think the potential for more domestic unrest in Iran is the thing I'm looking for, to be honest.

MCMAHON:
Well, we can talk for hours on this, I know Carla would love to as well, it could be the Mideast Next Year Podcast or something.

ROBBINS:
Stop me, yes.

MCMAHON:
But let's move on to the other very big front that you're obviously very familiar with as well, which is Ukraine. So, the Ukraine leader, Zelensky has been reaching out assiduously to Trump, he went to Paris for a last minute meeting, he's been posting a series of tweets that are certainly flattering, and trying to be confidence building, it looks like, from the tone. The Ukrainians also this week just took responsibility for assassinating a top Russian general in Moscow, in the middle of Moscow, another bold act. The Russians themselves have been launching bolder and bolder attacks, even though Trump has urged both sides to ramp it down. So, are we seeing some strategy in these acts from the Ukrainian side, or the Russian side for that matter?

ERLANGER:
I think there's a lot of anxiety in Europe too, not just Ukraine, about what Trump wants to do. Because I don't think Trump knows what he wants to do. Trump wants to end Biden's wars, both in the Middle East and in Ukraine. I don't think Trump cares that much about-

ROBBINS:
What he says are Biden's wars.

ERLANGER:
Yeah, yeah, of course. No, no, no, precisely right. Not that Biden invaded Ukraine or anything. But the problem is I don't think Trump cares whose interests are sacrificed if he's going to get a ceasefire. And Ukraine is losing the war now, it's losing the war slowly. Everyone's trying to ensure it doesn't lose it suddenly. And Rutte, Mark Rutte, who's the new NATO Secretary general, and the Europeans have been meeting, or are meeting, to try to do two things. One is to figure out how to prop up Ukraine with more supplies and air defense to get into the spring when most people think negotiations might be possible, get through this horrible winter, and secondly, to show Donald Trump that they're prepared to do more for Ukraine, and prepared to do some burden shifting away from the United States. Now, Ukraine has plenty of money now, through next year, because of the use by the G7 of these frozen Russian assets, they amortized them.
So, Ukraine has money, but it has a morale problem, it's losing territory, it has a mobilization problem, the Russians are destroying its infrastructure, destroying the heating system, the energy system, and there's a legitimate question about, whether if the war keeps going but doesn't change very much on the ground, whether there shouldn't be negotiations sooner rather than later to preserve more of what's left of Ukraine. The problem is the Ukrainians want to keep fighting, they will keep fighting, and how do you convince Putin to negotiate seriously? That's the conundrum everybody has because Putin thinks he's winning the war. And if you think you're winning the war, you're not going to compromise, and having lived in Russia, and one thing I'll tell you, if someone asks for compromise to a Russian, they hit you harder because they think that's a sign of weakness.
So, right now, I think Trump could get Putin into talks with Zelensky maybe in the spring, but on the basis of what exactly, and I think Putin at the minimum would at least demand a Ukraine never inside NATO, with a smaller military, and he would want to take the territories that he has, and the ones he's formally annexed, which I think is acceptable to the Ukrainians. So, some people suggest in Washington, oh, Putin's under great financial squeeze because there's a lot of inflation, which there is, and interest rates are really high, and business people are unhappy, but frankly, I think for Putin, this has become an existential war. This is the war that will make his legacy one way or another. So, the hope is you get negotiations in the spring. The other big question is really about Europe more than Trump. Do the Europeans really see Russia as a generational threat? And are they willing to react with a serious buildup of military deterrence including the money that needs to be spent? Or do they just kind of hope it'll all go away? That's still not clear yet.

ROBBINS:
If you look at the things that Trump has said, basically what they seem to be betting on is that Putin will come to the table because they're willing to stop the war in place, that Ukrainians won't agree to give up any land, but it'll be a frozen conflict in place, and that there'll be some indefinite commitment that Ukraine won't join NATO, and that the Ukrainians will have to accept that because the Americans won't give them any more weapons.

ERLANGER:
Well, there's that, and of course the Europeans will try. Now, for example, shells, the Ukrainians are doing fine with shells, British intelligence says the Ukrainians have one shell for every 1.5 Russian shells, so they're in better shape on shells than they've been in a long time.

ROBBINS:
Artillery shells.

ERLANGER:
Artillery shells. But what they don't have is the air defenses, because nobody has them, and they don't have the manpower. And then there's the other issue, which is always out there, which is what will Ukraine be willing to sacrifice and who will protect Ukraine if there is a deal? What will prevent Putin or Putin's successors from starting this up again in the next three or four years, or even moving on Moldova, or a place like that? And that's a serious question because then you get into the question of, can you have a Ukraine in NATO or a partial Ukraine in NATO, and how would you do that?
There's talk about putting European troops as peacekeepers in Ukraine, which I think is a mad idea, frankly, but there is this question of how Ukraine has the guarantees or the assurances that Russia won't do this again in three or four years, that this negotiation would only be temporary. And then there's a kind of Ukrainian fantasy, which is that Trump makes Putin an offer that Putin has to refuse, and Trump gets angry with Putin, and so starts feeding Ukraine lots of weapons. But I think that feels like a fantasy.

ROBBINS:
Who knows? That's the thing about Trump is how unpredictable he is. And the other thing about Trump is that they tend to go into negotiations without any planning. He went to these meetings with North Koreans and there wasn't a single principles' committee meeting before that, there were no planning. Because he believes that somehow he can get in the room and there can be a deal. So, unpredictability is intrinsic to the Trump style along with his transactional nature.

ERLANGER:
Yes. And also, one can imagine, as there was with North Korea, a huge amount of media interest, and talks, and this and that, and a big meeting, and then, as with North Korea, nothing much happens. That could be true too.

ROBBINS:
The differences, of course, Ukraine is getting pounded along the way, with North Korea it was photo-op land, so.

ERLANGER:
Precisely.

MCMAHON:
And Steve, you mentioned earlier Europe reckoning with Russia, I was just wondering if you can talk a slight bit more about how Europeans feel, especially the ones maybe closer in proximity to Ukraine, whether you are sensing, maybe it's an anecdotal thing at this point, but a greater feeling of getting their security house in order and really being willing to knuckle down on defense spending and things like that because of a new landscape.

ERLANGER:
No, that's absolutely true, and that's been happening. It would be unfair to say that NATO and Europe haven't been doing much, but they've been responding after 2022, not after 2014 when Crimea was annexed. So, they, and I think the United States too lost a lot of time, basically, because I don't think they saw Ukraine then as a security interest that mattered very much, it was always the borderland. But now I think they see Russia as aggressive, Russia as having large ambitions to overturn the European security order, and to undermine NATO. So, you have the Poles who are spending more than four percent of GDP now on defense, but a lot of it's going to big American military equipment like F35s. You have the Baltic nations spending a lot on defense, but they're tiny, so that doesn't make that much difference, but they do want to fight, and they are pushing.
And you see, even in the European Union, with the new leaders, first, Ursula von der Leyen, who remains the same, but Kaja Kallas, and they even have a defense commissioner now, there is more of an understanding that they need to beef up for their own sake, their deterrence, and then of course, that makes more urgent because anxiety about what Donald Trump's going to do. No one really expects him to pull out of NATO, but at the same time, one could see him trying to get some kind of ceasefire in Ukraine, and then saying to the Europeans, now it's your problem, you do it, you protect Ukraine, right? We're busy with China. So, there is anxiety, people are trying to come up with the right offer to satisfy the Don, because Trump tends to see NATO as a protection racket. Everybody's paying the Americans.
And there may be a point, because for example, in Japan and South Korea, they do help pay for the American military support. So, why shouldn't Europe help pay directly, some people around Trump might ask, which is not a stupid question. So, I think there is an understanding, but the farther you get away, as you implied, from the border, the less interest there is. You couldn't interest the Spanish, the Portuguese very much, even the Germans would still, I think, like it all to be over so they could go back to the way it was. The Germans did this big so-called Zeitenwende with one hundred billion euros, but frankly, for the German military to be decent, it needs two more Zeitenwendes, and right now, the money isn't just, isn't there.
There is a sense in, certainly in Western Europe, there was alarm ringing, and then they hit the snooze button, and there are some people who are arguing they need to think harder, the likely winner of the next German election is from the Christian Democrats and is tougher on Ukraine, but as I said, there's a lot of anxiety and there's not tons of money around. So, Carla, in Europe, people have been watching Trump assemble his national security team with a mixture of befuddlement, bemusement and dismay, and they seem contradictory. Are his picks going to make it through the Senate? What do they say about a second term Trump foreign policy?

ROBBINS:
Well, we're feeling the mixture of befuddlement, bemusement, and dismay depending on the day of the week as well. Most of these choices seem designed as much to own liberals, in some cases actually break the departments they're supposed to run, there doesn't seem, based on those choices, an intention to forge a particularly coherent set of new policies. In the national security sphere, the most... How do I put this delicately? The controversial picks are Pete Hegseth for defense, who's talked about firing woke generals, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, seems to want to bar women from combat. The pick for FBI... You know, I didn't think that Trump could surprise me anymore, this is the one that probably surprised me the most, was Kash Patel. He's vowed to fire the top ranks of the agency, he has a whole declared list of enemies, which includes, the predictable soon to be former President Biden, Hillary Clinton, even the former CIA director, Gina Haspel, I don't know what she did to annoy him so much.
Tulsi Gabbard, friend to Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin. But there are a few more mainstream picks, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, he's got to be well known to the Europeans for Secretary of State. He used to be a traditional GOP, a hawk, but an internationalist and a free trader. He has adapted to MAGA world, he's become a Ukraine aid skeptic. But I think if you push him a little harder, I think you'll find a traditional GOP hawk. And national security advisor, Mike Waltz, I don't know how well known he is to the Europeans. But no fan of Europe, they're much more focused like, let's not waste our money in Ukraine, let's look on China. As for the confirmation process, we'll see. I think at this point there probably will be a confirmation process, it was in question for a long time there. If you recall, Trump was pushing them, I want my recess appointments. He seems to have dropped this suggestion because the Senate seems to be moving ahead, willing to, at least seriously consider most of his people.
If I had to predict the person who's in the most trouble right now it's Hegseth. We'll see what happens, he, of course, in addition to his controversial positions, he's been accused in the past of sexual assault, he paid a woman off, he says he's going to let her out of her NDA. We'll see whether that actually happens. And we know in the past from Kavanaugh and from Clarence Thomas that the Congress does not treat accusers nicely, this could turn into an incredible circus. Right now, he's probably the one who's in the most trouble. As for how these nominees are going to shape Trump's positions on foreign policy, this is really not a team of rivals. There seems to be basic consensus, everybody wants to end the war in Ukraine, even if it means Ukraine makes all the sacrifices.
China's the prime threat, Rubio and Waltz in particular, the fiercest of China hawks. Interestingly, Rubio is going to be the first Secretary of State, not only the first Latino Secretary of State, he's going to be the first Secretary of State who's under travel sanctions from the Chinese. We'll see if the Chinese back off that. Iran is a serious runner up, we were talking about the possibility of a nuclear deal, no friends to Iran among this group. And beating up on Europe is everyone's favorite pastime. How's that going to play out in practice? Trump in the past has praised Xi Jinping, and the Chinese are still talking about the possibility of a grand bargain.
And if allies and adversaries are calculating how they can appeal to Trump's transactional nature, I suspect that the officials around him, if they're anything like those in the first administration, they're going to have to calculate either how they distract Trump from the latest bright and shiny offer, or they're going to have to grit their teeth and adapt as he adapts his convictions, because he's not consistent. And you saw this with John Bolton, you saw this with pretty much everybody else around him in the first term. If you're a true believer on anything, you end up getting out of the way.

ERLANGER:
One of the things that I've always thought about is John Bolton's line about Trump, he says, "Trump has a mind like a pinball machine." So, it sort of bounces from one thing to another, and then he likes to make decisions. One thing I'm curious about, I don't know whether you have a sense of this, does he actually care about Taiwan, or in his mind, is Taiwan like Ukraine, and it belongs to the bigger empire?

ROBBINS:
I think that he, when he's talked about Taiwan, he's talked about it the way he's talked about every other dependency, why aren't they paying more? And he's talked about South Korea that way, he's talked about Japan that way, why aren't they paying more? When you talk about protection rackets, I think that is basically it. But these people like Rubio and Waltz don't feel that way. Can they persuade him? There isn't certainly no sign from the first administration, people were able in the first administration to stop him from doing things, to stop him from bombing places, to stop him from taking extreme positions. But were they able to persuade him to make a strong ideological or moral commitment to some campaign, to some country? There's no sign of that.

MCMAHON:
Carla, I'm wondering about your thoughts on what sort of role republicans in Congress might have that let's say differs from the first Trump administration, where you had some, in positions of power, like Mitch McConnell, you had some Republicans who are more traditional internationalists, strong defense, and in some cases pulled some strings to make sure certain funding on whatever foreign aid or other priorities continued despite attempts by the Trump administration to deplete those or to reduce those. So, do you see anything this time around? Much has been made about how he has even more asserted his role and influence in Congress?

ROBBINS:
I think that you're right, I think that people are even more frightened of him. And Ukraine was a big test, they managed to pull it off with this last funding round. Ukraine fatigue is certainly set in up there. But the big test probably will be in these confirmation hearings. Kash Patel, who surprised me when they nominated him, it's been nothing but a love fest for him up there. Enemies list, who cares? Nobody's making a big deal about this. We'll see what the Hegseth hearings, I think that's a big, big test there, not necessarily on foreign aid or foreign policy, but I think that's a big test on who's willing to stand up to Trump. Interestingly, all of the complaints about Hegseth, all of the concerns about Hegseth have been focused on this sexual assault allegation.
I'm not suggesting that no one should focus on that, that's an absolutely essential question, sexual assault and allegations of drinking on the job, but there doesn't seem to be much of a discussion on no women in combat, firing woke generals, the question of LGBTQ people serving, Marxism... There's been no discussion at all of that. And the question of the implications of what that would do to good order in the force. We haven't even gotten into the policies that he could potentially promulgate, and how it would affect the ability of the U.S. military to cohere. There has been no policy discussion. So, if he actually gets to hearings, which it looks like he will, and people ask him substantive questions beyond this issue of sexual assault, we'll see whether people are willing to challenge President Trump and his choice. There was a while, a few weeks ago, that it looked like, after the Matt Gaetz dropping the nomination there, it looked like that Trump might drop Hegseth as well.
But he's a very proud man, as we well know, and he didn't want to go for two. So, right now he's still backing Hegseth up, and we'll see how that one plays up on the hill. I think it's going to be a big test of the question you've raised there, Bob. Bob, year of elections is wrapping up, but the elections aren't over. This week, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote, which means they're going to hold snap elections on February 23rd. And Europe's largest economy is going to be in the hands of a caretaker government until then. And France, of course, barely has a government itself, and those are two of the world's great electoral democracies. How are you feeling about the state of elections these days?

MCMAHON:
Well, the state of elections, and by extension, the state of democracy, are in a very tricky place. These elections... And it was an epic year, something like four billion people voted, and this is a wide range, obviously, of let's say, mature democracies and countries that are more on the edge. And you definitely had, in some cases, some stage managing going on, whether it was the basic succession that was preordained, in a place like Indonesia, or more recently a funny business that took place in one-time EU aspirant, Georgia, both are cases where illiberal forces held sway. And then where there weren't, say, stage managing going on, there was a throw out the incumbent wave that affected everybody from the United States to countries across Europe, and certainly in Asia. And then, on top of it, another drama playing out at the end of this year is the erstwhile, stable, vibrant democracy of South Korea, dealing with a martial law declaration that lasted, I think six hours or so.
Now you have an impeachment proceeding going on against the president who declared martial law, that's going to play out in the course of the early year. As you said, Germany and France, two pillars of Europe are in a very tough spot going into the year, you'll have the year beginning with weak governments in both places. Although, you could see Germany come back with a stronger government under Merz, that remains to be seen, there certainly is that possibility. France, there's a lot more doubt as far as that goes. And the common thread through all these things are that populations are pretty miffed to say the least at the state of their economies. There is a direct correlation in a number of places between inflation levels, cost of living levels, inequality, and the incumbents with the big target on them, as this is playing out.
Add to that the higher flows of immigration, even with the trouble some of these economies are dealing with, they're still beacons compared to other parts of the world. And so, people are flocking to Europe, United States, from places like Central America or the Middle East and North Africa. And so, you have all these stresses, and on top of it you have the tampering of the misinformation brigades, whether it's coming from Russia, and in some cases from China or other places, other malign actors, we're definitely seeing dedicated campaigns to messing around with public information and raising real doubts about what's a fact and what's not, and whipping up concern in a lot of places. And the weaker the country's infrastructure and institutions are, the more those types of campaigns hold sway. Another country that's dealing with struggles at the end of the year in part driven by these misinformation campaigns is Romania, which had its presidential election annulled by its constitutional court.
So, we're ending the year on a really tough note for democracy, it was both resilient and fragile, and at the same time, depending on where you looked. Next year, just a quick peek ahead, it's not going to be like this past year in terms of the sheer number and the heavyweight aspect of the elections, but there are elections that are going to be coming up in important U.S. allies, like Australia and Canada, there will be an early harbinger of the Russian near abroad in Belarus, which is not going to be a free election by any stretch of the imagination, but will still be an indicator of how much enthrall that country is still to its dictator Lukashenko, who five years ago was seen to be in a much tougher spot. So, we end this year and we begin next year with elections and democracy being in a very puzzling spot.

ERLANGER:
Yes, and Bob, what interests me partly about Europe is with Hungary, the struggle over Romania, Georgia, you have a presidential election coming up in Poland, which will be a big test of whether law and justice comes back to power a bit or not. So, I think in Central Europe there's a lot to play for, and this all is in the context of what to do about Russia. And so, I think these votes will make a tremendous difference.

ROBBINS:
So much of the pitch that the Russians when they were putting out their arguments, whether you want to call it disinformation or just their arguments, was in some of these places, you don't want to end up like Ukraine. So, don't vote for Europe, vote for neutrality, or vote for peace. Does that play in Western Europe itself?

ERLANGER:
It plays in Germany, parts of Germany. Germany has always been a bit neurologic anyway, it sees itself as a peace-loving expander of peace, given its history, it's not been very interested in war. But in East Germany, which the old DDR, which still has a basic lasting anti-Americanism, and a fear that, for example, Ukraine is somehow a proxy war between Russia and the United States, and that the Germans are going to get dragged into this war, and be a victim somehow of bigger powers. And so, you have, with the Alternative for Germany Party, which may end up being the second-largest party in Germany, and this new party around this woman called Sahra Wagenknecht, you have basically the Russian narrative, which is Ukraine is not our fight, and the war threatens us. So, this feeds with anti-migration feeling, and anger basically at elites, so it's a pretty toxic mix, I have to say.
I think in Germany it's controllable, this government has fallen, but it's fallen in a way we predicted. We even knew what day it would fall. And I suspect it will be in power still until probably the end of March, easily, before a new government's in place. So, it's not perilous, but it is definitely weaker. And Macron in France is definitely weaker, and we'll see what happens with his government. But he has three more years in power and is refusing all requests to leave early, which makes perfect sense. But is anyone going to listen to French ideas now? And you have a very interesting moment where you have more center-right governments in Europe, and so that may augur well for more resistance to giving up on Ukraine.

MCMAHON:
Steve, I wonder if you're seeing the EU playing any sort of a different type of a role than expected in terms of just being a bit of a stabilizer, or at least providing a little bit of backbone because it's knitting together all these increasingly disparate parts. It seems like it's going to have survived the Hungarian presidency, for example, it's then going to go to Poland, we'll see what that situation's like after the elections there. But you mentioned Ursula von der Leyen, who's seen as this figure growing in authority, or symbolic if not otherwise, and Kaja Kallas, certainly outspoken on the Ukraine question, is there something we should be knowing about the EU's role here or should we not overstate it?

ROBBINS:
It's nice to see women in charge, which is more than we have here.

ERLANGER:
Amen to that. No, I think there is a stiffening of the spine and there is a real understanding that Europe has to do more, partly because of Trump, and partly in its own interests, and there is, interestingly with the pressure of Ukraine, more of a willingness of the European Union structures to work with NATO rather than against NATO. And I think this is very promising. If the new commission does a better job in getting European defense industries going, in particular, making things that the NATO military advisors think countries ought to have, as opposed to the things that each country's industry wants to make, then I think it will help. Because the Europeans spend a lot of money on defense, huge amounts of money, it's just there's an awful lot of inefficiency and overlapping, and I think people understand that that needs to be reformed.
And Mark Rutte is someone who knows the European Union very well, having run the Netherlands for many, many years. He knows the players, he's trusted, and so he has Trump's ear too. So, I think it's promising, the EU wants to do more I think, the big question is, as always, money. Because the EU budget by itself is quite small, the new defense commissioner doesn't have a lot of money to invest, and the biggest problem is if you're creating more military industry, it takes a really long time to get it going. And if for the Europeans that started this eighteen months ago, or twenty-four months ago, I think I would've been much happier.

ROBBINS:
Mark Rutte is going to supplant Macron as the Trump whisperer. Whenever Trump says anything positive about Europe, it's always Mark Rutte because he says that Mark Rutte likes him.

ERLANGER:
Yeah, and Mark Rutte has a nice smile. It's good too.

MCMAHON:
And he has already met with Trump's named envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. So, he's getting his ducks in a row early it looks like.

ERLANGER:
Very, very much. And also he's been very explicit, I think, in saying that Ukraine needs help to beat back the Russians, to prepare for serious negotiations, he's been very explicit about that. And I think his words will have an impact. Again, you can't figure out what the new American Congress is going to do, how much money there's going to be, but even if Trump has negotiations, has a ceasefire, the implication is you can't let Ukraine collapse in the meantime. So, whether Washington likes it or not, I think it needs to keep supporting Ukraine with more European help. But anyway, we've had a great discussion, but I don't think we can end it, this discussion about all the major issues without talking about the state of the climate, global efforts at mitigating climate warming gases. Bob, can you talk about we've made any progress last year and what we should look forward to next year?

MCMAHON:
Well, the trend is not our friend on climate, Steve, but there are things as always you can point to that you can say there are opportunities. You'll hear that from climate experts and they've just had another year where the numbers are pretty grim. So, just to cite a few of the numbers to kick things off, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is saying, although the full gear data is not yet in, there's a ninety-nine percent chance that 2024 was the hottest year on record, beating 2023, and that's part of the trend I was mentioning, of just hotter and hotter temperatures going on. The Arctic is the part of the planet that's warming at the quickest rate. And NOAA in a recent set of announcements mentioned that there was an ominous tipping point in the Arctic this year, in which it moved from carbon sink to emitter because of the thawing off the permafrost, that had been trapping gases that are contributing to the global warming.
That's an area to be concerned about, and that's only going to build. Climate diplomats point to this figure that has become this goal, this seemingly impossible goal of keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above its pre-industrial level. This year, actually, it succeeded that, that goal is considered lost if there's a several years in a row or a number of years in a row in which that's the case, there are some people who are viewing the pace of warming and saying, we're going to blow past that, we're going to blow past possibly two degrees by 2030, and maybe even four degrees by the end of the century. When you're talking about these tenths of degrees, you're talking about levels of devastation and extreme climate events. We came through another year in which almost corner of the planet could point to some sort of extreme weather event that they had never seen before, whether it's severe forest fires caused by drought, or conversely heavy, heavy rain that had not been seen before. We saw that here in a trio of hurricanes that hit the U.S., Helene in particular.
We just had this French Indian Ocean territory, Mayotte if I'm pronouncing it right, that just got absolutely clobbered by a cyclone. They're still trying to figure out what is the extent of the damage. A fear could be in the thousands of deaths, and Macron actually is going to be going there to check out the damage in person. But these types of events are happening at greater, greater frequency, and they're expensive. Just in the U.S. alone, as of November 1st, there were twenty four-billion dollars disaster events. These are events in which are going to involve not only rebuilding, but attempts at mitigation, creating better ability to withstand high winds and rains and so forth, these are the terms we're going to continue to hear more and more of because we heard them at the year-end COP meeting in Azerbaijan, or mitigation and adaptation, this was supposed to be the climate finance COP.
Most of the experts who studied this approach to dealing with climate change have talked about the trillions of dollars needed in commitments on an annual basis, they came up with less than three hundred billion, which still sounds like a lot of money, but considering the level of efforts needed, for especially the weakest countries, the countries, the low-lying countries, the countries that are disappearing actually with the rising sea levels, it's a drop in the bucket, pardon the expression, and there's greater need for seriousness on climate diplomacy. Brazil's going to be hosting the next COP, you can count on Lula to sort of give it a higher level of attention and ambition. He's going to be hosting it in an Amazonian city, and so we'll have to see whether that focuses attention globally. You're not going to see a great deal of talk about climate change by all accounts from the incoming Trump administration, but as many people have pointed out, the U.S. actually isn't the greatest offender at this point in terms of emissions, it's the rest of the world that needs to slow it down.
Yes, the U.S. is responsible for pumping out an inordinate amount of emissions up to now, but it is not producing the majority of that, it's coming from other countries. A lot of experts say it's really crucial to see what China does in terms of, does China move more vigorously into renewables? Does China set some sort of a tempo and change its own heavy emitting profile, still building coal plants, for example, or are we just going to continue in this race to greater warming and greater extreme weather events? So, sorry for the funk there, but I will say one more quick thing, which is, those who like to view things hopefully, and also realistically, say that on the renewable front, if there are dedicated steps towards moving towards renewable, including in the United States, where that is possible, and it's not all government driven, you could start to see some changing, some bending of the curves that we're seeing on emissions. And technology is seen as a panacea increasingly, but it involves humans driving that technology, not just AI.

ERLANGER:
And a lot of money.

MCMAHON:
And a lot of money. Again, in the trillions with a T is the amount of money that's going to be needed. And a lot of that, again, does not come from governments, it comes from private sector, the so-called animal spirits that will potentially see it in their interest to pivot more vigorously from fossil fuels to renewables.
Well, that wraps up The World Next Year. To all of our regular listeners, we hoped you've enjoyed this special episode. The World Next Week will be taking a break for the holidays, but we'll be back with a new episode on January 9th. Steve, thanks so much for joining us and for sharing your insight on a huge swath of the troubled world.

ROBBINS:
Steve, it is as always, absolutely wonderful to see you, and thank you for wearing a tie.

ERLANGER:
It's been a pleasure, thank you both.

MCMAHON:
Be sure to listen to CFR's other podcast, Why It Matters, as well as the President's Inbox, and the Foreign Fairs Interview. They'll also have great conversations to help close out your year.

ROBBINS:
Please subscribe to the World Next Week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts, and leave us a review while you're at it, we appreciate the feedback. If you'd like to reach out, please email us at [email protected]. The publications mentioned in this episode, as well as the transcript of our conversation, are listed on the podcast page for The World Next Week on CFR.org. Please note that opinions expressed on The World Next Week are solely those of the hosts and our guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy. Today's program was produced by Molly McAnany and Justin Schuster with director of podcasting, Gabrielle Sierra. And special thanks as ever to Helena Kopans-Johnson for her research assistance. Our theme music is provided by, he's everywhere, Markus Zakaria. And this is Carla Robbins saying so long and see you in 2025.

ERLANGER:
And this is Steve Erlanger signing off and farewell, thank God, in 2024.

MCMAHON:
And echoing that, this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye and have a happy new year in 2025.