The world will press pause in 2024. It is not that solutions to the many crises will be found; some may intensify. But everyone from policymakers to homemakers will prefer to be cautious. There will be less money to throw around, a need to replenish weapons stockpiles, fears of domestic unrest as debts pile up, and generally less leeway for the daring and innovative. Lessons will be drawn by tinpot types from the misadventures of swashbucklers such as Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Yes, there will be wars. The ones that have been most in the spotlight — Israel’s bombing of Gaza and Russia’s offensive in Ukraine — are already entering their twilight. Casualties are still rising, but military gains are diminishing. Israel and Ukraine both know that the US presidential campaign will be the single largest constraint on their war efforts. That unofficially begins in February. A large struggle in Gaza will relate to its future governance. Ukraine will stagger on for a while longer, but by the middle of the year, the pressure to sit down at a negotiating table may be too great to resist.
The world’s most important political conflict next year will be between octogenarian Joe Biden and septuagenarian Donald Trump. That will run all the way to November. India’s is one of the few governments that can afford to be sanguine. Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to get along with both of them. Everyone else’s view is reflected in Biden’s recent comment: “Every head of State I’ve come in contact with has said ‘You’ve got to win, you’ve got to win.’”
The US election will be a major test of whether the Washington establishment has restored its credibility with the working class. Washington has done all that it can. It has printed money, subsidised industry, spent on infrastructure, deep-sixed free trade dogma. A Biden victory, still very much a possibility, would represent a return to normal. It would also lay out a path for similar floundering Western capitals. Privately, the Indian government would not be displeased. A further-weakened West might encourage Beijing to think the East Wind has already prevailed. And that could spell trouble for India.
Meanwhile, what may prove to be the most important strategic development of all — the growing US-India relationship — will be on hold in 2024. New Delhi will be all hands on deck until its own somewhat-predictable elections are over. Biden will more or less switch off his foreign policy app. He signalled as much by skipping the East Asia summit in September and declining a Quad summit invitation in January.
Next year would be tumultuous if its main troublemaker, China, were to try and get some advantage. Instead, Xi Jinping is communicating on all hailing frequencies that wolf warriors are gone and mindful mandarin are fashionable. China’s economy is starting out on an enormous transformation, massively shifting capital flows from real estate towards high-end manufacturing and technology. All of which is prep for a larger geo-tech tussle with the US and its friends. But this shift will not be good news for swathes of the Chinese middle-class, many of whom have tied their wealth to title deeds. Unsurprising, then, that the Central Economic Work Conference which set economic targets for 2024 declared, “We must introduce more policies that are conducive to stabilising expectations, stabilising growth, and stabilising employment.” Note the common adjective; it isn’t risk-oriented.
Already, Xi is all about smiles and summits. Beijing is doing its utmost to show itself to be open once again to foreign capital, foreign tourists and anything “barbarian”. Even Indian officials say that the signalling from up north is about keeping the relationship on even keel, urging India to reconsider its constraints on Chinese investment, and “Border? What border?”
It won’t make all that much difference. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) study shows that foreign investment decisions between geopolitically aligned nations have risen from 37% of total to 50% between 2010 and 2022. Those aligned on geography are stuck at about 35%.
While the low-hanging fruit in decoupling is being plucked and the next steps will be more painful, the separation or multiplication of electronics, green technology and brain power supply chains will continue. What will be more evident next year will be Western capital avoiding China, and ever-tighter technology sanctions by the US and Europe. As US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo warned industry, expect one big tech restriction policy plus enforcement “at least annually”.
The sources of global surprise in the past few years have not been the superpowers. They have been the leaders of middle powers who have gone off-kilter. The likes of Turkey’s Recep Erdogan, Putin and Netanyahu are the ones firing cannons from their castles in the air.
Erdogan’s mix of Ottoman imperialism and modern monetary theory, Putin’s czarist fantasies and Netanyahu’s Bad Samaritan role has led them to military and economic disaster.
Many tier-two leaders have preferred to take the path of caution: keep your house in order, adapt your country to new opportunities, and keep your geopolitical nose clean. These are the countries which will reap major benefits in 2024, and they include India, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. Fortune favours the circumspect.
Next year is one where India should, with a lot of care and a bit of luck, be able to cash in on a decade of economic reforms, careful diplomacy and political stability. The US and Japan see the country as their best long-term strategic bet. The Gulf monarchies see India as a cornerstone of their strategic connectivity projects. Traditional nemesis Pakistan can only issue press releases as the Kashmir door is closed in its face.
Countries of the world will use 2024 to catch their breath. And most governments will waste the year and not clean out the sclerosis afflicting their economies and societies. The legitimacy crisis facing many elites has meant that they will also be less able to resolve global problems such as green finance, immigration and technology regulation. There will be some jokers in the pack. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un may have fireworks planned: he heralded the new year with a flurry of missile tests and is back to hoarding plutonium again.
Modi, if anything, seems ready to double down on reforms because he believes he will have the mandate. Unfortunately, though India will be more externally oriented in the coming year through an aggressive trade policy and greater multilateral involvement, it can’t scale up fast enough to fill the gaps others are leaving. Don’t worry. At least one prospective world leader has promised to keep a lid on everything. “I will be the only one… I can say this with great surety… I will prevent World War 3,” said Donald Trump, as 2024 rolled in.
(Pramit Pal Chaudhuri is South Asia practice head with the Eurasia Group)
.
ALSO IN THE YEAR AHEAD
Energy, crops, El Nino: Life on a warming planet
Negotiators at the 2023 annual United Nations Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai declared that the world must urgently transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. It was one of the most significant declarations by the nearly 200 member countries in nearly 30 years of climate talks. But will nations keep their word and move toward more sustainable energy alternatives?
These questions will need answering at a time when the El Nino weather phenomenon, which brought dryness to large parts of Asia in 2023, is forecast to continue through at least the first half of 2024, unleashing more extreme weather events in a world already battling intensifying storms, wildfires and extremes of heat and cold, amid the climate crisis.
So far, as a result of this combination of factors and their interplay with each other, there have been bad coffee harvests in Vietnam and cocoa woes in Africa; weak soybean harvests in central Brazil; and rice production so reduced in India, the world’s biggest exporter of the grain, that India was compelled to restrict exports.
Meanwhile, 2023 is on track to be one of the hottest years on record, with temperatures in the Arctic (among other regions) reaching record highs.
As Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist with the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, told HT in November: “Global warming is [proceeding] at a fast rate as emissions continue unabated. Along with that, we have a mature El Nino in place, which acts as a mechanism to transfer the heat from the ocean to the atmosphere across the globe. This adds to the global average temperatures. Since the El Nino will peak in December and continue to the next year, we might see more of these record-breaking temperatures.”
.
Conflicts will test alliances
The world has entered 2024 with two major wars roiling international politics and the world economy. In Europe, Russian and Ukrainian forces continue to fight in Ukraine’s east and south, but momentum on both sides has dropped. The key to any change in the stalemate lies as much in Washington and Brussels – and in the West’s appetite for continued help for Ukraine – as it does in Moscow and Kyiv. In West Asia, Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas from Gaza (above). Despite international condemnation over the mounting civilian toll, and a US push for a scaled-down operation, the campaign is likely to extend some way into the new year, with concerns in fact over possible escalations. Militant groups in Lebanon and Syria have backed Hamas and exchanged fire with Israel. Attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, a key trade route that links Europe and North America with Asia via the Suez Canal, in demonstration of their support for Gaza, have the potential to cause further economic disruptions.
.
A global recession may be avoided
In a bit of possible good news, though a number of international banks expect global growth to slow in 2024 — squeezed by elevated interest rates, higher energy prices and uncertainties in the world’s two largest economies — they see slim chances of a recession. The global economy is estimated to have grown by 2.9% in 2023, a Reuters survey of economists stated. That rate is expected to dip to 2.6% in 2024. While the global economy may avoid a recession, Europe and the UK could see a mild slowdown, the survey indicated. A soft landing for the US is still on the cards, although uncertainty around the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy path clouds the outlook. Meanwhile, China’s growth is expected to weaken amid property sector woes and faltering global demand.
.
A big year for Hollywood
From delayed sci-fi sequel Dune: Part Two to the held-up third Deadpool movie, 2024 will see some major releases as Hollywood recovers from the twin strikes by SAG-AFTRA and WGA that halted film production in 2023. Also on the 2024 slate, for younger audiences, are family releases such as Despicable Me 4, Kung Fu Panda 4 and Inside Out 2. A survey by movie-ticket platform Fandango indicated that the 10 most anticipated 2024 films were mainly sequels and spin-offs, with Deadpool 3 at No. 1.
Meanwhile, awards season kicks off the year, with the box-office hit Barbie leading in Golden Globe nominations, with nine nods. Historical drama Oppenheimer is not far behind, with eight nominations. Gothic comedy Poor Things, which triumphed at the Venice Film Festival, and the love story Past Lives, are also strong contenders. As is Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the true-life story of the 1920s murders of wealthy, oil-rich land-owning Native Americans in Oklahoma.
.
A phase of life-offs, moon landings
Both private and government agencies are racing to the Moon in 2024, with numerous missions on the charts. Of the major ones, Japan’s SLIM mission is targeting January 19 for its first lunar landing. If successful, it would make Japan only the fifth country — after the US, Russia, China and India — to reach the lunar surface. Private companies in the US such as Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic also have their eye on a lunar landings early next year. By the middle of the year, China’s Chang’e 6 mission is scheduled to retrieve samples from the far side of the Moon. Later in the year, Nasa’s Artemis 2 lunar mission is expected to send astronauts on a flyby, in a first manned manoeuvre in nearly 50 years, setting the stage for a crewed mission to the lunar surface in 2026 or 2027.
Among other space missions, Nasa plans to send an orbiter out to study Jupiter’s moon, Europa. It is set to be a busy year for the Indian Space Research Organisation. Aditya-L1, India’s first solar observatory, is expected to reach its intended destination in the first week of January. Three Indian astronauts will be launched into orbit, in a Gaganyaan test flight. Mangalyaan-2, a second Mars orbiter, will set out. As will Shukrayaan-1, a Venus orbiter mission.