2024 looks to be a very bloody year

This year could be very bloody.

There is ongoing conflict in Ukraine, a vicious fight against Hamas and Iran's other proxies in the Middle East and rising tensions throughout East Asia, all of which threaten to expand daily.

Worrying as those situations are, yet more alarming is the prospect of their linkage as either a result of the overlapping interests of combatants or coordinated action by some of the actors. Preserving peace demands a panoply of tools and a renewed sense of purpose among allies and partners.

After nearly two years of fighting, the Ukraine war has become a virtual stalemate. Ukraine has reclaimed more than half the land initially seized by Russia — although Moscow’s forces retain control of nearly 20% of the country. Military casualties are estimated to have reached a half million; 22,0000 civilians have been killed or wounded and over 10 million people have been displaced, either moving within Ukraine or fleeing the country. Much hangs on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, which could determine whether the government in Kyiv continues to receive aid it needs to fight.

In the Middle East, Israel continues to pound Gaza in an attempt to eliminate Hamas, the group that launched the Oct. 7 terror attacks that killed over 1,200 people and during which hundreds were taken hostage. Those efforts have been successful; the group’s military is being destroyed. The civilian toll has been extremely high, however, with more than 85% of the civilian population forced to flee; survival of the people of Gaza depends on humanitarian aid.

Fighting has not been confined to Gaza. Israel has attacked more than 3,400 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and more than 50 in Syria in an attempt to stop the flow of weapons used to attack their country. Iran-backed groups have launched over 100 attacks on U.S. military positions in Iraq and Syria; one claimed the lives of three U.S. service members. Houthi rebels operating out of Yemen but backed by Iran, have launched missiles at Israel, attacked and in some case seized commercial vessels in the Red Sea and launched drones against U.S. and allied military ships.

In retaliation, the U.S. launched over 100 strikes on targets in Syria and Iraq used by Iranian forces and the groups they sponsor, as well as against Houthi forces in Yemen. U.S. officials insist that this is just the beginning and more responses will follow. In an attempt to control escalation, the U.S. has targeted weapons facilities, air defenses and some command and control centers, but avoided locations where leadership may be found.

In Asia, tensions are rising but fighting has yet to break out. North Korea continues not only to sharpen its military capabilities but its rhetoric has become more belligerent. Robert Carlin and Sig Hecker, who in various U.S. government positions have studied Pyongyang for decades, declared last month that “The situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950 ... we believe that, like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war.”

Sydney Seiler, a former CIA analyst who is one of the few people who can match them for experience and insight, thinks that the risk of war is lower but concedes that the language is worrying. Seiler points to supreme leader Kim’s statements that reconciliation and reunification between the two Koreas are no longer goals, and that if war would break out, he said, North Korea would seek to “completely occupy, subjugate and reclaim the ROK and annex it. ...”

The victory of Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, which opposes reunification with China, in last month’s presidential election has angered Beijing, which can be expected to ratchet up pressure against the island to change its government’s thinking. I don’t believe that the Chinese leadership has set a 2027 deadline for progress but frustration on the mainland is increasing.

In the South China Sea, Chinese and Philippine ships face off daily — encounters that are increasingly tense. Manila has refused to back down from its claims to Scarborough Shoal or Second Thomas Shoal and Chinese forces have used aggressive tactics, including the ramming of ships and water cannons, to block Philippine vessels from resupplying marines on the reef. Other disputes dot the region, including the Senkakus, where Chinese ships daily assert Beijing’s claim to the islands.

Conflict may not be planned. The sheer number of military assets in East Asia and the increasing tempo of exercises and operations means the possibility of an accident is rising. The carefully calibrated escalation ladder that U.S. strategists envision may be a slippery slope as far as Middle East militias are concerned. There is always the possibility of mistaken identity, such as when ISIS-K killed more than 100 people in two terror attacks in Tehran in early January, acts that were first thought to have been the work of Israel.

There are incidents on the India-China border and between Iran and Pakistan, and other long-festering conflicts, such as that between New Delhi and Islamabad, two nuclear powers, while civil wars and rebellions occur throughout Africa.

More worrying still is the possibility that conflicts may be linked. China and Russia have a partnership without limits and Beijing’s tacit support for Moscow in Ukraine is matched by the Kremlin' backing of China on its claim to Taiwan. North Korea is supplying weapons to Russia to help overcome shortages caused by Western sanctions. Beijing and Pyongyang have been consolidating their relationship after years of drift. Russia and Iran have strengthened military ties and are providing each other weapons.

Strategists worry that fighting in one theater could be exploited by an adversary in another. If China faces off against the Philippines or Taiwan, might North Korea seize the moment, hoping the U.S. is distracted, to launch its own offensive against South Korea? Will Beijing try something when Russia launches its next offensive against Ukraine? Might Russia try nuclear blackmail against the West if cross-strait tensions heat up? Or vice versa?

While this may sound like Strategic Mad Libs — pick one adversary in theater A and a second in theater B — it’s not academic theorizing. The U.S. for decades planned to fight in two theaters simultaneously; that capacity has been scaled back in recent years.

Sheer opportunism isn’t the big issue. Governments in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang and Tehran — and there are others — are dissatisfied with the way the world works and want new rules of governance. They share a sense of grievance, along with a desire to play bigger roles in their respective regions and to displace the U.S. in the process. That yields increasingly close relationships, along with other more visible diplomatic projects, such as the BRICS.

But don’t take my word for it. As I wrapped up this article, I stumbled across Hal Brands’ latest analysis in Foreign Affairs, the journal of record for U.S. foreign policy. Brands is professor of strategy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and his work is invariably smart and thoughtful.

I would say that even if he wasn’t making the exact point I am making here. He too sees a world on the brink of conflagration and uses World War II to illustrate the dangers — and their proximity.

He writes that “intense, interrelated regional struggles overwhelm the international system and create a crisis of global security unlike anything since 1945. A world at risk could become a world at war.” World War II offers proof that these dangers are not abstract, noting that the conflagration was first “the aggregation of three regional crises: Japan’s rampage in China and the Asia-Pacific; Italy’s bid for empire in Africa and the Mediterranean; and Germany’s push for hegemony in Europe and beyond.” Gradually, they merged and world war was the result.

Examining their motivations, Brands sees a “fundamental similarity of purpose. All were seeking a dramatically transformed global order, in which ‘have not’ powers carved out vast empires through brutal tactics — and in which brutal regimes surpassed the decadent democracies they despised.”

That mirrors the current moment, in which revisionist states are linked by “autocratic governance and geopolitical grievance ... a desire to break a U.S.-led order that deprives them of the greatness they desire.”

Preventing a conflagration depends first on preventing regional crises from escalating. That demands a strong deterrent posture, with the broadest possible coalition that has political, economic and military capabilities to maintain the peace.

Diplomacy is an absolute necessity, too. Status quo powers and revisionists must talk on big issues and small, to find compromises that can divert and purge mounting pressures. This is likely to be a process of trial and error. When talks fail, as they inevitably will, there must be mechanisms to manage the crises that follow. And, as always, a fair bit of luck.