From a certain perspective, 2025 looks extraordinary. If we encountered our planet today as an alien species without fear or favor, what would we see? A growing population of eight billion people is amid unprecedented expansion and growth, and there are staggering opportunities after tens of thousands of years of stagnation.
Even looking at the geopolitical headlines, we can work up some optimism about 2025. The major wars that dominated the past year are receding. Three years after Russia invaded Ukraine and attempted to overthrow its leadership, negotiations (and even a possible ceasefire) appear close. So, too, in the Middle East, after more than a year of fighting in Gaza and beyond, there’s less stomach or purpose for expanding the violence. In the United States, a hotly contested presidential election led to an undisputed winner with a clear mandate, and almost nobody claimed it was unfree, unfair, or stolen.
But take a closer look, and we’ve got big problems.
The United States and China, the two most powerful countries in the world by a wide margin, assertively reject responsibility for the rest of the planet. They cast an eye at enemies, Cliff Kupchan Chairman, first and foremost within their own borders, and worry increasingly over threats to their own stability. Both are informed by political and economic value systems focused on the short term, despite the increasingly obvious reality that they’re not working for most of their people—especially the increasingly disillusioned youth.
A “community of nations” is today the stuff of fairy tales, with governance that isn’t meeting the needs of citizens. Our challenges are global, whether those related to climate, technology, the economy, or national security. They can’t be solved without far stronger international cooperation than is thought desirable or feasible with today’s institutions. And the political actors most essential to strengthening global institutions are moving in the other direction.
We are heading back to the law of the jungle. A world where the strongest do what they can while the weakest are condemned to suffer what they must. And the former—whether states, companies, or individuals—can’t be trusted to act in the interest of those they have power over.
It’s not a sustainable trajectory.
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