The World Next Year: Stories to Watch in 2024

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 Anne Robbins.

TOOSI:
And I'm Nahal Toosi.

MCMAHON:
Carla and Nahal, we've made it through another turbulent year, it seems. 2023 was filled with another set of unprecedented international events. In this special episode, we're going to discuss some of the leading foreign policy challenges heading into the new year, 2024, but also take note of significant developments in the current year that's wrapping up, 2023.

ROBBINS:
Joining us for this special episode is Nahal Toosi. Nahal is Politico's senior foreign affairs and national security correspondent. And her reporting, which I enthusiastically recommend to all of you, has taken her all around the world, from Pakistan to Myanmar to Germany. She's also a keen observer of Washington policymaking. Nahal, welcome to our show, and I'm so glad you're here.

MCMAHON:
Nahal, it's a pleasure to have you join us.

TOOSI:
Thanks, Carla and Bob, for having me.

ROBBINS:
Nahal, let's start with the Israel-Hamas War. A few months ago, the world's and the White House's attention was focused mainly on Ukraine, and now the horrors of this new word dominating the news and further polarizing societies including our own. Why were Tel Aviv and Washington so unprepared for the October 7th attacks that set this off? And do you see any hope of a settlement of this anytime soon?

TOOSI:
Well, to say this is a challenging foreign policy issue is an understatement, but let's touch the basics first. The Hamas militant group carried out a vicious attack on Israel on October 7th that killed some 1,200 people while taking more than 200 hostages. Israel has responded with a heavy handed air and ground military campaign that has displaced more than 1.5 million of the 2.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and killed thousands of them. 

This is the latest iteration of the modern version of this conflict that goes back decades including the sparking of a war resulting from Israel's creation and the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

There are so many factors that feed into what has happened, everything from Hamas's refusal to accept the Israeli state to Israel's apparent blindness to Hamas's growing capabilities. There's militancy on the Palestinian side of course, but there's also growing extremism among Israeli settlers who are taking more and more space and land claimed by Palestinians for a future state. There's Iran's role in fostering Hamas, and there's the misguided belief by many Israelis that they could merely manage the Palestinian issue without solving the core problem; that there are millions of Palestinians living in difficult conditions without hope for a real future.

It's strange to say it, but to solve this crisis, you have to solve this crisis. You have to figure out a way to help Palestinians achieve their aspirations while keeping Israelis feeling secure. Above all, I think it's fair to question the leadership on all sides. It's hard to look at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's tenure without concluding he's undermined the so-called peace process. It's hard to look at the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas' record and give him many points. Then you have Hamas, which has really lived up to its terrorist designation and may have doomed any Israeli-Palestinian peace effort for generations. Or if you have smart and strong enough leaders, they might seize this crisis as an opportunity to find a path to resolve this conflict.

But U.S. leadership has never been strong enough to resolve this conflict, and when President Biden took office, he and his aides very deliberately downplayed it and made clear that they had no real interest in solving the problem because they didn't think either side was willing to do so. Instead, they focused on helping Israel build relations with Arab countries, but it was like trying to build a Jenga tower but having the bottom layer be just one piece. Now the United States is trying to pick up the pieces, but it can barely get Israel to listen to its pleas to limit civilian casualties, much less get Hamas to listen to anything.

A popular phrase you hear a lot these days from U.S. officials and think tankers is that the Palestinians deserve to have a political horizon. I get the point of the phrase, you want them to have hope, but I have to admit, I think it's a dumb phrase. After all, a horizon is something you can never really reach.

ROBBINS:
I think it's too nice to say that Netanyahu just undermined the peace process. And I think this is a big focus here because hope, possibility, opportunity here is there's no political leadership. Do you see possibility when the fighting ends or at least comes down to a dull roar that there might be a significant political change inside of Israel, that there might be the possibility of a revamp Palestinian Authority, or are we just going to limp along this way indefinitely?

TOOSI:
That's such a hard question to answer because at first, when you look at the polls, when you look at the immediate reaction from Israelis themselves, when you look at the run up to October 7th with a political crisis in Israel involving attempts by Netanyahu and his right wing coalition to overhaul the judiciary, there was a strong desire by many Israelis to see Netanyahu go away. My sense from the U.S. and others is that there is a belief that he's not long for this political world in terms of his leadership; that he has to basically step aside because this has been such a massive failure on his part. And he has yet to take responsibility, and people are really, really frustrated by that.

But there's a couple of things to bear in mind. One is the question of how long this war is going to take. And to be really frank, the longer it takes, he, in some ways, can stay ensconced. He might be able to convince enough Israelis that it's not a good idea to... What's the saying? Change a horse in midstream. I don't want to say it's politically incentivized for him to make the war drag out, but I know that there are some people who believe that, that he has that incentive.

Then there's a question of who would replace him? And what mechanism would get him out? Would Likud, his party, kick him out? Would his coalition partners drop him? Would there have to be another election in Israel? How would they carry that out given the ongoing crisis? It's something I think a lot of people want to see, goodbye Bibi, but technically it's not as simple as one might think.

And in terms of you were asking about the Palestinian Authority, yeah, there's definitely the planning inside the U.S. government for a day after in Gaza is that there will be an interim situation where you'll hopefully have some sort of international force come in and try to stabilize the place while they can... They use the word revitalize the Palestinian Authority. What they really mean is completely restructure, reform, rebuild it; a lot of words starting with R-E. And I think the belief is that Mahmoud Abbas has to go and that you have to bring in completely new people. One of the concerns about that, though, is in theory you would need people from Gaza to step up. Who are these people? Where are these people? Do they still have houses? It's not a simple thing. 

And then there's the question of how destroyed will Hamas be? You can get rid of a lot of Hamas' structures or even a lot of its arsenal, but if you can't fully get rid of the force in terms of security, much less politically, there's always going to be this danger. Even if you have 20 percent of Hamas' fighters left and they have enough weapons, that is a lot of people causing a lot of havoc in Gaza. And then that stretches this question of whatever interim means when it comes to this international force. If I had to predict what will happen, it's that Israel and its troops will be in Gaza a lot longer than they say they like to be.

MCMAHON:
We should note as we're taping this year-end podcast, there are new stirrings on the other front between Israel and Hezbollah, and there's a great deal of concern about not only the ongoing campaign in Gaza and what that means in terms of humanitarian and also backlash, but also does another front open up? Are you seeing any sense that there is a will, a regional international will to try to contain this, Nahal? Is this something we should be watching as the year comes to an end?

TOOSI:
There's definitely an international desire among the U.S. And others to prevent this from spreading further. And there has been a sense that Iran wants to cause trouble via Hezbollah for Israel, but not to spark an all-out war on that front. The tough talk right now is coming from the Israelis, and so you almost get the sense that maybe they're just doing it almost as a deterrent to try to calm things down as opposed to escalate things.

Bob, let's move on to more optimistic issues.

MCMAHON:
Sure.

TOOSI:
This past year, we've seen a major shift to green energy. The United States has been working hard to catch up with Europe in energy transition. Investment in renewable energy has skyrocketed with $358 billion dollars of global investment during the first half of the year. With 2023 set to be the hottest year on record, there's been global momentum to stop warming before it passes dangerous tipping points. Were efforts successful enough that we are on track for a greener power grid in 2024?

MCMAHON:
I'm going to answer this a little bit on the one hand, on the other hand. And I should also again mention that the timing of our taping, staying in the Middle East, the COP meeting that's wrapping up in Dubai is looking like it's going to go for some sort of watered-down consensus document with struggles over the word could as in the world could phase out fossil fuels in some indeterminate time period. But there's a great deal of resistance to putting in any sort of pledge, especially by oil-rich nations to pledge to draw down fossil fuels.

But there are more than a hundred nations that want to do so, so what you're going to see is a document that has all sorts of aspirations to expanding the amount and the commitment towards renewables. We already saw a pledge by 118 governments to triple the world's renewable energy capacity by 2030. And so there's sentiments like that. There's sentiments that we should be moving away from fossil fuels. It's seeing the position of countries like the host country, it's a little bit reminiscent of the famous quote attributed to St. Augustine, "Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not just yet." Not ready yet to commit to this.

But will we look to 2023 as a tipping point year? No. We'll look to it as a year in which some other significant things happened. There's some specific things that were interesting to note. The first ever commercial airliner to cross the Atlantic on purely low emissions fuel, or as they said high fat fuel, took place. It was a Virgin Atlantic flight that was powered by using so-called sustainable aviation fuel made up of waste fats. We saw a country with high amounts of fossil fuels, Ecuador, vote in a referendum to ban oil drilling in part of its Amazon rainforest. This is the first time in history a country's citizens voted to halt oil production. A small country. There's a lot of other fossil fuel production going on, especially in the United States, which has otherwise been a champion of renewables.

And so we also see predictions of fossil fuel production continuing to go in an upward trajectory even as renewables gain more investments. You cited an investment figure. It's estimated that renewables are going to need to have something like $5 trillion in annual investments to really make a dent in getting into what they call deep decarbonization mode. About a third of the world is now powered by renewables. That figure will inch up a little bit by 2030, but it's nowhere near what it needs to be to make that goal of limiting the global warming to 1.5°C, pre-industrial levels. And we're very close to that. Some parts of the world have already surpassed that according to measurements that we've seen coming out the last couple of weeks from meteorological organizations. And what that means, as we have already seen, is extreme weather incidence of irregularity. And so that is certainly a backdrop to what happened in the COP talks. Island nations are in the forefront of concern, but many other nations also raising alarm. And so these COP meetings will continue to happen, but there's a real question about whether the changes will happen quickly enough.

One other thing I should mention, because it is cited by those who see the glass is half full, a few years ago, I think three years ago it was one out of every twenty or so vehicles that was purchased was an electric vehicle; in I think three years time, it's one out of every five. And you have seen a real ramp up in the technology and the mining for the technology that's used to power electric vehicles and the United States and now Europe increasingly are pledging and are committing to investing in those on their home turf to ward off against China completely dominating the market, so you will see electric vehicles increase. But as anybody who's driven around this country, especially in the recent Thanksgiving break knows, the amount of infrastructure needed for EVs isn't anywhere close to what it needs to be just in a country like the United States.

TOOSI:
If I am Micronesia, how should I feel about all this?

MCMAHON:
You should feel frustrated and worried, and you should be doubling down on what's known as adaptation mode, which is going for increased funding for survivability. And this gets to something that was announced at the very outset of COP, which was this loss and damage fund that countries are going to commit to. This was an achievement of the previous year's COP, the commitment to create such a fund. It's in the hundreds of millions. It's got to get well into the billions to be meaningful. 

And so what island nations are going to need to look seriously at whether they need to, first of all, move their population centers from any low-lying areas or just depopulate most of their nations, which is the case that some places actually have relocation plans already in the works. It's that serious for them. They, again, are on the front lines of the rising sea levels. And as we look at the footage and we see the reports of calving glaciers from Antarctica or Greenland's ice melt and so forth, this is the result of that, and it's only going to continue. And by the way, it's going to continue even if we had a incredible surge in renewables and tripled the pace at which countries are adopting renewable only.

ROBBINS:
Bob, one of the big questions here is the word unabated and whether or not we're going to phase out unabated coal-fired power plants and this question of carbon capture solutions. Why is it that some environmentalists are against this idea of coal-fired plants in which you can still capture the carbon? Why isn't that a good solution? It would seem to me that solving this problem is going to need lots of different technologies.

MCMAHON:
Yeah. And I think you get to a good point. You're right, some environmentalists do, they see it as a way out, a get-out-of-jail-free card, so to speak, for some of the oil companies that have been ratcheting up their production and have been lobbying against any sort of move to renewables. And so now they see them trying to jump in and have their cake and eat it too, and they just see it as a sop. We've heard the term greenwashing all around this COP meeting and prior to this.

But the fact remains, and a lot of energy experts on many sides, those who continue to see fossil fuels as crucial for decades to come and those who say we have to get away from as quickly as possible, do agree we need to be checking all the boxes. If it's a roulette wheel and you're trying to put your numbers down, as many numbers as possible to try to get to where we can go.

There was an interesting line in the recent year-end edition of the Economist, which said, quote, "The energy superpowers of the transition will be those that ignore critics and do everything, flog fossil fuels, dig out metals and turbocharged renewables. No country does all that yet. The transition's biggest prizes are still to play for." No country does all that yet, but there are some countries that are doing a lot of these things, including United States and China. China is heavily into renewables. They dominate the solar panel market, and they're doing a lot on solar, they're doing a lot on wind. The U.S. is trying to do all those as well. China, by the way, also still has heavy use of coal-fired power stations, but their move away from fossil fuel reliance is one of the things that has given a little bit of hope that the world might be able to ratchet up its transition to green or clean energy, as it were.

To your point, Carla, I think it's a question of doing as many things as possible and then also looking for the unexpected technology. I still recall in the not too distant past what the fracking phenomenon, that was a real revolution for U.S. energy industry. And the initial reports on fracking, it was seen as a, pardon the expression, pipe dream in terms of the volume of energy it could untap, and yet it became the salvation, in a way, for domestic U.S. energy industry. Some people are thinking about... Actually, they're doing more than thinking, they're using investment to try to tap some of the fracking technology to tap into geothermal energy, which the U.S. has some, maybe not on the level of a place like Iceland. But geothermal is seen as another area of opportunity for power. And hydrogen is seen as a tantalizing source as well. I think there's still work to be done there to get it up to scale according to some of the reports, but there are others who are extremely bullish on hydrogen. Nuclear has not gone away. It's still in the U.S., for example, 20 percent, I think, of U.S. energy comes from nuclear power, and a lot more in a place like France also has its adherence, and so we might see a bit more on the nuclear front.

But I'm going to move on from the power games, Carla, and get us back to geopolitical power games, as it were. And let's go talk about Ukraine. Again, as we're taping this podcast. Ukrainian President is in the United States appealing for U.S. aid at a particularly fraught moment. And it's been almost a year and three-quarters or so since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. As we've talked about repeatedly on our podcast, Carla, it's at a stalemate. Ukraine is in a tough position. It needs more help from the U.S., it needs more help from the Europeans. And Russia seems like it's willing to stick it out for as long as it takes. The question is, looking back, what progress has Ukraine made during 2023 on the Russian front?

ROBBINS:
This has been a really difficult year for Ukraine militarily, diplomatically, politically at home. The spring, much heralded spring into summer counteroffensive was supposed to sever the land bridge between occupied Crimea and Russia. Since June, Ukrainian forces have advanced only about ten miles. The Russians were too deeply dug in; the ground was carpeted in landmines. And there was technology that no one expected, that these drones could basically target troops wherever they showed up. This is a new form of warfare. And as weak as the Russians' troops were, they turned out to be too strong to take on particularly in breaking these really tough lines. The Ukrainians were successful in attacking the Russian Black Sea fleet, forcing part of the fleet to move out of Sebastopol, but not enough to show that they could change the balance of the war.

And momentum is all, when it comes to wars, their tensions are reportedly rising between Zelensky, who's still playing the role of cheerleader in chief, and his top military commander. Zelensky still has very high popularity, but some of it is beginning to fray. And most important, as you noted, Ukraine's backers in the U.S. and Europe seem to be losing their enthusiasm for the fight. As we're taping this without knowing whether the U.S. Congress will approve another $60 billion plus in aid or how much more the EU is going to kick in, there is no question at this point that Putin's strategy is to hold on through the November '24 U.S. election. And he's betting that a Trump presidency will mean a complete U.S. and NATO abandonment and a defeat for Kyiv.

TOOSI:
Carla, I guess my question on Ukraine then is can we start calling it a frozen conflict? Or is it still too soon for that?

ROBBINS:
Well, the frightening thing is that it may not be a frozen conflict, it may be a conflict that Russia, if we back away, could win. For now, Russia is building up its resources. It's contracting for more drones from Iran, getting artillery shells from North Korea. It's calling up more troops. The sanctions are in place. There's still this oil price cap, which has lowered the price of Russian oil, but the Ural's crude is actually over sixty right now; it's around sixty-four. And they are getting stuff from the Chinese, they're getting stuff through Turkey. And Putin doesn't seem to mind killing thousands and thousands of his own people. And so frozen might be the best thing you could hope for in the near term.

The Americans are now counseling the Ukrainians quietly. "2024 should be a year in which you build up your defenses. We build up our ability to supply you because we are drawing low on munitions." Ukrainians are building their own defense production capabilities, but basically don't expect to gain back more territory in 2024. And the Ukrainians don't like that idea. And that's under the best of circumstances if we can continue to provide aid for them. 2024 is supposed to be the year of rebuilding, and then let's think about 2025.

MCMAHON:
The frozen conflict scenario also makes me think of something that has come up over the last year and a half, year and three-quarters from various quarters. It's been floated by the Russian side, has been floated by some in Western circles, which is Ukraine needs to get real and think about an off-ramp that includes Russia being allowed to possess some annexed area. I don't know if it's up to 20 percent of Ukraine, but some sort of formula that says, "Hey, we want Crimea back, but for the purpose of peace and to end this thing, we should maybe sue for a peace deal." It's extremely unpopular, but maybe it's less unpopular if we're looking at a situation in which Ukraine is running out of sources for proper defense as well as the morale and the public support that it has enjoyed.

ROBBINS:
Except I think Putin right now is, when you see he is building up his forces and his military stocks, I think he's licking his chops and thinking he wants more than 20 percent. He was betting when he first launched this attack, which is that the Americans and all democracies have limited attention spans and that he's going to be able to break the West and break Ukraine. And so I don't think he's going to negotiate anytime soon and he's waiting to see what happens in the 2024 elections.

The really frightening thing is that he may not have to wait until '24. The Republican-controlled Congress may be able to deliver what he wants even before then. But it is unimaginable to me that we could walk away and hand Ukraine to the Russians, but that's the unimaginable that we're staring right now. Now, will the Ukrainians stop fighting? I don't think they're going to stop fighting. But Nahal's question and your question, I don't think this is a frozen conflict, I think Ukraine is teetering on the brink.

Nahal, throughout 2023 migration from Ukraine and lots of other places is a major concern for many governments, from crossings in the dangerous Darien gap, mass exodus of Afghan refugees, people are moving at a rapidly growing rate driven by climate, war, lots of other reasons. Is migration going to be as intense in 2024 as it been in 2023? And is it going to be as disruptive politically as we'd seen it?

TOOSI:
Well, I don't know if anyone in Washington has ever been held accountable for incorrectly predicting anything, so here goes. Yes, I believe the migration crisis is only going to grow in the coming year. The factors that are driving much of the migration crisis aren't changing and in some cases are getting worse. Gang violence in Latin America is spreading. A country like Ecuador used to be relatively safe; it's not as safe anymore. Political instability remains a concern. Everyone should look at what's going on in Nicaragua right now. Let's not forget that migrants from countries well beyond Latin America are showing up at the U.S. southern border, even Chinese trying to get away from their increasingly authoritarian government. Then there's just the economic pull of the United States.

And this is what really gets me. Due to climate change, there are growing spots on this planet that are simply not livable. People have to move. And the world hasn't truly reckoned with this. We're already hearing a great deal about the migration crisis on the 2024 campaign trail. Even Democrats are increasingly frustrated and want stronger border controls.

But here's the sense I get from talking to diplomats and other observers of the United States. Republicans and maybe to some extent Democrats, but it's mainly Republicans have no political incentive to actually solve this migration crisis. There are plenty of proposals that could help ease the problem, and many of them are contained in the various comprehensive immigration reform ideas that have been put forth over the years. But immigration also is a topic that drives voters, especially those in the GOP base. It's a rallying cry. If lawmakers were to actually pass measures to fix the system, they'd, A) have less of a problem to yell about on the campaign trail, and B) could get blamed by primary challengers or conservative media, for instance, if there are still any problems that remain, which there will be because that's life and that's reality. What is the political incentive to solve this problem? You would think that the U.S. national interest would trump everything else, but in our polarized politics, maybe I'm too much of a cynic these days.

MCMAHON:
Nahal, how do you think that there is... looking at what you mentioned, the comprehensive reform package, there are elements of it that could be walked through? Amidst all the noise, maybe you get some sort of group from both parties. In the past, they call them wise men or whatever because there was only men. But some sort of group of let's say centrists or people who are trying to get things done who say, "Let's create some new rules regarding temporary workers," for example. That seems to be an area that gets looked past, but in fact, the U.S. has benefited from the availability of cheap labor for decades now. And a lot of it has come from illegal immigrants or immigrants whose status changed over the course of time for various reasons. But some sort of policy like that in addition to maybe it could be wrapped in with some extra border security or whatever that can work. Or is it just something we're going to have to wait until the 2024 elections before we can really move forward?

TOOSI:
I think that ahead of the election, the possibility of anything like piecemeal getting through is basically only if it's something that tightens immigration controls. I don't think you're going to see any moderates or whatever opening up to the idea of allowing in anyone additionally. In fact, what you are likely to see is more limits on asylum controls, border security, of course, anything that just makes it harder to get in. When Biden first took office, he actually didn't want to raise the refugee cap to what it used to be or above to make up for what Trump did in terms of decimating the refugee program because it was politically difficult. And this is Biden. And ultimately-

MCMAHON:
By the way, before Trump, it was a bipartisan thing that was a very high level. It was the highest in the world, I think, at least 75 thousand.

TOOSI:
Yep. Refugee program before Trump used to have solid bipartisan support. But that's also fallen victims who are partisan politics. But even Biden is aware of the politics. He's more aware of it than many of his aides are. I think if anything gets through at all, it's going to be something to restrict.

But I will also say nothing can seem to get through on its own anymore. Everything seems to be attached to something else. One of the complaints I'm hearing a lot about these days from other observers of our country is, "Why are you tying border security to Ukraine?" Why are you tying what they see as a domestic political issue to this international issue? And that makes it even harder to get things through. You would think that it would actually bring people together and think, "Okay, well I can compromise." But compromise is a dirty word nowadays in Washington, at least for some more than others. No, I don't see this happening prior to 2024, and I don't know if it's ever going to happen.

ROBBINS:
Although, we see this everywhere. Macron had had an immigration bill thrown out of Parliament, Sunak's having a terrible problem with his proposal to... It sounds so grotesque to move migrants to Rwanda. But at the same time, you look at a place like Columbia and you had a guy like Duque who campaigned fiercely against the other, against migrants. And then with this collapse in Venezuela, they took in hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. And Duque absolutely blew me away with that in Colombia. He did a complete 180 and the Colombian people followed. Why do you think we're not seeing any leadership on this?

TOOSI:
I think of the United States, it's again about winning elections. You want to appeal to the extremes. And for the GOP, the base is increasingly anti-immigrant. It's an issue that just drives them. And when you have a situation where we're so gerrymandered and redistricted in a way that you're not going to get challenged by someone who's more moderate than you, you're going to get challenged by someone who's more extreme, then you don't have a political incentive to find solutions to problems, you have incentives, actually, to somehow create problems or make sure problems continue to exist so that you can yell about something and get people to show up and vote for you.

But internationally, I find some of this very interesting. There are countries with major demographic declines who need people, whose governments are going around saying, "Please, women get married. Have babies. We need you to have babies." Like Japan, for instance. And yet it's like there's a pretty easy solution to this population crisis. You could just let in more immigrants, but then you have other factors that play-

MCMAHON:
Japan virtually lets in no immigrants.

TOOSI:
Yeah. And it's like-

ROBBINS:
But that's a completely homogeneous society, unlike our society.

TOOSI:
And to be really frank, many Japanese want to keep it that way. And somehow, I think in certain places, maybe some mindset and mentality has to change or you have to get to such a crisis point that you just have to deal. You have to make the hard decision. And I feel like leadership is increasingly defined these days by making hard decisions that you have no choice but to make, which to me isn't really leadership at all.

MCMAHON:
Yeah. And we should note the few places have tried it out, and it's continuing to be interesting to watch. Germany, under Angela Merkel, let in close to a million mostly Syrian migrants and legalize them and found a way to, in the German way... Not to be a cliche, but it's true. They brought them in, they trained them, apprenticed them, whatever needed to be done. These are people who were integrating into German society and are strengthening it and in addition to helping their own plight. And it can be done. Germany is in a lot of ways unique country and it also had paid politically. Its right has surged in resentment to some of this. And there's more people than ever trying to get to Germany through the southern rim of the Mediterranean countries and so forth. But they showed it can be done. And then you have other countries like the Nordics that have plowed money into supporting family growth to try to increase their birth levels and so forth because it becomes a civilizational thing. And there's the sort of blood and soil nationalism aspect as well.

TOOSI:
That's right. Bob, 2023 was filled with major elections. There were Argentina, the Netherlands, Thailand, Poland, and more. However, 2024 is something of a super election year. There will be elections in 40 countries. 2024's voters make up 41percent of the world's population and 42 percent of global GDP. With this seismic change in leadership, how well do you think democracy will hold next year?

MCMAHON:
Oh, boy. Well, we've been building to this so far, this podcast. It seems like every year there's a hold your breath moment with multiple elections. We certainly had them this year. And actually again, just as we were coming in to tape the podcast, there's news that Poland was in fact going to be ushering in a new government, a more reform minded government, a more pro-EU government after a great deal of internal maneuverings and working through processes that, based on the latest result, the government that had been leading it, the nationalist, a very high nationalist government of the last eight years is moving out and there's a more reformist government coming into Poland.

At the same time, the Netherlands, Geert Wilder's won a majority of the seats, but not a ruling majority. And there's a question of whether he's going to be able to put together a coalition and in some ways moderate some of his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim statements to be able to build a governable coalition in the Netherlands, because that was quite a bit of a shock for that country. We're seeing in Argentina the libertarian candidate, Javier Melei, who campaigned on a great deal of radical policies including getting rid of the peso stepping back a little bit from some of his harsh comments, including some of his personal ones. The pope is no longer an evil person, he's actually one of Argentina's most famous and most important citizens.

I say that to say that there is a great deal of theater that's going into these elections and then there's a little bit of pragmatism that comes in, but undeniably there's also a change factor that we have to be concerned about. There's just a tumult factor as well. 

The first election coming up in the year ahead, as you staked out, almost half the planet voting, is in Taiwan, which is a sovereign entity with high degrees of functioning democratic institutions, by the way, and which China is very intent on trying to undermine. They would like to have a pro-China candidate elected president there from the Kuomintang party. It seems like the existing party, the Democratic Progressive Party's candidate is going to be the winner there, which is going to set in motion further rounds of tensions, maybe some gestures from China. It's not above sending a few military flights over or some sort of demonstration in the Straits of Taiwan to show its displeasure with Taiwan's assertiveness of its sovereignty. Taiwan is one to watch. Mid-January those elections take place.

And then there's a whole series of other big ones. Asia is going to be a place where most of the people vote the very next month, February, Indonesia, huge sprawling democracy, largest Muslim population in the world, is holding an election in which it seems like the current president, Joko Widodo is trying to entrench a dynasty by having his son run as the running mate of a extremely authoritarian-minded defense minister, Prabowo Subianto. We're going to have to watch Indonesia very closely and see what direction they go in.

There going to be elections in the spring, or set to take place in the spring in India, the largest democracy in the world, where Narendra Modi has done quite extraordinary things, actually, in raising India's geopolitical role and in boosting their economy, but also has really raised up Hindu nationalism there in concerning ways. India has a track record, though, of running very straightforward, solid elections, so we'll have to see how that policy plays out. And that's a very time-consuming election that will take many weeks to play out.

South Africa's election is going to be hard fought. There are some conjecture that the African National Congress with the long-time dominant party in post-apartheid South Africa is going to finally fall aside, others think it'll muster through. But it's one after the other there's a sense of big things at stake, and it's not clear what's going to happen.

TOOSI:
One question I'm curious about, I'm not an election expert in terms of the mechanics, does one election impact other elections globally? If a strong man wins in Indonesia, does that mean that it's going to have some sort of an influence on an election in another country and who does well there? Is that really a thing or is it really more about local and national interests?

MCMAHON:
That's a really good question. And I think you could exaggerate that aspect of this tide happening in a region where there's so many different countries, but let's look at Europe. The populist parties, and most of them are of the right, they're not all right wing, but most of them are of the right wing, they've galvanized each other. And Geert Wilder's win, that registered among the AfD party in Germany, for example, and some of the other rightist parties. It was welcomed by somebody like Viktor Orbán of Hungary, who's proudly touts his illiberal approach to democratic governance. And so depending on the region, it can have a galvanizing effect. Javier Melei was cheered by libertarians in the United States, for example. And former President Trump expressed desire to go to his swearing in, for example. There is that registering effect.

I recall even in a referendum vote, the Brexit vote in the summer of 2016, that, I think, was a real boost to populist forces in certain places and especially in the United States. What's interesting about that, I would note, however, is given the UK's performance in the Brexit period, I think it's chilled a lot of this exit type campaign. You've seen even in France among their nationalists, you're not seeing as much call for exiting the EU as you are for other policies, especially like anti-immigration measures and things like that. As I said, you should have a dose of pragmatism as you look at the way these results play out. Italy's another one where everybody was really concerned about the candidate Meloni winning and her party's roots in fascist Italy and the pre-World War II era. She's been a bit more pragmatic on a number of fronts as well.

ROBBINS:
Bob, we spent a lot of time in previous years talking about Russian interference in elections. And certainly, their return on investments pretty high if you look at what Orbán is doing right now and holding up aid for Ukraine. Do we see any Russian meddling, whether sending money or disinformation in any of these elections? Or is Moscow so otherwise engaged, including a major cyber attack right now in Kyiv?

MCMAHON:
They seem to be routinely active in the European elections, Carla. They were running a pretty big campaign, for example, in the recent Slovak elections that brought back a populist figure there.

ROBBINS:
Yeah, Fico.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, Fico who is against bolstering aid to Ukraine and has taken a number of positions that are sort of seen as pro-Russian. There are other issues at play in Slovakia, but it's safe to say that Russia is going to be active in those areas. It's going to be active in the Balkans. I think this coming week, for example, there's going to be some parliamentary elections in Serbia. You can count on some sort of Russian nefarious disinformation campaigns. It's really built in. And by the way, it's quite sophisticated in the way they integrate themselves into local debates and create all sorts of misdirection and just outright false information to sort of sully the waters. Russia's definitely involved there. What's interesting is the extent to which non-Russian countries will be covering the Russian elections. Russian elections are being held in March. No doubt Putin is going to be getting a rubber stamp.

TOOSI:
I'm biting my nails over that.

MCMAHON:
Are you biting your nails? But he's concerned enough that he's holding the elections, which is something you see again and again with autocrats. Well, you don't see what the Chinese. But he's concerned enough to hold elections and be able to say he's being returned by popular decree. And worryingly so, we have seen recent reports that Alexei Navalny has disappeared from his penal colony. He hasn't been seen in almost a week. He was in very bad shape at the last reports that we saw. And here's someone who was put away for something like eighteen or nineteen years, had lost a lot of his voice and his clout, and yet was enough of a concern that Russia is continuing to press on him and to silence him as much as it can. And we're not sure whether he's going to emerge again or not.

It's just a case of how do you penetrate Russia in society that's been so closed off and that they punish even the use of the word war in relation to Ukraine? How do you then penetrate that so that people can know what their choices are and what their options are? The answer is it's very different. Obviously Russia has an imbalance there where they can exploit open Western societies. But there's still a way to get information through in this wired age we're in, and so it will be interesting to see what sort of approach let's say Western funded media organizations... And I'm thinking of my old shop, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, how much they're going to try to cover the issues at hand the state of Russian society and whether or not people will make a decision to not vote or hold their nose and vote for some sort of token candidate, which we've seen in the past.

Well, I deliberately did not mention one election coming up at the end of the year, which is the big one that most countries are looking towards, and that's the U.S. presidential election. Carla, we're closing out our discussion on this election because it has outsized importance on the world stage. Is the world prepared for a second Biden term or return of Donald Trump potentially?

ROBBINS:
God, I think we cue the theme song from Jaws right now. Bob, Nahal, you recall the sharp hit U.S. standing took during the George W. Bush years, especially after the 2003 Iraq War, all the reporting on U.S., 9/11 excesses, and also the financial crisis. And once Obama was elected, there was this collective sigh of relief that America had returned to its senses. And the wave of relief after Biden was elected was different and much more cautious. U.S. allies were really traumatized by the Trump years, the former president's threats to abandon NATO, pull U.S. troops out of Germany, the attempt to shake down South Korea and Japan, all that pandering to Putin and Kim Jong-un many European leaders were questioning the reliability of the U.S. system as much as the leader throughout all that Trump years.

And then you had January 6th and the gridlock and Capitol Hill, and Trump's continued dominance of the Republican Party have all continued to reinforce those doubt. And the latest sign, of course, what we were talking about, this fight over whether the U.S. Congress will approve additional funding for Ukraine, and really every time I talk to a European official, the question is, "Is he going to come back?" You don't even have to ask them who they're talking about when they ask. They're talking about Trump. I heard Senator J.D. Vance from Ohio telling CNN when he was talking about Ukraine, "What's in America's best interest is to accept Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians. And we need to bring this war to a close." I can't have a conversation with a European diplomat or with an Asian diplomat for that matter in which the first question is, "Is he going to win? And if he wins, how much worse is it going to be than last time?"

TOOSI:
My conversations are similar without delving too much into it because they tend to be off the record. But I will ask, let's just say that Nikki Haley ends up winning the whole thing, let's just say it happens, Carla, how different will things really be?

ROBBINS:
Well, which Nikki Haley are we talking about? That's a really interesting question. You had Nikki Haley who was the ambassador to the UN for Donald Trump. She speaks like an internationalist these days. There's a lot of hope that people are putting on that she represents much more of if not a George H.W. Bush Republican, at least a George W. Bush Republican and more of an internationalist engaged in the world Republican. That Bush-Baker Republican Party has been pretty weak. You don't even hear Romney speaking particularly fiercely these days. We thought perhaps he or Mitch McConnell were going to go to the mattresses over aid for Ukraine, and right now all they're talking about is, "The Democrats have to compromise on immigration or even we aren't going to back the funding for Ukraine." Hard to tell who Nikki Haley is because it's hard to tell who the Republican Party is.

MCMAHON:
Yeah, I think part of it is also what Americans see themselves as and how American society organizes itself and how it comes through a real test here. We talk about the rest of the world and their ability to hold free and fair elections, but that's part of one of the big stories of this year. Will the U.S. be able to hold elections that are, by their merits, held properly, the counting is done properly, and then that are not going to be undermined by subterfuge, by willfulness, by claims of a losing candidate?

And that was a huge test. Obviously in the 2020 elections, it yielded the January 6th Capitol Hill attack that's still shocking and is now being denied by too many people. But it's a sense of the U.S. in terms of its ability to run a successful election, and a credible election. And then it's a sense of itself internationally. Even if it comes through this test, what does it see as its place in the world? Does it want to be a leader in the world? You get the sense of a country that's wearied, whether it's the J.D. Vance type comments, you mentioned, Carla, or comments by more veteran lawmakers, you get a sense that collectively, they're tired of the U.S. playing this major assertive role in bailing out countries like Ukraine around the world and wanting to take care of its own business first. This is this border versus Ukraine debate. It's hugely politicized, obviously, but there is an element there that's striking a chord with people, especially Republicans, but not exclusively, certainly some independents. And it's a question of what the country sees its role in the world and its sense of security in the world.

What's also odd as we go into this year as we're wrapping up a year with the U.S. economy, the envy of the developed world in a lot of ways in terms of its growth levels, its strengths, and yet there's a great deal of angst and disappointment and frustration in many, many places, especially many places that hold a swing voting role going into this year. I feel like it's just a giant gut check for the U.S. domestically, and then that has a throughline to its global posture.

ROBBINS:
I think, Bob, you've made an incredibly important point here, which is people can disagree about the U.S. responsibility internationally. There's an enormous history of the United States debating our level of commitment internationally. Are we more of an isolationist country? Are we going out in search of monsters to slay? And all of that. But our commitment to democracy, our commitment to fair play, not questioning the results of elections, that's what has been so disturbing since 2020, questioning the fundamental rules of the game here. That didn't happen in this country before. Am I going to guarantee that I'm going to get death threats now?

MCMAHON:
Not just from Trump but from Trump world, Carla.

Well, and on that note, we wrap up The World Next Year. To all our regular listeners, we hope you've enjoyed this special episode. Tune in Thursday, January 4th, 2024 for our regular World Next Week episode. Nahal, thanks so much for joining us.

TOOSI:
Happy to join you both.

ROBBINS:
Thank you, Nahal, for coming on the show.

MCMAHON:
Be sure to listen to CFR's other podcast, Why it Matters, as well as The President's Inbox and the Foreign Affairs Interview. They also have great conversations to close out this 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 a 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 host and guest, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

Today's program was produced by Ester Fang with Director of Podcasting Gabrielle Sierra. Special thanks to Sinet Adous and Kaitlyn Esperon for their assistance. Our theme music is provided by Markus Zakaria. This is Carla Robbins saying so long, and see you in 2024.

TOOSI:
This is Nahal Toosi signing off, and good riddance to 2023.

MCMAHON:
And this is Bob McMahon saying goodbye, and have a happy, healthy new year.