As 2023 drew to a close, who wouldn’t have wanted to press the “reset” button? But take heart. “Never assume that the obvious is true,” to quote New York Times columnist William Safire.
So, in the spirit of Safire’s annual year-end “Office Pool” quiz, place your bets for the year ahead. And remember, as Safire said, “Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.”
As any crystal-ball gazer knows, there aren’t “right” or “wrong” answers here. Your guesses about the “known unknowns” ahead might be better than mine. And beware, for some questions, I chose more than one answer – or none at all.
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Ukraine
On Dec. 31, 2024, the status of the war in Ukraine will be:
1. Russian defeat, after the United States and Europe increase military assistance.
2. Ukrainian defeat, after House Republicans refuse to approve more U.S. military assistance.
3. A continued military stalemate, with Ukrainian partisans fighting a guerrilla war behind Russian lines.
4. A cease-fire, with a post-Zelensky Ukrainian government negotiating a new border that would divide Russian-controlled territory and Ukrainian-controlled territory.
5. A wider war that spreads to NATO territory after escalation by both Ukraine and Russia.
6. None of the above.
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Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin will close 2024 as:
1. A reelected president of Russia.
2. A former president of Russia who has retired to pursue his passions for judo and bare-chested horseback riding.
3. A war criminal who has been convicted by the International Criminal Court.
4. An embattled leader struggling to suppress secession movements in Chechnya, Dagestan and Siberia.
5. Deceased, following an unexplained air crash.
6. None of the above.
***
Saudi Arabia
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s biggest surprise in 2024 will be:
1. Nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize after his decision to normalize relations with Israel and champion a Palestinian state.
2. A massive cyberattack on Saudi Aramco that cripples the kingdom’s oil industry for several weeks.
3. Growing internal dissent over normalization of relations with Israel that forces him to appoint a deputy crown prince and pardon political prisoners and exiles.
4. A Biden administration defense pact with Qatar to prevent MBS from seizing its vast gas reserves.
5. Jared Kushner and Greg Norman accept honorary Saudi citizenship.
6. The NFL decides to host the next Super Bowl in Riyadh.
7. None of the above.
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Gaza
The Gaza war will end with:
1. Benjamin Netanyahu’s replacement as prime minister.
2. Civil unrest in the West Bank between the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli settlers.
3. Continuing violence in Gaza that can’t be fully suppressed by Israel, the Palestinian Authority or the international peacekeeping force assigned to maintain order.
4. Wider conflicts in Lebanon and Iran as Israel seeks to preempt any future threat of ballistic missile or nuclear attack.
5. Reduced American military support for Israel.
6. None of the above.
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CIA
The CIA’s biggest surprise in 2024 will be:
1. Recruiting another agent inside Chinese President Xi Jinping’s inner circle.
2. Canada is caught interfering in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
3. The director of national intelligence announces a reduction in ODNI staff to avoid overlap with the 18 intelligence agencies it oversees.
4. A string of truck bomb explosions in Latin America, Asia and Europe, with a previously unknown group called “Martyrs of Gaza” claiming responsibility.
5. Development of artificial intelligence “virtual case officers” to spot, develop and recruit spies overseas.
6. None of the above.
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North Korea
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un will stun the world in 2024 by:
1. Providing 155mm ammunition to Ukraine, beating out a rival offer by South Korea.
2. Launching a flotilla of balloons toward the United States, each carrying giant loudspeakers repeating the national slogan: “Let us build a fairyland for the people by dint of science!”
3. Naming his fourth child “Mar-a-Lago.”
4. Testing a hypersonic cruise missile that could attack the United States, using technology obtained from Russia.
5. Announcing that he would be ready to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States if Donald Trump is reelected president.
6. None of the above.
***
Technology
The most significant technology development of 2024 will be:
1. An AI-driven influence campaign to sway the 2024 presidential election, whose impact cannot be measured, leaving the outcome of the election permanently in question.
2. A quantum computer so powerful that it can use Shor’s algorithm to break any encryption scheme and decode all secret intelligence cables and bank transactions.
3. A large-language model far more powerful than ChatGPT-4 that can communicate with other LLMs and create what scientists describe as “super-intelligence,” whose powers aren’t fully understood.
4. The United States and China conduct government-to-government dialogue about how to address security threats from powerful AIs.
5. None of the above.
***
Economy
The biggest economic story of 2024 will be:
1. Huge federal deficits finally spook the bond market and make borrowing costs jump.
2. Inflation reaccelerates, the Fed raises interest rates (instead of cutting them), the stock market declines and the U.S. economy veers toward recession.
3. After China’s Xi Jinping renews his focus on a market economy, the country’s depressed stock market soars and investors rush back in.
4. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman launches a new CNN feature called “Paul’s Charts” to compete with Steve Rattner on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
5. Sabotage disrupts chip production in Taiwan, causing a sudden shortage of high-performance computer chips and a crash in tech stocks.
6. Oil demand reaccelerates as the global economy rebounds and prices soar above $100 a barrel.
7. None of the above.
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Military
The most destabilizing and potentially dangerous military trend of 2024 will be:
1. Attacks by armed drones, whose origin is unknown, on civilian areas outside combat zones.
2. The development of small, high-powered microwaves to inject malware from a distance, using satellites, drones and other autonomous systems.
3. U.S. intelligence concerns that a future Chinese research station on the moon will serve as a military base.
4. The proliferation of orbital bombardment weapons, pioneered by China, that can suddenly descend from space and destroy cities by sheer kinetic force, without a nuclear explosion.
5. A rush by all major cyber powers to “prepare the battlefield” for future conflict by inserting malware that, when activated, could cripple transportation, energy and communications systems around the world.
6. None of the above.
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Journalism
The news-business shocker of the year will be:
1. Substack launches a creator-driven television news site that quickly overtakes CNN.
2. Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washington Post, buys TikTok and creates an iconoclastic 21st-century news product to attract a younger audience.
3. The International Herald Tribune, bought in 2002 by the New York Times and rebranded as its International Edition, makes a comeback as an independent online newspaper publishing simultaneously in 10 languages.
4. Elon Musk sells X for $1 to his biographer Walter Isaacson, who reinvents it as a global news site “X-tra.”
5. Local news stages a comeback as communities across the United States support high-quality online local news sites.
6. None of the above.
***
My predictions: Ukraine: 3; Russia: 1, 3; Saudi Arabia: 7; Gaza: 1, 2, 3, 4; CIA: 5; North Korea: 5; Technology: 3, 4; Economy: 2, 3, 6; Military: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; Journalism: 5.
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