The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole
Not the best of all years. Annus Horriblus.
Gaza: Genocide continues and seems likely to be successful. I’d guess the actual casualties are somewhere north of 700K at this point, they sure aren’t anywhere close to the official numbers. Never again meant nothing.
Hezbollah: Held the Israelis off on the ground, but were devastated by Mossad assassinations and terrorism (the cell phone attack) plus a bombing campaign against civilians they were unwilling to endure. Some signs the war may start up again after the 60 day ceasefire, but without air defense, I don’t think they have it in them to tough it out. Could be wrong.
Syria: I don’t know anyone who expected the Syrian army to collapse the way it did. Israel’s occupied an area about 4X that of Gaza and destroyed most of the Syrian army’s stockpiles, plane and air defenses. Syria’s pretty much defenseless. Some signs of a guerilla war starting against the new “government”. Meanwhile Turkey and its proxies are hammering the Kurds.
Iran: the leadership has proved extremely cautious, though the youngs in the Revolutionary Guard are not and when Khamenei dies, there may be a change in policy. Proved that Israel can’t stop their missile attacks, but unwilling to use them except under extreme provocation and pressure from the youngs. Lost their Syrian ally and Hezbollah has taken hard hits, while the population has lost faith in the system. Not a good year for them.
Russia: continues to grind forward in Ukraine. Economy is doing very well, thanks and they’re now arguably the 4th largest economy in the world, having overtaken Germany. Solid alliance with China. Pretty good year, actually.
Ukraine War: Russia’s winning and all signs are that the Ukrainian army is running out of manpower. Assuming Putin doesn’t accept a peace deal (he shouldn’t, unless Trump offers a better deal than Trump’s likely to offer) I expect the Ukrainian army to collapse in 2025 and the war to go big arrow. Most likely the war will end in a humiliating surrender, perhaps even an unconditional one.
Europe: Industrial collapse, especially in Germany. Germany and France are now ungovernable by either the center-right or left. France is being kicked out of Africa. China is buying fewer and fewer German cars and European goods. America is cannibalizing European industry thanks to lower energy costs. Without a massive turnaround in policy Europe is headed for a massive decline. Wouldn’t expect EU collapse in 2025, but 2026 is possible.
America: Continues its slow decline. Cannibalizing its allies industry to try to sustain itself. Largely unable to create new tech outside of the information sector. Costs are insane, the rabble are getting uppity and Trump is likely to pursue policies better for oligarchs than ordinary people. Loss in Ukraine will be a huge hit to American prestige and power.
Massive eighteen percent increase in homelessness, even as billionaires have doubled their wealth since 2020.
Yemen: The only truly moral nation in the world, as the only one going all out to try and stop a genocide. I don’t like their ideology much, but when they’re the only people standing up, so what?
Anglosphere (Canada, Britain, Australia): experimented with massive immigration and its skyrocked housing and rent and caused massive political instability. Labour and the Canadian Liberals will lose their next elections, but the people who will replace them are Trump-style tards and decline will continue even as looting of the public sector intensifies.
China: Slowing growth but still doing fine, thanks. Massive investment in industry, has taken the lead in about 80% of tech fields, including electric vehicles and drones. Pumping out naval vessels like there’s no tomorrow and has over a 1,000 ICBMs now. Moving up the semiconductor chain far faster than almost anyone (except me) predicted. Eating America and Europe’s lunch in the developing world, since they offer cheaper goods, development and loans without the hypocritcal lectures about human rights.
Generally speaking the decline of the American empire, the rise of a new cold war, the end of neoliberal globalization and the age of revolution and war are all on track as I predicted years ago. Climate change is accelerating, we’re ignoring it and morons are worried about population decline while humanity is in vast population overshoot. This isn’t the worst year of your life, it’s the best year of the rest of your life in geopolitical, economic and ecological terms.
Annus Horribulus will return next year.
Jay
The best part of the population overshoot story is that the population cull will happen under our current world order which means that those who are and will be dying (global south modtly) are, per capita, polluting the least. Meaning, those places sustain a greater population with far fewer emissions. Meanwhile, those who have historically emitted the most and continue to do so on a per capita basis, will continue to exist and likely under the exact same extractive fossil fuel society.
Beyond the anglosphere we will see, once again like almost exactly one century ago, the west turning towards fascism, for the reasons outlined by Ian here. This time there is no USSR and no Stalin to actually defeat them in a real war. After a century of propaganda and assassinations of any real left leaders the left is broken, especially in the west. And as history has amply demonstrated there is really only one group that was principled enough to fight fascists to the end.
You can see the turn towards fascism in the rhetoric around mass immigration. From left liberals all the way to the far right end of the political spectrum, the blame for increased costs and reduced services is falling on the feet of South Asians. While a simple, surface level, analysis reveals some truth to this, economic theory says as much, the lack of a real left means that the slow decline of e.g. health care and other services alongside a domestic housing market structured to enrich developers and landlords are not attributed to their real causes – a class which exists to enrich itself at the expense of most of humanity.
At a moral level, finally, history would show us that the very development and quality of life enjoyed in the west (canada and the us especially) is a direct result of the British theft of India. There is no leg to stand on. And now the ancestors of the murderous thieves complain that the ancestors of the oppressed are invading their land and… working the low wage jobs. Despite the fact that they can even really only get here because of a system that devalues their humanity and, thus, their economic value. A system built and maintained by those ancestors of the murderous thieves.
I don’t mean to say South Asians are only victims. However, each human uses their agency under the conditions in which they find themselves. And we live in a world structured, at its base, by the history of imperialism and colonialism of the west of the rest of the world.
mago
The only thing that’s going to change tomorrow is the page, picture and date on the calendar, while violence, decay and decline drag inexorably on.
Having spouted that gloomy prognosis, I still believe in magic and the sacred world. So go team go.
A most cheerful New Year to all!
Dan Lynch
Pretty good wrap up by Ian. I will only add that, due to all the exciting events of 2024, climate change has been ignored more than usual, but might force itself back onto the headlines in 2025.
I’ve never been good at timing markets, and won’t make any predictions, but it’s easy to call out some possible economic headwinds in 2025. Inflation, which our elites tend to deal with by inducing unemployment. DOGE. A GOP Congress. Losing the Ukraine war. Bird Flu getting out of control. The never ending possibility of a major escalation in the Middle East. It’s hard to imagine anything good happening in the U.S. in 2025.
Some Guy
Seems like a fair summary Ian.
The demographic case is interesting to me. I am 100% on board with your view that fewer people on the planet is a very good thing. At the same time, birth rates have gotten *so* low, and are continuing to fall, that I foresee the potential for some dramatic impacts of this in decades to come.
I am not much for predictions, but I do see some economic risks for the US in the coming years. Their deficit is so high (considering the economy is at full employment), and their inflation remains stubbornly high and Trump’s instinct will be to push for bigger deficits and looser policy and more inequality and it is just hard to see it ending well. In the short term, this financial pressure is raising US interest rates higher than in many other countries (10 yr bond yields: US 4.6%, Canada 3.3%, France 3.2%, Korea 2.8%, etc.). For now, these higher rates are pushing the USD higher, and people are treating that as a sign of US economic strength, but having higher interest rates due to higher inflation and big deficits is not a sustainable path to either a higher currency or economic strength. For example, see Turkey (27.2%), Brazil (15.1%), Pakistan (12.5%), etc. As you say, the cost structure is out of control.
One trend I expect to continue on under the radar is just a continuation of strengthening of the economic might of South East Asia (Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia etc.). This part of the world has been doing a good job of staying out of trouble the last few years (how many headlines have you heard referencing any of these countries?), and the longer they can do that, the more they will strengthen their position as the ‘West’ flounders, China slows and the Middle East burns.
Of course, it is all relative: ongoing environmental overshoot, depletion of key resources , social media psychosis (brain rot), moral decay and all the other accumulated problems of capitalism will mean that any country that can manage to just not go backwards will be doing better than most of the others.
Should be a fun year…
different clue
Looks like 2025 will be off to a bad start. Here is a posting from the EhBuddyHoser subreddit titled: Fucking Traitors. Who else is on the list of traitors?
It is about someone who I gather is reasonably famous in the political-influence system of Canada going to Mar a Lago to “get the two-countries unification narrative” going.
https://www.reddit.com/r/EhBuddyHoser/comments/1hqfdzr/fucking_traitors_who_else_is_on_the_list_of/
forewarned is forearmed hopefully
GlassHammer
Not sure if others noticed but in the U.S. the retirement of the Boomers and the shrinking population has already created a labor famine in different sectors of the economy. (Particularly Blue Collar labor which was until recently full of Boomers.)
Because the U.S. (and other Western/Developed countries) concentrate labor into hot (highly demanded) sectors of the economy and regionally concentrate them as well, you end up with a very small labor pool in the outer regions (countryside, mountains, plains, etc…). And the outer regions is where you have a chance at an affordable home and affordable cost of living.
So in the outer regions the cost of labor (from road crews, to linemen, to mechanics, electricians, plumber, etc….) is just going up and up because their aren’t that many workers or companies so they can charge a great deal because demand is high and there is little competition.
capelin
Happy New Year to All of Faire Heart !
Thank You Ian
Good summary. Good comments.
I guess the things I would add are,
the Covid measures fallout,
the radio-silence regarding Covid measures fallout and accountability,
and the continued implementation of hyper-national control systems – pandemic treaties (supercedes national laws in event of “event”, as decided by the un-elected), digital-id-creep, etc.
Weird times. Thinking of all the Gaza’s. Curled up in bed, mind flashes to people similarily cacooned, in tunnels on the pointy end of opposing empire, feeling the massive bombs, heard 50 miles away. How many were buried alive as I slept?
Sweet dreams, and up and a it for another day/year, do what one can to make it all better.