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한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, combined with a Republican-led US Senate, was widely feared among international allies and will be cheered by some of America’s foes. While the former put on a brave face, the latter are finding it hard to hide their glee.  On the war in Ukraine, Trump is likely to try to force Kyiv and Moscow into at least a ceasefire along the current front lines. This could possibly involve a permanent settlement that would acknowledge Russia’s territorial gains, including the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the territories occupied since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  It is also likely that Trump would accept demands by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to prevent a future Ukrainian Nato membership. Given Trump’s well-known animosity to Nato, this would also be an important pressure on Kyiv’s European allies. Trump could, once again, threaten to abandon the alliance in order to get Europeans to sign up to a deal with Putin over Ukraine.  When it comes to the Middle East, Trump has been a staunch supporter of Israel and Saudi Arabia in the past. He is likely to double down on this, including by taking an even tougher line on Iran. This aligns well with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current priorities.  Netanyahu seems determined to destroy Iran’s proxies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen and severely degrade Iranian capabilities. By dismissing his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, a critic of his conduct of the offensive in Gaza, Netanyahu has laid the ground for a continuation of the conflict there.  It also prepares for a widening of the offensive in Lebanon and a potentially devastating strike against Iran in response to any further Iranian attack on Israel.  Trump’s election will embolden Netanyahu to act. And this in turn would also strengthen Trump’s position towards Putin, who has come to depend on Iranian support for his war in Ukraine. Trump could offer to restrain Netanyahu in the future as a bargaining chip with Putin in his gamble to secure a deal on Ukraine.  Pivot to China  While Ukraine and the Middle East are two areas in which change looms, relations with China will most likely be characterised more by continuity than by change. With Chinese relations being perhaps the key strategic foreign policy challenge for the US, the Biden administration continued many of the policies Trump adopted in his first term – and Trump is likely to double down on them in a second term.  A Trump White House is likely to increase import tariffs, and he has talked a great deal about using them to target China. But Trump is also just as likely to be open to pragmatic, transactional deals with Chinese president Xi Jinping. Just like in relations with his European allies in Nato, a serious question mark hangs over Trump’s commitment to the defence of Taiwan and other treaty allies in Asia, including the Philippines, South Korea, and potentially Japan. Trump is at best lukewarm on US security guarantees.  But as his on-and-off relationship with North Korea in his first term demonstrated, Trump is, at times, willing to push the envelope dangerously close to war. This happened in 2017 in response to a North Korean test of intercontinental ballistic missiles.  The unpredictability of the regime in Pyongyang makes another close brush of this kind as likely as Trump’s unpredictability makes it conceivable that he would accept a nuclear-armed North Korea as part of a broader deal with Russia, which has developed increasingly close relations with Kim Jong-un’s regime.  Doing so would give Trump additional leverage over China, which has been worried over growing ties between Russia and North Korea.  Preparing for a Trump White House  Friends and foes alike are going to use the remaining months before Trump returns to the White House to try to improve their positions and get things done that would be more difficult to do once he is in office.  An expectation of a Trump push for an end to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East is likely to lead to an intensification of the fighting there to create what the different parties think might be a more acceptable status quo for them. This does not bode well for the humanitarian crises already brewing in both regions.  Increasing tensions in and around the Korean peninsula are also conceivable. Pyongyang is likely to want to boost its credentials with yet more missile – and potentially nuclear – tests.  A ratcheting-up of the fighting in Europe and the Middle East and of tensions in Asia is also likely to strain relations between the US and its allies in all three regions. In Europe, the fear is that Trump may make deals with Russia over the head of its EU and Nato allies and threaten them with abandonment.  This would undermine the longevity of any Ukrainian (or broader European) deal with Moscow. The relatively dismal state of European defence capabilities and the diminishing credibility of the US nuclear umbrella would not but help to encourage Putin to push his imperial ambitions further once he has secured a deal with Trump.  In the Middle East, Netanyahu would be completely unrestrained. And yet while some Arab regimes might cheer Israel striking Iran and Iranian proxies, they will worry about backlash over the plight of Palestinians. Without resolving this perennial issue, stability in the region, let alone peace, will be all but impossible.  In Asia, the challenges are different. Here the problem is less US withdrawal and more an unpredictable and potentially unmanageable escalation. Under Trump, it is much more likely that the US and China will find it hard to escape the so-called Thucydides trap – the inevitability of war between a dominant but declining power and its rising challenger.  This then raises the question of whether US alliances in the region are safe in the long term or whether some of its partners, like Indonesia or India, will consider realigning themselves with China.  At best, all of this spells greater uncertainty and instability – not only after Trump’s inauguration but also in the months until then.  At worst, it will prove the undoing of Trump’s self-proclaimed infallibility. But by the time he and his team come to realise that geopolitics is a more complicated affair than real estate, they may have ushered in the very chaos that they have accused Biden and Harris of. 

한국어로 읽기Leer en españolIn Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربيةLire en françaisЧитать на русском Iran’s leadership crisis may have come at an important time for the US, amid an ongoing political slugfest at home in an election cycle and a litmus test for US relations with Israel. In the wake of the helicopter crash that tragically claimed the lives of President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran finds itself at a critical juncture, grappling with both internal and external challenges. Foremost among them is its relationship with the US. Iran is in the middle of a tense regional competition with Israel over the latter’s war in Gaza with Hamas. Washington is invariably drawn into what constitutes a historically contested triad shaping stability and instability in broader West Asia. Iran’s leadership crisis may have come at an important time for the US, amid an ongoing political slugfest at home in an election cycle and a litmus test for US relations with Israel. Two factors, however, are likely to dampen any US expectations from Iran. Iran’s topmost leadership remains intact under the aegis of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the next president will be expected to meet the benchmarks set by previous leaders. For the US, the Iran challenge is likely to remain complex, both due to the leadership transition inside Iran and the growing regional power and influence projected by Tehran. If the Biden administration, despite its initial will, couldn’t bind Iran within the constraints of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a possible Trump presidency would be even less likely to succeed. Regional anti-American sentiments in West Asia, especially among Iran and its proxy groups, seem further entrenched. However, the Biden administration has an opportunity to mitigate regional hostilities by fostering a Saudi-US détente, which remains on the table but is heavily dependent on how much influence Washington can wield with Israel’s highly conservative cabinet in restraining its behaviour in Gaza. Iran’s regional outlook and relations with the US may not be poised for significant shifts, given the predictability associated with the regime, yet the challenge of nurturing inter-generational leaders looms large for Iran. Leadership succession in Iran’s internal politics has always been meticulously planned and nurtured over the years, undergoing a rigorous process to ensure continuity. Internally, Iran faces a crucial test of its leadership amid a situation it has not encountered in decades. However, there is solace in the fact that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei remains alive, poised to select the most suitable candidate. Internally, the vacuum left by the untimely demise of two top leaders presents a crisis as well as an opportunity. However, the socio-cultural divergence with the West, exemplified by the Iranian leadership’s lingering reluctance to embrace any change, may continue to strain the relationship. The crisis in leadership compounds this internal struggle, as no state wishes to appear leaderless during times of uncertainty. Externally, the challenges for Iran are manifold, particularly in filling the leadership void that has been growing since the death of General Qasem Soleimani in 2020 after a US-targeted strike. The new leadership in Iran will be tested in how it continues to project its regional influence and maintain the momentum of clandestine efforts it has propagated across its axis. Internationally, the Iranian leadership’s challenge will primarily be in its tussle with the West on the one hand and maintaining poise in its relationships with varied actors such as China, Russia, and India, all while avoiding Western sanctions. Iran, which has been persistently characteristic in its distinct political stance even in the face of sanctions and regional tensions, has found an alternative axis of support, most notably through partnerships with China and Russia. Besides, Iran has fostered a network of regional support through proxy groups such as Hezbollah, Kataib Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and others. This solidarity axis is now bolstered by a shared commitment to the Palestinian cause. However, the post-October 7, 2023, landscape has seen a nuanced shift in perceptions, including those of regional Arab leaders. As such, the current period is particularly tumultuous in West Asiawith the unabating Israel-Hamas conflict. The loss of key figures in Iran’s leadership couldn’t have come at a worse time, especially as Iran finds itself at a crossroads, balancing unfinished conflicts and shifting regional loyalties. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran is now enriching uranium to as much as 60% purity and possesses enough of this material that, if further enriched, could be sufficient for two nuclear weapons. Now that the ‘breakout’ time is close to zero, there are strong incentives for keeping Tehran engaged through the IAEA, if not bilaterally. Despite the seeming belligerence of Iran’s leadership, avoiding war and efforts towards regional peace and stability lie at the core of Tehran’s long-term regional vision. Just a week before the fatal crash, Iran’s foreign minister met with the IAEA chief, and Iran engaged with US officials through intermediaries in Oman on how to avoid the risks of a wider regional war. If anything, these efforts show that both the Biden administration and the Iranian leadership are still willing to sit at the table. That may not be bad inspiration for the next generation of leaders in Tehran to pick up from. This commentary originally appeared in Deccan Herald. The views expressed above belong to the author(s).