What challenges will 2019 bring to the world: "Unthinkable things", the new face of terrorism...

World newspapers use the first day of 2019 to assess what the world's main challenges are and how best to respond to them.

2019: The Year of the Wolves

The New York Times (The New York Times) estimates that 2019 will be the year when cruel and previously unimaginable things could happen.

“It will be a year of divided government and unprecedented party conflict. It will be a year in which US President Donald Trump is isolated and unrestrained like never before. And in this atmosphere, the indictments will be overturned, which will cause not only a political, but also a constitutional crisis.

There are now more than a dozen investigations into Trump's various scandals. If we lived in a sane society, the indictments that followed would be dealt with seriously - excruciating congressional hearings, impartial judicial proceedings. They would all back down and be sobered by the fact that our legal system is at stake. But we don't live in a healthy society and we don't have a healthy president."

The NYT also assesses that Trump does not recognize, understand or respect institutional authority, as well as that he only understands personal power and sees every conflict as a personal conflict in which he destroys or is destroyed.

"Once the indictments are filed, Trump will not play by the rules. He will try to delegitimize those rules. He will seek to delegitimize American legal institutions. He will personalize every indictment, slander every prosecutor. He will try to destroy the letter of the law to save himself... At that moment Congress leaders will face the defining choice of their careers: To whom are they loyal - the Constitution or the party?”

Crystal ball gazing for January 1, 2020

His predictions for January 1, 2020 in the text in The Washington Post (The Washington Post) columnist David Ignatius (David Ignatius) stated as the first point that for the leader of North Korea Kim Jong Un, a big challenge will be, among other things, finding a dictionary with more laudatory adjectives for President Trump due to the cancellation of military exercises of the US or planning a high-speed railway between Seoul and Pyongyang, despite protests from the United States.

"By the end of 2019, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will, among other things, assume the title of Prime Minister and call elections for the Saudi Parliament or hand over day-to-day powers to Minister of State Musaed al-Aiban... The biggest problem of Chinese President Xi Jinping ) in 2019 will result in the life imprisonment of his corrupt former head of state security, Ma Jian, or the release abroad of Xi's phone calls tapped by Liang Ke, who headed the State Security Bureau in Beijing until 2014."

Ingacius also states that as a result of the continuous chaos about Brexit in 2019, Britain leaves the European Union without an agreement, causing a chaotic situation at the border and a recession in Britain and Europe, or the parliament calls a second referendum, which brings a victory for the "Remain" option, but also a continuous political paralysis and growing unrest in the country.

"The Democratic candidate leading in public opinion polls on December 31, 2019 will be Joe Biden, Beto O'Rourke, Kamala D. Harris, or Amy Klobuchar." "

The author ultimately concludes that on January 1, 2020, Trump's status will be either impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate, or resigned, or rejected by the Supreme Court in his effort to block the grand jury's access to Robert Mueller's evidence ( Robert S. Mueller) or holding on to 35% public opinion support. Or he returned to his first love - real estate.

Five Places America Should Avoid War in 2019

The year 2018 was a year of dramatic diplomacy and wars in which major powers waged wars through intermediaries, Trump's chaos and unexpected US military withdrawals, writes National interest and adds:

If 2018 was a carousel, 2019 could be the year the 'dollar carousel' breaks.”

The text points out that the Trump administration can do itself and the country a great favor if it stays away from the fighting in certain places, and Syria is the first.

“If the United States does not withdraw from Syria by early 2019, Trump should spend part of January pressing the Pentagon to accelerate the withdrawal.

Korea - Diplomacy between the US and the Democratic People's Republic of China is fragile, and if it becomes more sensitive, the bad days of "fire and fury" and mutual threats of nuclear holocaust may return with a vengeance. It is more than possible that the failure of the talks could motivate National Security Adviser John Bolton to put a bug in Trump's ear to prepare for military strikes. Under no circumstances can the president consider such an option."

Next on the list is Yemen, for which it is stated that the entire situation should be resolved by the American president alone, and that when it comes to Taiwan, the "one China policy" and the three communiqués signed by Washington and Beijing from 1972 and 1982 still dictate the relations between two global economic competitors.

“US policy toward Taiwan is one of many cases where the beliefs of the foreign policy elite do not match the beliefs of the American public... This list would not be complete without including America's longest war. Everything that can be said about Afghanistan was said seventeen years and two months ago (when the war started, ed.).”

The new face of terrorism in 2019

Forget the Middle East - it's time to prepare for attacks from the former Soviet Union, he warns Foreign policy (Foreign policy), which assesses that the threat posed by terrorists from the Middle East has been decreasing for some time.

“There are several reasons for the relative increase in anti-Western terrorism coming from the post-Soviet world. First, in recent years, Middle Eastern jihadists have been too preoccupied with local conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen to wage them elsewhere... At the same time, the wars in the Middle East have transformed Russian-speaking militants, who previously focused on fighting against repressive governments in their own countries, into global terrorists."

The text predicts that in the coming years, the terrorist threat from Russia and beyond will only increase.

“As the geographic dynamics of terrorism change, the United States and its allies will need to update their combat strategy… The refocusing of the West will also involve political challenges, as the United States will need to find ways to cooperate with Russia and its neighbors…

The United States and its allies need to recognize that future attacks will most likely come from the East rather than the Middle East and that there is no option but to work with Russia and its neighbors to stop them. If the United States fails to do so, it could soon see the effects either through a wave of attacks on the United States or the rise of a new post-Soviet terrorist group in one of the world's many war zones."