Brett McGurk is a CNN World Affairs Analyst who held senior national security positions under the presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
While world leaders meet in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly (Unga), their objective will be to focus on immediate crises, notably Gaza and Ukraine, the two conflicts are now ready to last the rest of this year and in 2026.
I have participated in numerous UNGA meetings with presidents of the two political parties. The problems tend to be dominated by the current headlines, but by looking back, the history of these rallies is often what was not covered, rather than what was.
At UNGA in 2013, for example, no one provided that the following year would be dominated by the world Islamic State scourge. Ten years later, at Unga in 2023, no one provided for in a few weeks, Hamas would invade Israel and ignited the Middle East. Likewise, in 2019, no one planned a world pandemic that would soon change our way of life.
This year does not seem different, because if we look in advance, the pace of today’s incessant events in global affairs can be an aperitif for what is coming.
Let us consider the immediate crises first, which will take a large part of the accent this week.
In Gaza, this year began with the promise of a three-phase ceasefire agreement to secure the release of all hostages and finally end the war. This agreement was broken down in March, after its first phase, and since then, we saw talks with an impasse with a humanitarian crisis, the largest Israeli military operations of war and still kept hostages.
Today, there is no immediate end in view or agree on what to do afterwards.
In New York, several countries led by France and the United Kingdom will recognize a Palestinian state with borders and attributes of sovereignty which will be determined at a distant moment in the future. These countries also call for Hamas to abandon and disarm – something that would be Finish the war for good – but they do not have the capacity to provide this result.
Unfortunately, these symbolic movements can worsen the situation. They will trigger counter -movement by Israel in the West Bank and will harden Hamas’ demands in accordance with their twisted world vision that October 7 was worth costs for Palestinian life in Gaza – which makes this terrible war even more difficult to reach diplomatically.
In Ukraine, this year has seen Washington zigzags with calls for a unilateral ceasefire replaced by calls for a complete agreement, military support for Ukraine stopped and then restarted, and sanctions against Russia threatened but never implemented. The high -level summits of President Donald Trump, with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and the European allies in Washington, were used to highlight the maximalist objectives of Putin when he seeks to acquire land, he could not grasp the battlefield and ensure that Ukraine cannot defend himself from future Russian invasions. Ukraine will never accept such conditions, leaving diplomacy drift.
Nothing said or doing in New York this week will move the calculation of Putin while Ukraine now turns to an icy winter and some of the largest Russian attacks in the whole war.
In the end, there will probably be a lot of discussions on Gaza and Ukraine in New York this week, but do not wait for initiatives that could help finish or resolve one of these conflicts.
Now compare the performative rally of this week of leaders in New York to a summit held three weeks ago in Beijing – ostensibly to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The imagery struck with Russian President Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the head of North Korea, Kim-Jong Une, locked in embrace towards shared global objectives, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
This alliance of the countries, China-Russia-Iran-Nord-Core (Crink), is not only symbolic. He actively shapes global realities in opposition to the United States, with Ukraine the first current line. North Korea has sent tens of thousands of soldiers to fight the coastal Russian troops against Ukraine. Iran has provided drones and transferred Russia technologies to now produce Iranian drones in Russia, which has led swarm attacks launched in Ukraine in the past six months. China remains the largest buyer of Russian energy products, helping to finance war and maintain the economy of Russia.
Consider now that XI has ordered that the Popular Liberation Army (PLA) of China is preparing for a possible invasion of Taiwan by 2027, an event that would be really cataclysmic, with estimates of a global economic shock of around 10 billions of dollars and a disruption of the supply of advanced semiconductors that support our daily livelihoods. Could we look back in a few years and ask us how no one at Unga in 2025 did not discuss this possibility?
To date, most experts do not assess that Xi will order an invasion so early, and it may never do it, rather preferring non-military gray zone operations, such as cyber attacks, propaganda, military exercises, economic pressure and diplomatic isolation. The objective is to regularly erode Taipei’s confidence until he is in a hurry to accept a complete unification with the continent without the need for a large -scale war.
But the chances of an invasion reach 35%, according to the Global Guardian risk assessment company, and increase more as Beijing strengthens its military preparation.
With each passing month, XI, like Putin towards Ukraine, will calculate the opportunities and costs in the pursuit of the objectives clearly stated towards Taiwan.
This is what connects the Ukraine crisis at much broader global risks:
If the Crink Alliance is strengthening the month per month and Putin faces decreasing costs for her war of aggression in Ukraine, the risks of the more aggressive Xi approach to Taiwan will increase, as well as the aggression of the other members of Crink, including the hegemonic ambitions of Iran in the Middle East and North Korea on the Korean Peninsula.
President Trump, when he asked him about the images of the Beijing summit, said: “They hoped I was watching.” He later wrote on Truth Social, in a message addressed to XI: “Give my best agreements to Vladamir Putin and Kim Jong Un, while you conspire against the United States of America.”
The president was right for the intention and the goal of this rally. These leaders sent a message to Washington. The question is now to know what the Washington message refers.
Supervised in this way, the second year of Trump’s second term is shaped as a historic bridge to a world of consolidation and stability, or a world of increasing disorders and conflicts. If the risks and costs of aggression through borders decrease for Putin and the other leaders, then we can expect the latter. If the costs increase and the network of alliances has historically maintained together by the United States, NATO, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines-wait first.
Add to the mixture of the race in progress between the United States and China in artificial intelligence, the closest to us to an existential technological competition from the Cold War, and the table is planned for 2026 to be one of the most pivotal years of a generation.
President Trump often talks about the conflict in Ukraine as a burden he inherited and a problem linked only to fighting in eastern Ukraine. Some of its main advisers have rejected the relevance of Ukraine for American interests, or a distraction of the need to dissuade a future conflict on Taiwan. This two -dimensional point of view lacks the world implications of the Ukrainian conflict as illustrated at the recent peak of Beijing.
The capitals of Crink clearly consider Ukraine as a war at the heart of their future interests, and they act on this point of view. Similarly, the American allies of the Pacific – in particular Japan and South Korea – were vocal defenders of Ukraine, recognizing that a Russian failure would help to retain and dissuade XI ambitions in their region.
Consequently, a strategist examining the coming year should think in three dimensions and work to consolidate the support of Ukraine with growing economic costs for Russia, while aggressively pursuing a negotiated regulation which ends the war. Similarly, in the Middle East, ending the war in Gaza and returning to a regional integration program, remains at the heart of peace in this region and in the world, Iran being still limited.
If the two conflicts continue to get worse, endlessly in view, the seams of the world order will tear more, with Crink affirming more and more advantage in several regions of the world.
This is the scenario that little will be discussed in New York this week, but it may be the most central question for the future of world security and American position in the world.
