The President's Daily Brief
December 26th, 2024: Top 6 Global Stories of 2024: A Countdown with Mike Baker
Thu, 26 Dec 2024
In this episode of The President's Daily Brief, Mike Baker reflects on the top six foreign policy and national security stories that defined 2024. From seismic geopolitical shifts to underreported events with massive ripple effects, Mike counts down the stories that not only captured headlines but reshaped the world. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President's Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. Email: [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the top global stories of 2024?
It's Thursday, 26 December. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. Today, the day after Christmas, of course, we're doing something a little different. As the year comes to a close, we're taking stock of the events that reshaped global geopolitics.
Chapter 2: What happened in Tehran in 2024?
Now, we'll be looking back at the top stories in foreign policy and national security, stories that didn't just make headlines, but altered the direction of the year ahead. Now, this isn't a ranked list, okay? It's not in any particular order of importance. Each story essentially stands on its own. All right, let's get started. We're calling this first segment, A Terrible Year for Tehran.
And that could be the title of a Broadway musical, although probably not a very entertaining one. Okay, topping the list for Tehran's troubles, the collapse of the Assad government in Syria. 50 years of Assad family rule came to a dramatic and decisive end just weeks ago when rebel forces swept through Damascus, toppling President Assad's regime.
The fall of his regime is one of the most significant geopolitical shifts in the Middle East in decades. For Iran, the implications, frankly, are profound. The Assad regime was a critical pillar of Tehran's so-called axis of resistance, a network of allies and proxies stretching across the region.
Syria served as Iran's corridor to funnel arms, funds, and logistical support to Hezbollah, its crown jewel in Lebanon. With Assad gone, that corridor is, frankly, severed, and Tehran's regional strategy has taken a devastating hit. But the fallout extends beyond Iran.
Syria has now become a geopolitical chessboard, with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran scrambling for influence as the country's future. Well, it remains uncertain. And while our focus in this segment is on Iran, there's also Russia. Let's not forget them. Assad's closest military backer. Russia is also maneuvering to secure its interests as a post-Assad Syria takes shape.
Putin's military spent years helping Assad suppress and kill Syrians in order to maintain power. And now, with two key military bases in Syria, the question is whether the new Syrian leadership has any interest in working with Assad's former BFF. The big questions for 2025. Can Syria stabilize and form a lasting government, or will extremist groups capitalize on the chaos?
Will Iran attempt to destabilize the country further in a desperate bid to restore its influence? And what role, if any, will the U.S. play as this power vacuum unfolds? Our second story, related to the Iranian regime, marks an unprecedented escalation, the direct conflict between Israel and Iran.
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Chapter 3: How did the conflict between Israel and Iran escalate?
For the first time, these two adversaries moved beyond proxy battles and covert operations to openly exchange missile fire. It shattered decades of shadow warfare and raised fears, of course, of a regional conflagration.
It began back in April when an Israeli airstrike targeted Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, reportedly killing senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. The Iranian regime retaliated with a barrage of ballistic missiles aimed directly at Israeli territory.
Within hours, Israel countered with strikes on military installations inside Iran, marking the first ever direct engagement between the two nations. Then, in October, tensions erupted again. Israel conducted a series of targeted assassinations, eliminating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other high-ranking IRGC generals also went.
Iran responded with yet another missile barrage, further testing Israel's Iron Dome defense system. For decades, Israel and Iran fought each other in the shadows through groups like the Iranian-backed and built Hezbollah at Hamas. Israel relied on sabotage and targeted strikes to blunt Iran's nuclear ambitions. But this year, well, this year broke that mold.
The open exchange of fire has not only exposed the risk of a broader war, but underscored Iran's advancing missile capabilities. It also laid bare Iran's vulnerabilities. Here's what we're watching in 2025. Will this year's clashes remain isolated incidents or are we entering a new, more dangerous phase of open Iran-Israel hostilities?
Will Iran attempt to rebuild their broken proxies in an effort to continue their often stated objective of removing Israel from the map? And how far is Israel willing to go in its mission to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions? Those are the first two major stories of 2024, both defining regional moments in a year that saw the Iranian regime face unprecedented setbacks.
All right, coming up, we'll move to Europe, where the war between Ukraine and Russia continued throughout 2024 to shape global power dynamics. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let's talk about your online security. Now, going online without the protection offered by ExpressVPN is like leaving your blinds open at night, right? That's a little creepy.
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Chapter 4: What role did North Korea play in the Ukraine conflict?
But despite the slow grind of trench warfare, 2024 wasn't without its surprises. This year, North Korea, bizarrely, got directly involved, sending some 10,000 troops to fight alongside Russian forces. North Korean boots on the ground. Yeah, that's a certain headline for 2024. For Russia, it's been a way to shore up their struggling manpower.
And for North Korea, because they're not doing it pro bono, it's a rare chance to flex their military muscles and deepen ties with Moscow, not to mention to barter their soldiers for Russian weapons technology and assistance. Now, as the war prepares to move into its fourth year, think about that, its fourth year, Europe is feeling the squeeze.
The war has driven up energy prices, fueled inflation, and sparked heated debates across NATO about how long the alliance can sustain its support for Ukraine. And in the US, that same debate is growing louder. Aid to Ukraine has become a divisive issue in Washington, with some questioning if it's time to rethink just how much we're sending.
And then there's the wild card, North Korea's involvement. It raises the stakes in a way that, well, we haven't seen before, creating more uncertainty about where this war could go next. Looking ahead to 2025, there's one big question, and that is, can there be a diplomatic solution, a negotiated settlement?
With a new president-elect Donald Trump entering the White House and reportedly focused on striking deals, there is a chance that we could see both sides come to the negotiating table. But will both sides be willing to make compromises after the years of bloodshed? And how will North Korea's involvement shape these talks, if at all?
Our fourth major story of the year is a direct result of our third, and that would be the expansion of NATO. Finland officially joined NATO on April 4th, 2023, becoming the alliance's 31st member, and Sweden then followed suit this year on March 7th, marking a historic enlargement of the alliance into northern Europe.
Now, this expansion, it does have significant implications with Sweden and Finland on board. NATO has bolstered its presence in the Arctic and Baltic regions, enhancing its ability to respond to potential Russian aggression. This move further isolates Moscow, which has long viewed NATO's eastward expansion as a direct threat to its sphere of influence.
Looking ahead to 2025, well, several questions arise. How will Russia respond to NATO's strength in northern flank? Will this lead to increased military posturing or provocations from Moscow? And what does this mean for Europe's overall security strategy?
The integration of Sweden and Finland into NATO not only shifts the military balance, but influences diplomatic relations and defense policies across the continent. Okay, for our fifth story, we turn to what we on the PDB have been calling Russia's shadow war in Europe. It's a hybrid warfare campaign that's escalated significantly over the past year.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of NATO's expansion?
Are the alliance's members prepared to ramp up investments and adopt a wartime mindset to counter this campaign, as the NATO Secretary General suggested? And how can the U.S. and its allies effectively deter Russia's provocations without escalating into broader conflict?
OK, coming up in our final segment, we'll turn our attention to Asia, where China's aggression toward Taiwan and North Korea's escalating missile tests dominated headlines in 2024. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, here's an interesting fact. Did you know that 60% of the clothes that we buy end up in a landfill within a year of being made? Think about that.
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That's 20% off when you use code Baker at American-Giant.com. For our fifth story in today's look back at 2024, we're heading to Asia to look at China's escalating aggression toward Taiwan, a stark reminder of Beijing's one China policy. That policy asserts that Taiwan is a breakaway province, not a sovereign nation. And China's President Xi Jinping has vowed to retake it by force if necessary.
This year, Beijing ramped up its military pressure on Taiwan with some of the most aggressive actions we've seen to date. In October, China conducted massive military drills that surrounded Taiwan, a clear message to the world and to Taiwan's leaders that Beijing isn't backing down. Over 125 Chinese aircraft and 34 naval vessels formed a ring around the island during these exercises.
Chinese officials described the drills as, quote, punishment after Taiwan's president gave a speech vowing to resist annexation and defend the island's sovereignty. Then in December, China staged another show of force.
This time, Beijing deployed nearly 90 ships, including warships and Coast Guard vessels, along Taiwan's waters in what Taiwanese officials called one of China's biggest ever military exercises.
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