Happy New Year!

I wish that I could write something soul-uplifting, but the truth is that gravity is pulling mortals downwards. It does that always, of course, but in the best of times, nations and states seek to resist the grip of oblivion through their exertions. In the worst of times, events conspire to consign human efforts to impending doom. Scholar-journalists are among the first to notice the direction in which human affairs are moving.

In this context, the BBC's World Affairs Editor John Simpson is a journalistic legend. He has reported on more than 40 wars around the world during a career that goes back to the 1960s. In a recent article, he writes: "I watched the Cold War reach its height, then simply evaporate. But I've never seen a year quite as worrying as 2025 has been - not just because several major conflicts are raging but because it is becoming clear that one of them has geopolitical implications of unparalleled importance." He has in mind the Russia-Ukraine conflict. "Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the current conflict in his country could escalate into a world war. After nearly 60 years of observing conflict, I've got a nasty feeling he's right."

Why? Because "Russia, a major world power, has invaded an independent European country". Russia's argument is that it wishes to protect itself from strategic encroachment by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but President Putin has indicated another motive: "the desire to restore Russia's regional sphere of influence". What is worse, the coup de grace is being provided by none other than President Donald Trump of America, the lynchpin of NATO. The year 2025 "has seen something most Western countries had regarded as unthinkable: the possibility that an American president might turn his back on the strategic system which has been in force ever since World War Two".

How the times change. "Not only is Washington now uncertain it wants to protect Europe, it disapproves of the direction it believes Europe is heading in. The Trump administration's new national security strategy report claims Europe now faces the 'stark prospect of civilisational erasure'. The Kremlin welcomed the report, saying it is consistent with Russia's own vision."

Simpson draws a link with the 1920s and the 1930s, when the United States wanted to concentrate on its own national interests. We know what happened thereafter. The Great Depression accelerated the momentum of international change in which Germany, defeated but not defanged after World War One, rose to challenge the West from within in World War II.

Quasi-Western Russia is the new Germany, it would appear, and if Simpson is right, World War Three is not impossible. Those like me who have benefited from watching that BBC masterpiece of a show, Simpson's World, know that he has an uncanny knack of getting at the truth before others get there. An isolationist America will open the doors to expansionist world powers. If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, Simpson's question will be prescient: "Will there be enough bankable guarantees to stop President Putin coming back for more in a few years' time?"

As for China, "two years ago the then director of the CIA William Burns said (President) Xi Jinping had ordered the People's Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. If China doesn't take some sort of decisive action to claim Taiwan, Xi Jinping could consider this to look pretty feeble. He won't want that." Meanwhile, in 2026, "China's strength will grow, and its strategy for taking over Taiwan - Xi Jinping's great ambition - will become clearer".

O dear!

So, will World War III begin in Ukraine and spread to Taiwan? Will Russia and China prove themselves to be not just revisionist but irredentist powers which have the intention of overturning and the capability to govern a post-American world? How will Europe and Asia fare in a world turned upside down? Here in Asia, how will countries such as Japan, South Korea and India respond to the prospects of living in a Sinic world order? Along with nuclear India, nuclear France and nuclear Britain, which other countries would be willing and capable of resisting the laws of anti-American gravity?

These are grave questions. Some answers could appear this year: Others await the unceasing flow of time.

In the meanwhile, countries such as Bangladesh have to be prepared to navigate the international terrain without a compass made in past eras.

Welcome to 2026!

The writer is the Principal Research Fellow of the Cosmos Foundation. He may be reached at epaaropaar@gmail.com