In whose favor will the scales of victory tip?

2024 could be a repeat of 2016, but in a worse way. It will be a gap year, and by the end of it, it will be clear which side the scales of victory are tipping

Adam Michnick, summarizing the results of 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum and Trump's victory in the US presidential election, wrote: "The best thing about this year is that it's finally over."

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2024 may be a repeat of 2016, but in a worse way, with two wars in Ukraine and Palestine and the growing threat of a third between China and Taiwan. This will be a gap year. It is not that politicians will put the global crises on hold, but this year can determine when and how they will be resolved in the future.

2024 is the year of two elections that will be strategically important: in the United States and Taiwan. I'm not talking about the Russian elections - everything is known in advance and will not change anything.

The elections in Taiwan deserve a separate discussion. Pro-Taiwan independence supporters won again, increasing the threat of a Chinese invasion. According to various estimates, China will be ready for this in 2027. Then, the flame of the third global conflict will be ignited. Will the world survive it? This is an open question.

Usually, when we don't know the answer to a contemporary question, we turn to history. The first analogy is the two world wars and the Cold War, which could have turned into a third but fortunately did not. The wars in Ukraine and Palestine are not World Wars, but they are global wars. And at any moment, they can start the third world war.

In any case, these wars are for a long time. From this perspective, 2024 will likely not look like 1918, 1945, or 1991, the years of the end of the wars and the victory of one side. It will be more like 1916, 1942, or 1951, years that have yet to begin but are still ongoing. It is too early to make predictions. But by the end of the year, it will become clear which side is tipping the scales of victory.

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Due to the lack of tangible success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the thesis that the ceasefire is finite is being spread in the West. The case is being presented as if Zelenskyy is responsible for dragging out the war because he stubbornly refuses to sit down at the negotiating table. The authors of the thesis forget to ask Putin if he wants to sit at the table. Those who know Putin more closely say that his philosophy is judo: grabbing hold of a stronger opponent and holding on until he runs out of strength or will to continue fighting.

Putin is imposing a war of attrition with no decisive military victory. The loser is the one who flinches first. That is what he is counting on. He will not be satisfied with Donbas and Crimea; he needs Kyiv. His goal is to wipe Ukraine off the map.

The choice is simple: barbarism or civilization, uncontrollable global chaos or a new world order. By and large, the question is no longer just about the world's future, but whether this world has a future at all.

First, the war in Ukraine has changed a lot. But it has not changed the fact that the Ukrainian situation is neither as bad nor as good as it may seem. Yes, Ukraine has suffered new losses, and its military successes of 2022 have come to a standstill in 2023. But a deadlock is not the end. According to the logic of a protracted war, we will continue to experience an up-and-down swing. The key is the middle point: the Ukrainian army maintains its combat capability, and Ukrainian society endures the burden of war. No one can know how long this middle ground will be maintained. Therefore, preparing for a military turning point is important now, reducing Putin's chances of sowing chaos. Most likely, there will be no such turning point in 2024. However, this year could be the year of its preparation.

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Second, as in the past, Russia is a large but underdeveloped country. Attempts in the 1990s and 2000s to modernize it politically and economically failed. As in the Second World War, Russia's military strategy is all about quantity, not quality: throwing the corpses of its soldiers at the enemy until they are exhausted. However, as in the Cold War, Russia could not withstand it when the war became intense. Therefore, an essential condition for defeating Russia is to bring the war to a new, high-tech level. In other words, to give Ukraine access to the weapons it has long been asking the West for.

Thirdly, the West has been predicted to decline more than once. But its strength lies in the fact that when it faces such crises, it turns them into creative solutions. Examples include the Westphalian system after the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648, the emancipation of women and peoples after World War I, and the transformation of old Europe into a zone of peace and liberal democracy after World War II. From these outcomes, a new world was born. Imperfect, but tolerable and livable. Until the new crisis.

We cannot know whether it will be like that again this time. But we can hope and work on the assumption that 2024 - a gap year - will bring more certainty and favor Ukraine.

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine