Savannah, GA, December 26, 2023 --  

The year 2024 looms large as a crossroads toward an unknown future.

As the new year 2025 approaches, a combination of dread and desperate hope for better times grips America and the world.  President-elect Donald Trump is preparing his cabinet for the transfer of power next month.  His Attorney General designate, a little known junior prosecutor from Texas, promises swift vengeance for Trump’s enemies, including criminal charges against President Biden for allegedly illegal arms transfers to Ukraine.

Trunp’s one-time rival Nikki Haley said she may have to leave the country if the Trump DOJ continues threatening to charge her with election fraud for her early primary victories.  

Trump’s own legal cases remain largely stalled in the courts, culled by a series of Supreme Court decisions that began with January’s ruling restoring the then candidate to the Colorado ballot.  The Attorney General-designate says he intends to drop all federal charges against Trump and demand that state prosecutors do the same.

Yet rapidly rising tensions in Asia are beginning to eclipse worries over the eroding rule of law in America.   China has been massing troops on the Taiwan Strait in what it insists is a defensive move to support its naval blockade of Taipei.  The sinking of an American frigate last month after a collision with a Chinese warship the South China Sea have both countries on a war footing. 

A sharp rift between the Pentagon and NATO commanders over the transfer of American weapons systems from Europe to the Philippines has Europeans on edge.  Germany and Poland have begun stationing troops on the border of Belarus and Ukraine, nervous about events further east.

Russian occupation officials have signed a tentative peace agreement with the provisional government in Kiev, just one month after ammunition-starved Ukrainian troops abandoned lines protecting Zaporizhzhia, triggering a recent coup in Kiev.  

President-elect Trump, in a weekend meeting with Vladimir Putin in Crimea, received assurances that Russia would remain neutral in any East Asia conflict provided Washington follows through with Trump’s campaign pledge to withdraw the United States from the NATO alliance.

Wild swings in financial markets have characterized the last quarter of the year, with the S&P500 index regaining much of its pre-election losses, but the US dollar still sharply down against foreign currencies

As the new year 2025 approaches, the world remains on edge.  The narrow re-election of President Biden in last month’s election along with Republican gains in the House has highlighted America’s continued divisions.  

Protests of hard-core Trump supporters have continued for a second month.  Many  call for civil war if their leader is sent to prison after being convicted in multiple court cases.  The Republican-controlled House of Representatives  has largely ignored these calls as Republican leaders struggle to find their footing in the new a post-Trump era.

Wall Street remains bullish.  Strong economic growth this year propelled US markets to record highs, despite concerns over a record high deficit and trade tensions with China.  Military tensions with China have largely calmed down after its dramatic show of force following the expected election victory of Taiwan’s independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party.

The specter of a wider war in Europe remains on the horizon as Russia threatens to fire on NATO forces in the Baltics as de-facto combatants in the Ukraine war.  Russia is bristling at punishing losses in Crimea from the growing F-16 squadrons supplied by US and European countries.  Those squadrons have decimated Crimea’s air defenses, at the expense of heavy Ukrainian aircraft losses, and begun to break a two-year old stalemate.

As the new year 2024 approaches, it is unclear what, if anything, in the above two scenarios will actually unfold.  Unlike any year in recent memory, 2024 looms large as a crossroads toward an unknown future.