Robert Fox
There is something ambivalent about the season of goodwill, as it usually triggers a splurge of journalistic predictions of bad things to come for the new year, more trouble and pestilence and worse wars. One point of comfort is that journalists, on the whole, make lousy prophets. So, in the ambiguous spirit of the season, let's look at the places and occasions that could spark wider confrontation, even regional war or a global standoff.
Not that I can foresee a war in Europe, or anywhere else, of the kind gloomily forecast by Mark Rutte, the secretary general of Nato – “on the scale of war our fathers and grandfathers”. Whatever is in the works, it will not be anything like the great wars of the 20th century.
There will be no let-up in the intensity of combat and violence we are now seeing in Ukraine, Sudan, Rwanda and Congo, and Yemen. The standoff between Thailand and Cambodia seems tense as ever, and the ghastly bouts of civil strife and massacre in Myanmar are intensifying as the military junta finagles elections this spring.
A random spark in several of these conflicts could be the trigger for wider confrontation. As Rutte warned, we need to be prepared for war in order to prevent it.
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