What Will 2024 Bring? — Part 2/3 (Predictions from a year ago)
Things already happen and will continue, but to what extent? What else can be expected? And is it really me saying this?
War (continued)
Taiwan
There has been a lot of threatening by China, and even though it has been like that for many years now, we are in a situation where China has increased its war capabilities significantly, among other ways by cloning the aircraft carrier ship they previously bought from Russia so that they now have several, and perhaps Taiwan isn’t nearly as well protected anymore by the USA — as it is not needed as much as it was, doesn’t give the same level of control of neither the Pacific Ocean nor the world economy.
It is not unlikely that other tensions or distractions could lead to activities from China against Taiwan. If it happens in 2024, I don’t know, but it seems more and more likely that China will take control of Taiwan sooner or later.
Japan
Technically speaking, Japan is still at war with Russia — it has never been settled — and there are specifically some islands in disagreement between the two countries. Not worth going to active war for, but on the other hand, too symbolically important to just ignore.
From time to time, some rumours about decisions in the Japanese military or some plans for extended exercises show up, so it would not (in my mind) seem completely unlikely that when the situation is right, something will happen. I don’t believe in it as an isolated event, but in combination with other activities involving China, North Korea, and Russia, whatever could be imagined here, maybe.
North Korea
More and more provocative, now also with the official recognition by Russia, having more and more powerful weapons. Apart from sending balistic misiles toward Japan in a steady stream but all ending up in the ocean, it could not be ruled out that they eventually will hit something or someone. Maybe even on purpose.
Perhaps they would enjoy supporting China in whatever military plans they would have (and China has a lot of those in the Pacific area), and perhaps they would enjoy taking part in something that Russia could think out. Or maybe a missile would go off by a mistake and create a world crisis, depending on what it would hit.
I believe in increasing tensions in 2024 and onwards, but when it will explode is uncertain. I do think it will, though, because, there is nothing else coming from North Korea than more power, more threats, more agression. This is pointing in one direction only.
Myanmar
Such a country that people in the West do not care much about, other than for the posibility to talk about how much more democratic we are.
Just now, something seems to be happening — uproarers are uproaring more than usual, Chineses are being urged to leave the place, and who knows what this could all lead to. Chances are, though, that it stays in Myanmar. For some reason, it doesn’t seem like China wants to interfere.
Serbia
Currently complaints about the recent election, but most likely not leading to any kind of civil war or the like. But as there has been various tensions recently in Kosovo, there could be a risk of unrest appearing once more in that area.
Venezuela/Guyana
Since Venezuela decided to annex most of their neighbor, the situation has been tense — the annexion has been by words only, so far, but there is no reason to believe that it will stay by that. Sooner of later Venezuela will want to show that they mean it and send in military.
That will most likely activate some of the other neighbors plus the USA in something that could become a full-scale war.
Something will definitely happen in 2024, but how far it will go is a mystery to me — maybe others have better insight.
USA
I don’t believe it will happen, but there are people in the USA who continuously speak about civil war. And people who would be happy to see such one. We got close to it with the storm on the Capitol, when the old president effectively supported an uproar, a coup attempt, instead of just leaving the job volunteerly and handing it over to the newly elected president, as would be expected.
With all the trials going on against the old president and the attempts by a very weak legal system to prevent him from running for a new presidential term (shouldn’t it be obvious that a coup maker cannot be allowed to run for president?), there could be many occasions where groups of uproarers could deside to make unrest.
West out of balance
We see this more and more, and in 2024 there will definitely be open (verbal) conflicts between various Western countries who want to keep their weapon for themselves instead of helping Ukraine, and if a bigger war in the Middle East will be added, this will just be enforced.
We see how some players (Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey) are working against the rest for personal benefit (or maybe because they are in the pockets of Putin?), and perhaps more state leaders will join them (like many Republicans in the USA) in supporting a disintegration of the otherwise expected unity in defence and economy matters.
The West is split and will become even more so when an oil crisis appear (which it will if a big Middle East conflict develops), and if Russia will start attacking more countries (which they will if they can see that it is splitting the West). More splitters can be found in the “fifth column”, as the nationalist movements and parties in most Western countries could be called, as these are in general doing all such things that brings international cooperation and peaceful treatment of foreigners to an end, causing distress and reducing each and every Western country’s ability to handle their own bigger crises and at the same time all will and ability to assist other countries with fixing their problems.
We are, as many have described it already, in a situation that is very close to the one seen between WW I and WW II, where all countries tried to turn inwards in production and trade, pretending that they didn’t need any other countries. This led to ultra-nationalism and the destruction of all decency in politics.
The USA’s military in Scandinavia
As the USA has military bases all around the World, also in several European countries, it may not look like a big thing that both Finland, Sweden, and Denmark have now agreed to let the USA use their Scandinavian military facilities without restrictions — sending soldiers to do there whatever they want, not answering to local laws, only to USA military laws.
What is happening is effectively that these three countries have stopped existing as separate countries as far as the USA concerns, and there will now be made all kinds of plans and activities that Danish, Swedish, and Finish politicians may not even know about. These countries will military-wise become colonies of the USA.
It will not be long before an American soldier will rape a Danish girl, murder someone in a Swedish bar or whatever, and the local police and legal system will be told by the USA that this is something they should just stay out of.
Local business people will see benefits in selling food and various equipment to the Americans, but there will no doubt be plenty of situations where local authorities will be forced to break the laws and give preference to whatever these colonial masters want, causing tensions with some locals who do not exactly benefit from any of this.
If the Russian agression escalates, Scandinavia will effectively stop existing as independent countries and will be overrun by USA troops.
Or maybe not. Maybe another wing will win the national disagreements in the USA and decide to leave Europa alone — in which case the Scandinavian politicians will need to invent a plan B, as they had hoped that they could just give up whatever was left of national independence in return for security, and now that will not get the latter.
We will see how this whole thing will turn out, but most likely The USA will start sending troups in 2024 — and without any doubt, the USA intelligence services will increase their surveillance of Scandinavians (from an already high level), and will have free access to every detail they want from and about the local governments. They will no longer need to spy on their allies, they will just ask for or take whatever information they want.
We will probably see, already in 2024, how a few locals will protest against this and be put in prison with terrorist charges or similar, effectively killing off the last tiny bit of freedom there was left.
More national, less international
We see already how especially Europe slowly try to take home some of the previously lost industrial activities — which are now all in China. The USA doesn’t seem to be able to work targeted towards such a goal, but some tendences are there as well.
It takes time for some of the more heavy industries, such as silicon production (computer chips), and certain industries are not even in question yet, such as ship building.
But whatever can be taken home to Europe is being planned to be brought home, only with the (massive) inertia lying in the fact that big economies are free to do almost what they want, and if they cannot easily do it based in Europe, they will just move. The biggest companies on Earth do not care about political ideas or people, they care only about money.
So it is a lengthy process, and China can probably expect to continue to own Western production for many years to come. But some of the activities and laws and rules that are slowly being introduced now could help speeding up a “take-home” process in case of a world conflict, and maybe this is a reason for spending time and energy on such things.
Certain production is taken home faster, though, especially everything that has to do with energy production. Batteries, solar panels, etc., had a brief outflux to China but are now almost fully back in or on the way back to Europe.
We will probably see in 2024 some major announcements about important battery chemicals or similar, which today are brought in from China, that can be sourced from somewhere else or will no longer be needed due to new battery formulas or the like.
We will also see some restrictions on trading, such as import taxes on eletrical cars or other visible items. And China will complain about this and continue to buy European companies, as has already happened during several years.
International trade figures will drop in a number of areas, as countries will produce more things locally.
There will be a decrease in theatre plays, museum exhibitions, etc., but what will be there will increasingly focus on national culture.
Ultra-right politics
As we are seing already, most countries are experiencing that increasing parts of their populations apparantly have forgotten how bad things turned up until the WW II, with nationalist movements, xenophobia, closed borders, stopped exports of food, and more of this — all countries believed that they could just rule out the rest of the world and be isolated, which of course lasted only until they were attacked by another country.
But we are there again.
This time, the USA has a solid population supporting this imbecile thought pattern, but it is all over Europe as well. Russia has a government that doesn’t care about the constitution and is mostly focused on stealing the country’s resources, but increasingly moving towards an imperial revival, with Putin believing that he is Peter the Great or Napoleon or similar, who is commissioned by whatever religious force he may believe in to conquor and enslave the world around Russia.
China will explode sooner or later, as there is a solid military build-up in combination with stagnating economies (they have reached a top where they own 110% of the world’s producution and cannot grow anymore), and when they see the effects of the rest of the world’s taking production home, it will all collaps and will be attempted to be kept together by internal and external force. Not in 2024, though, it will take a long time, but we will see more and more signals about the country going in that direction.
All countries have already seen how leaders take liberties and do not care a lot about what just a fews years ago would be seen as the only way — to follow the constitution by letter and spirit. Now only selected letters are partly followed, and leaders do not even try to camouflage they crimes. They just break the laws and nothing happens in return.
This access to power attracts maniacs, and we have seen Trump and Putin already, but more will follow. And some of them will cause solid damage to their countries, and possible to the rest of the world. We will see this to some extent in 2024. Candidates can be observed in Argentina, Hungary, Russia, the USA, Niger, and probably many other countries.
To be continued…