First, the potential for North Korea to weaponise a nuclear missile, and then escalate the probability of actually firing it. The second is that Hezbollah will launch a conventional missile attack – from its arsenal of 120,000 – on Israel, ordered by its masters in Iran. The third threat is that jihadists will fly drones into major demographic concentrations – such as football stadiums – and detonate biological or chemical devices. Finally, there is the threat of a seismic cyber attack which takes down the economy, such as on the US electricity grid. All of these are scary prospects, but what are the odds of them actually happening?
With regards to North Korea, Kim Jong-un is yet to prove that he can fire a weaponised nuclear missile which will remain intact and on target as it re-enters the earth’s atmosphere. Even if we assume that point will be reached, it still does not mean the conflict could escalate further. Rocket man may be many things, but he surely isn’t that simple. He will be very aware that President Trump’s boast that “my button is bigger than his” is an accurate assessment of their capabilities.
Realpolitik could well see the US decide to live with the reality of a nuclear North Korea, as the potential costs of attacking it are so high.
Moving on to Hezbollah, Iran is already advancing its sphere of influence in the Middle East. War with Israel would only set back its advances to date.
Moreover, Iran has significant problems at home, shown by recent unrest, which suggests that the government will be more inward than outwardly focused this year.
Of course, the oldest trick in politics is to divert attention from unrest at home, with a unifying foreign war, but the threat of any reintroduction of economic sanctions will undoubtedly play on the minds of the Tehran government.
The threat from drones may or may not emerge – who knows? But unless a direct link is established from a sovereign state to a terrorist group, even a drone strike would be unlikely to upset the geopolitical balance.
However, the threat might reverse the downward defence spending trends in the west, and see expenditure rising for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
The cyber security threat is very real, but it is long known and, one hopes, the system is sufficiently resilient to external threat. Only time will tell.
One suspects the most significant cyber attack in 2018 will be US retaliation for Russian activity in the 2016 election. The US could well interfere in the 2018 Russian presidential election. Russian elections are hardly the pinnacle of democracy, and few tears would be shed in the west for any US retaliatory action.
Cyber attacks are, however, likely to be limited and not systemic. Systemic attacks to bring down economies would be construed as an act of war. Interfering in elections falls below the threshold for war.
The geopolitical doom and gloom is overdone. The best description of 2018 is likely to be: plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose.
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