SPECIAL REPORT — As we glance again on the main nationwide and international safety occasions of 2024, it’s tempting to overuse sure phrases: gorgeous; staggering; seismic; paradigm shift. You get the concept. Perhaps, within the case of this specific 12 months and our specific focus, these phrases aren’t actually exaggerations. It has been a mind-bending 12 months.
Nowhere has the influence been extra profound than within the Center East, the place assumptions have fallen like dominoes, with implications that can final a very long time and attain properly past the area.
So we begin there, on this compilation of tales and occasions that modified the world in 2024. There have been many to select from.
Nobody noticed it coming; the autumn of Assad
It was the story that caught the world off guard, the one which even probably the most prescient forecasters hadn’t seen coming: a lightning-fast rebel that ended the brutal reign of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The character of the revolt was additionally a shock. First, there was the pace with which a coalition of insurgent teams captured metropolis after metropolis, culminating in a takeover of the capital, Damascus, and Assad’s rushed departure. In 11 days, Syria’s 13-year-long civil battle and 53 years of Ba’ath Celebration and Assad household rule had come to an finish.
Second, there was the absence of large-scale violence; even those that believed the regime can be overthrown – in some unspecified time in the future – had imagined a bloody finish.
It was, as we mentioned right here, “a type of Berlin Wall second for Syria,” and a seismic occasion for the complete Center East.
On the day after Assad’s ouster, Cipher Temporary professional Ambassador Gary Grappo, a diplomat with a long time of expertise within the Center East, mentioned he by no means thought he’d see it occur. “The day was actually going to return,” Amb. Grappo advised us. “I used to be simply not sure I’d be round to see it.”
The impacts had been felt from Russia to Iran — two nations whose as soon as highly effective affect in Syria took a success; in Turkey and Israel, which each made navy incursions into the nation within the rebel’s aftermath; and within the U.S., which nonetheless maintains a navy presence within the nation (double the quantity, we simply realized – now roughly 2,000 troops) as a part of a mission to counter the Islamic State.
“Simply have a look at a map,” Cipher Temporary professional and former high NATO Commander Adm. James Stavridis mentioned, on the day after the rebels reached Damascus. “In the event you consider it as that previous sport of Threat we performed as children – poof, goes the bridge that runs from Iran over to Syria into Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea. Poof, go the Russian bases on the Mediterranean, the nice and cozy climate port that they’ve cherished the best of for thus lengthy. Their capability to function in that japanese Mediterranean, gone in a single day. All of it is a outstanding coincidence.”
Two weeks after the rebel, uncertainties abound. Will clashes between the nation’s competing factions devolve into a brand new civil battle? Might ISIS or different terrorist teams discover secure haven within the energy vacuum? And what is going to the numerous powers jockeying for affect in Syria do subsequent?
However for now, this was a second to have fun, for thousands and thousands of Syrians, and maybe for the area writ giant. The Economist reminded us of an Assad regime slogan – qaidna lil abad – or “our chief, endlessly.” That’s what many individuals thought, till a surprising two weeks on the finish of 2024.
North Korean troops combating – and dying – in Europe
From one other a part of the world, one other headline that may have appeared unimaginable a 12 months in the past: hundreds of “elite forces” from North Korea, combating — and now reportedly dying — in a European battle.
The deployment of greater than 11,000 North Koreans turned the Russia-Ukraine battle into a really international battle. It was additionally a dramatic instance of collaboration inside the so-called “Axis of Authoritarians,” the anti-U.S. quartet made up of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The North Koreans deployed first to Russian bases for coaching, to be taught the language and the operational workings of their new fellow troopers. Within the final weeks of the 12 months, they had been within the struggle – attempting to push again Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk Province (extra on that beneath). Officers in Ukraine and the U.S. mentioned a number of hundred North Korean troops had been killed or injured within the combating.
As with different gadgets on this checklist, the North Korean deployment carried implications properly past the battlefield.
“I feel which means that we now have to cease considering of North Korea as simply an remoted rogue risk, and begin considering of the nation as a world collaborator that might trigger hurt to the broader worldwide neighborhood,” Dr. Naoko Aoki, a political scientist at RAND, advised The Cipher Temporary.
Relying who you requested, the deployment was both an indication of Russian desperation, given the nation’s staggering losses in Ukraine, or a intelligent technique to make sensible use of the brand new “Axis”, and the Russia-North Korea relationship specifically. Each analyses could also be true. And the Russia-North Korea wing of that “axis” might properly carry contemporary bother within the new 12 months.
One other Cipher Temporary professional, Ambassador Joseph DeTrani, had one huge fear.
“North Korea is now aligned with a revanchist Russian Federation, with a mutual protection treaty that commits every to return to the protection of the opposite if attacked,” DeTrani advised us. “The probability of an emboldened North Korea, now aligned with Russia, utilizing standard weapons to incite battle with South Korea is higher than any time for the reason that Korean Battle.”
Ukraine invades Russia
There’s one other headline that may have appeared fanciful one 12 months in the past, but it surely occurred. Two and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of Ukrainian troops stormed into Russia’s Kursk province, within the first large-scale invasion of Russian territory for the reason that second world battle.
It was a strategic and harmful gambit by the Ukrainians, but it surely labored – and a second shock got here within the sluggish and ineffective Russian response. The Kremlin vowed swift retribution and the recapture of its territory, however at this writing, greater than 4 months later, the Ukrainians are nonetheless there. It’s hardly a game-changer for the battle, however many specialists mentioned the Kursk assault despatched highly effective messages to all sides: Russia noticed Ukraine may carry the battle to its entrance door; the West noticed Ukraine was not backing down; and the Ukrainians confirmed the world they had been nonetheless combating to win.
“It is rather vital as a result of the one means for us to win, regardless of the political definition of victory is, is to do one thing outdoors of the field, one thing which isn’t based on the guide,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian Protection Minister, advised us. “As a result of based on the guide, the Ukrainian and Russian military would struggle very equally, after which the sources distinction would kick in, and that’s what occurs with just about all symmetrical wars. So we have to struggle asymmetrically.”
The incursion – and its endurance – have additionally laid naked basic weaknesses in Russian defenses. And the occupation has given Ukraine two issues it badly wanted: a bargaining chip if and when negotiations start to finish the battle; and the power to ship a dose of their very own drugs to the Russians.
When the pagers exploded – and what got here subsequent
One second — or sequence of moments — in September modified two basic assumptions within the Center East, about Israel and its arch enemy Iran.
Over the course of two days in Lebanon, hundreds of pagers exploded within the fingers or pockets of operatives of the militant group Hezbollah. 12 individuals had been killed and extra 2,000 had been wounded, however the results reached properly past the casualty toll. The operation confirmed the depth of Israeli intelligence businesses’ penetration of Hezbollah, drove Hezbollah operatives to hunt various communications, and despatched the group’s management reeling.
Issues solely acquired worse, from the attitude of Hezbollah, when it grew to become clear that the mid-September pager assaults had been solely the opening salvo in a much bigger onslaught.
Ten days after the primary pagers blew up, Israel assassinated the longtime Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, after which launched into an air and floor marketing campaign that decimated the group’s management and arsenal of weapons. All of which weakened their patron Iran as properly.
“Hezbollah as a combating drive has been severely degraded and diminished,” Ambassador Dennis Ross, Mideast envoy in each the George H.W. Bush and Invoice Clinton administrations, advised The Cipher Temporary. “Its total management cohort has been eradicated. Its command and management [capability] is basically in tatters. It can not belief its communications… Hezbollah operatives and fighters are centered now on their very own survival.”
Cipher Temporary professional Paula Doyle, a former Assistant Deputy Director for Operations at CIA, posed questions that confirmed the enormity of the second. “Are Hezbollah and the opposite teams now nervous that Iran doesn’t have their again? And that they subsequently can not re-equip, can not rebuild, can not retrain quick sufficient to maintain up with the tempo of Israel’s actions? It is a main change.”
Hezbollah heads into 2025 as a shadow of its former self. And that’s largely because of the operation that set off these pagers in Lebanon, on that mid-September afternoon.
Iran and Israel go to battle
For years it’s been a nightmare situation for the Center East: Israel and Iran would climb the so-called “escalation ladder” from small-scale or proxy assaults to main navy strikes in opposition to each other. It occurred twice in 2024, first in April after which once more in October, exchanges that introduced the Center East to the brink of an unprecedented, full-scale regional battle.
Iran launched its first-ever main missile and drone assault in opposition to Israel in April, in response to an Israeli air strike that had killed three Iranian generals and 4 others at Iran’s embassy in Damascus. Israel countered, however battle appeared to have been averted – after which a heavier change performed out in October.
To some, the dual episodes of strike-counterstrike meant that the nightmare situation had arrived.
“I might argue that maybe we’re within the wider battle now,” former CENTCOM Commander and Cipher Temporary professional Gen. Frank McKenzie advised us in October. “We proceed to redefine what a wider battle is, as every step is crossed. I feel we entered a interval of ‘wider battle’ again in April, when Iran attacked Israel instantly.”
Right here, as with Ukraine’s Kursk invasion, there was a secondary shock in what didn’t occur: Iran proved unwilling or unable to make good on pledges – together with public vows made by the nation’s Supreme Chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – to rain a heavy retaliation down on Israel.
“I feel Iran right here is on actually tough floor, actually unsure floor,” former Protection Secretary Mark Esper advised us. “They not have a viable proxy in Hamas. Their proxy, their favourite one, the crown jewel of their ring of fireside, Hezbollah, has been decimated. The management is gone. They’re on their again heels…so the query is, what’s left for Iran to do?”
“Salt Storm” – the cyberattack that the NSA missed
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company (CISA) Jen Easterly, has a want: that the names given to 2 main assaults linked to China sound much less like cool spy novels, and extra like what they are surely. “I want I hadn’t ever heard any of those names, like ‘Volt Storm,’ ‘Salt Storm,’ ‘Midnight Blizzard,’ ‘Tempest Panda’…that basically glorify these villains that frankly wish to do huge hurt to the USA of America,” she mentioned. “I’m on a mission to attempt to rename a few of these unhealthy actors to issues like Weak Weasel and Doofus Dingo.”
For now, although, “Salt Storm” and “Volt Storm” are nonetheless the names for a sequence of assaults which have focused – efficiently – important U.S. infrastructure. Salt Storm was the one which struck in 2024 – or, to be extra correct, the one which got here to gentle in 2024. It concerned a cyber invasion and breaching of main American telecommunications firms – together with AT&T and Verizon. The assaults had been startling each for his or her brazenness and the time it took for the cybersecurity officers to understand what was taking place. In truth, because the Nationwide Safety Company (NSA) Director Common Timothy Haugh mentioned, in a chunk we revealed earlier this month, the NSA knew nothing of Salt Storm till it obtained an alert from Microsoft. “We didn’t see exercise in U.S. telecommunications networks,” he mentioned.
Salt Storm didn’t simply present China’s capability to breach American telecommunication firms; U.S. officers mentioned the hackers additionally reached into information related to federal wiretapping operations, probably compromising intelligence neighborhood investigations. The sooner assault, the one referred to as Volt Storm, had additionally caught authorities flatfooted. “It combines this good storm of ‘not prepared,’” Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery advised us, including that latest analysis confirmed water provide programs lacked correct safety, infrastructure, and public-private collaboration. “All three components had been lacking,” Montgomery mentioned. “It’s extraordinarily weak.”
Russia’s “hybrid battle” in opposition to Europe
It’s referred to as “hybrid warfare,” battle waged with a mix of conventional and unconventional ways, and by its nature it’s typically not one thing seen out within the open. However more and more in 2024, the scope and gravity of Russia’s efforts on this house grew to become clear, starting from suspected arson assaults, alleged disruption of transportation and communication networks, and assassination plots.
“Russia’s deadly operations are supposed to create worry and coerce governments to chorus from appearing in opposition to Moscow’s pursuits,” Philip Wasielewski wrote in The Cipher Temporary. He and others known as these actions a type of terrorism, and urged a commensurate response.
“NATO should reply forcefully to those assaults in order that Russia acknowledges the inviolability of NATO soil,” Wasielewski mentioned. “A failure to take action raises a danger that the alliance will face not solely continued assaults, however probably ones of elevated lethality.”
And once more, given the character of such actions, we might properly not know the half of it.
Trump’s return
Any American presidential election carries international implications, and whereas Donald Trump is an unpredictable determine, his election might carry far-reaching nationwide and international safety implications.
As The Cipher Temporary has reported, Trump will take workplace having pledged to finish the Mideast and Ukraine wars, and curtail or finish American support for Ukraine. He has repeatedly criticized NATO, questioned different longstanding U.S. alliances, boasted of heat relations with dictators, and as a basic matter vowed a retrenchment with regards to U.S. engagement in lots of components of the world.
To take a latest instance, because the rebels routed Assad from energy, and lots of Cipher Temporary specialists and others urged the U.S. to have interaction in what one known as an “extraordinary alternative,” Trump made his views clear: “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED.”
Trump has additionally promised unprecedented tariffs in opposition to China – not a national-security difficulty, per se, however a coverage that might simply carry national-security ramifications, relying on the response from Beijing. And he has instructed or pledged higher relationships with a number of dictators – from Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong Un to Xi Jinping. He even invited Xi to his inauguration.
So with out query, Donald Trump’s election was a worldwide game-changer. But it surely bears repeating: the previous and future president is unpredictable.
A resurgence for the Islamic State
It’s a measure of simply how turbulent 2024 has been that this merchandise barely makes the checklist.
The Islamic State made headlines within the early a part of the 12 months with assaults that confirmed its geographic attain – bombings in Iran that killed 95 individuals, after which an assault that killed greater than 130 at a live performance corridor on the outskirts of Moscow. Different IS plots had been thwarted, together with one aimed on the American election and one other reportedly concentrating on a Taylor Swift live performance in Vienna.
The excellent news? Western intelligence appeared plugged in sufficient to have stopped a number of plots earlier than they got here to fruition; and in Afghanistan, the place the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-Ok) makes its residence, the group has a strong enemy within the ruling Taliban.
But it surely’s additionally the case that IS assaults general jumped in 2024, and as we reported final week, there are issues that ISIS, the Islamic State’s franchise in Iraq and Syria, may benefit from the chaos following the Syrian rebel, and start a renaissance in that nation.
“Is there the potential for [IS] to return right here (to the U.S.) as a result of it’s broadened into the area?” Cipher Temporary professional Javed Ali mentioned in a dialog with us after the Moscow assaults. “You are taking it one step additional: baked into the jihadist ideology are assaults in opposition to the U.S. homeland.”
Harmful waters: Clashes on the South China Sea
The South China Sea has been a geopolitical flashpoint for many years, but it surely’s usually been a spot the place tensions are stored to a low boil. In 2024, China turned up the warmth.
China has claimed rising areas of the South China Sea, and tried to create info on the water, because it had been, build up small, typically uninhabited islands, and in some instances putting in navy outposts on these islands. China’s claims have been countered by Southeast Asian nations, and a world tribunal upheld a case introduced by the Philippines on its claims of sovereignty in 2016.
However in 2024, Chinese language and Philippine coast guard and naval vessels discovered themselves in more and more hostile confrontations. In probably the most violent incident, a Chinese language ship rammed a Philippine boat making an attempt to resupply a garrison of Filipino troops on the grounded warship Sierra Madre within the disputed Second Thomas Shoal. Philippine officers mentioned Chinese language crew members armed with spears and knives boarded their vessel, and that a number of Filipinos had been injured within the incident. The Philippines have additionally taken a stronger rhetorical stand in opposition to China these days, below President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. Final month, Marcos signed legal guidelines reaffirming the attain of his nation’s maritime territories and proper to sources, together with within the South China Sea. China issued a “stern protest” in response.
It is a nationwide safety difficulty for the USA as properly, which has repeatedly sailed ships by the South China Sea as an expression of the best to navigation, and the U.S. has a longstanding alliance with the Philippines.
“If China bodily assaults a treaty ally of the USA,” mentioned Cipher Temporary professional RADM Mark Montgomery (Ret), “it’s going to place us in a really robust place as a result of this isn’t like Ukraine and Russia, the place Ukraine was not a treaty ally. This turns into a credibility difficulty for the USA.”
It could be that 2025 is yet one more 12 months of excessive pressure with out precise kinetic battle; however the South China Sea may simply as simply vault to the highest of an inventory like this one, one 12 months from now.
Ethan Masucol contributed to reporting.
Learn extra expert-driven nationwide safety insights, perspective and evaluation in The Cipher Temporary.
