What are the major security threats of the future?

On the surface, these demands were met at last week’s NATO summit in Washington. The alliance can show that it is bigger and more powerful than ever, its military support for Ukraine appears unabated, and it has just sent a strong message to China to stop covertly supporting Russia’s war against Kiev.

Sir Keir Starmer’s new government has an opportunity to position itself as a key player in the transatlantic alliance as political uncertainty looms over the White House and much of Europe.

In the UK, the new government’s top priorities are urgent: the economy, housing, immigration, the National Health Service (NHS), and more.

However, unnecessary threats and scenarios often arise and derail the best-laid plans.

So, what will happen under the new British government?

It’s no surprise that everyone is paying attention to this. But that doesn’t make it any less dangerous for Lebanon, Israel and the entire Middle East.

“The possibility of a large-scale Israeli invasion of Lebanon this summer should be at the forefront of the new administration’s geopolitical risk considerations.”

This is according to Professor Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a Whitehall think tank.

As the conflict in Gaza continues and Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping continue, Professor Chalmers believes “we may enter a period of sustained multi-front war in the region for which neither Israel nor its Western partners are prepared.” .

Since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year, there have been concerns that subsequent Israeli military operations in Gaza could escalate across the border into a full-scale regional war.

Israel’s troubled northern border with Lebanon is the most likely place for such a war to break out.

Daily fighting across the border between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Iran-backed Shia militia Hezbollah has killed hundreds of people, mostly in Lebanon.

More than 60,000 Israelis have been forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods in the north, and even more in Lebanon.

The Israeli government is facing increasing domestic pressure to “deal with” Hezbollah by pushing its forces north of Lebanon’s Litani River, where they have less chance of launching rockets into Israel.

IDF Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said: “We don’t want to start a war, but I don’t think any country can accept 60,000 displaced citizens. This situation must end. We hope this situation will has been solved.”

Both sides have good reasons not to go to war.

Lebanon’s economy is already fragile. It had just recovered from a 2006 war with Israel, and a return to full-scale conflict would have devastating effects on the country’s infrastructure and people.

Hezbollah would likely respond to major Israeli attacks and incursions with massive, sustained missile, drone, and rocket attacks that could overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system.

There is no place in Israel beyond its reach.

At this time, the U.S. Navy located offshore is likely to join the Israeli side. This begs the question of what Iran will do.

It also possesses a sizable arsenal of ballistic missiles, as well as a network of proxy militias in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria that it can mobilize to intensify attacks on Israel.

One way to reduce tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border is to end the conflict in Gaza. But nine months and a horrific death toll later, a lasting peace has yet to be achieved.

The Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aims to contain and monitor Iran’s nuclear program and is the crowning achievement of the Obama administration’s foreign policy in 2015.

But it has long since fallen apart.

One year after President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal, Iran no longer abides by its rules.

Buried deep beneath massive mountains and ostensibly inaccessible to even the most powerful bunker-busting bombs, Iran’s nuclear centrifuges have been spinning furiously, enriching uranium far beyond what is intended for civilian use. 20% required. (Nuclear bombs require highly enriched uranium.)

Iranian officials insist that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and aimed solely at generating electricity.

But Israeli and Western experts have expressed concern that Iran has a secret plan to achieve so-called “breakout capability”: reaching the status of being able to build a nuclear bomb, but not necessarily doing so.

It will not go unnoticed by Iran that North Korea, an isolated global pariah, has been steadily amassing nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, posing a major deterrent to any would-be attacker.

If Iran acquires the bomb, it is inevitable that its regional rival Saudi Arabia will acquire it as well. So is Türkiye, so is Egypt.

Suddenly, a nuclear arms race broke out across the Middle East.

It depends on your definition of “winning”.

At its highest, this means Russian forces overwhelming Ukraine’s defenses, seizing other parts of the country, including the capital Kiev, and replacing President Volodymyr Zelensky’s pro-Western government with a Moscow-appointed puppet regime .

Of course, this was Russia’s original plan for a full-scale invasion in February 2022, but the plan failed miserably.

This scenario is currently considered unlikely.

But Russia doesn’t need to conquer all of Ukraine to declare some sort of “victory,” it can demonstrate some kind of victory to its people to justify the astronomical toll it has endured in this war.

Russia has occupied about 18% of Ukraine, and in the east its forces are slowly making gains.

Although more Western weapons are arriving, Ukraine is severely short of manpower. Although its armies fought bravely, they were often outnumbered and outgunned and exhausted.

Russian commanders did not seem to care much about the lives of their soldiers, but they had the masses around them. Russia’s entire economy is on a war footing, with nearly 40% of the state budget currently spent on defence.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest “peace talks terms” amount to complete surrender of Ukraine, and he believes he still has time. He knows that his old friend Donald Trump is likely to return to the White House within months and that Western support for Ukraine will begin to collapse.

Russia only needs to hold on to the territory it has already captured and deny Ukraine opportunities to join NATO and the European Union to claim partial victory in what it paints as a fight for Russia’s survival.

Again, there were many warnings that this event might be coming.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his officials have repeatedly said Taiwan’s self-governing island democracy must “return to the motherland,” using force if necessary.

Taiwan does not want to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

But China considers Taiwan a renegade province and hopes to see Taiwan “unified” as early as 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

The United States has adopted a so-called “strategic ambiguity” stance on the Taiwan issue.

Legally, the United States is obligated to help defend Taiwan, but Washington prefers to let China guess whether that means sending U.S. troops to fend off a Chinese invasion.

China would almost certainly be unwilling to invade Taiwan.

This will come at a huge cost, both in blood and treasure. Ideally, Beijing would like Taiwan to give up its dream of full independence and voluntarily accept mainland rule.

But as that scenario seems unlikely to happen now – with Taiwanese watching in horror as Hong Kong’s democracy is being shattered – Beijing has another option.

If it decides to take action against Taiwan, it will likely try to isolate Taiwan from the outside world and make life unbearable for Taiwanese people, but minimize bloodshed to avoid provoking a war with the United States.

Is Taiwan important? Indeed.

This is not just a noble principle to defend our democratic allies on the other side of the world.

More than 90% of the world’s high-end microchips are produced in Taiwan, and these tiny technologies power nearly everything in our modern lives.

A U.S.-China war over Taiwan would have even less catastrophic consequences for the global economy than a war in Ukraine.

Not exactly, but there are some moderators here.

For China, trade is crucial. Beijing’s ambitious plans to squeeze the U.S. Navy out of the Western Pacific and dominate the entire region are likely to be undermined by its reluctance to trigger damaging sanctions and a global trade war.

In Ukraine, President Putin may be making slow, incremental gains in territorial gains, but it comes at a heavy cost.

When the Red Army occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, some 15,000 people were killed over a decade, sparking domestic protests and hastening the Soviet Union’s demise.

In Ukraine, it took only a quarter of that time for Russia’s death toll to reach several times that number. Protests have been limited so far – the Kremlin largely controls the news Russians see – but the longer the war drags on, the Russian public will eventually balk at the growing numbers of its compatriots being killed. The risk is greater.

In Europe, preparations are underway for a new British-led security deal amid widespread fears that a future Trump presidency would revoke historic protections.

As the U.S. presidential election approaches in November, countries are accelerating plans to try to mitigate possible adverse impacts on the continent’s security.