Ten foreign policy predictions for 2009*

by | Dec 29, 2008


  1. Mexico: The world’s leading narco state will, unnoticed, dissolve into total chaos destabilising the surrounding region.
  2. Middle East: February elections in Israel will see Binyamin Netanyahu being voted in while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be voted out in Iranian elections in June.
  3. Asia: H5N1 will return with a vengeance.
  4. Bosnia: A growing culture clash between conservative Islam and the country’s avowed secularism will result in an increase in violence in the country.
  5. Africa: Robert Mugabe will be assassinated.
  6. UK: There will be no election in 2009.
  7. Turkey: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will abandon further attempts to join the European Union and instead turn East and focus on regional diplomacy.
  8. Iraq: Elections will be relatively peaceful in much of the country.
  9. Somalia: The US or France will be drawn into a short, intense ground war in the South West of the country.
  10. Afghanistan: In May Britain will increase the number of troops in the country. In October a European deal with the Obama administration will see France, Germany and Italy do the same.

* I will happily blog when these predictions are proven wrong.

Author

  • Charlie Edwards

    Charlie Edwards is Director of National Security and Resilience Studies at the Royal United Services Institute. Prior to RUSI he was a Research Leader at the RAND Corporation focusing on Defence and Security where he conducted research and analysis on a broad range of subject areas including: the evaluation and implementation of counter-violent extremism programmes in Europe and Africa, UK cyber strategy, European emergency management, and the role of the internet in the process of radicalisation. He has undertaken fieldwork in Iraq, Somalia, and the wider Horn of Africa region.

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