2022 Annual Forecast

The East Asian nation is at the geographical nexus of the rivalry among China, Russia and the United States. It faces a difficult task navigating its precarious position.

Rather than trumpet Russia's praises overseas, Moscow's propaganda machine is focused more on undermining the Kremlin's enemies.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis fought Saddam Hussein, engineered attacks on Western embassies and took on the Islamic State. His death in the same strike that killed Iran's Qassem Soleimani increased local hostility to the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The country's new president is likely to use the questions surrounding the implementation of the 'safe third country' agreement to wrest additional support from the U.S.

By sending Turkish troops to defend Libya's U.N.-backed government, President Erdogan hopes to force a cease-fire that will protect his country's oil and gas interests in the Mediterranean and burnish his regional reputation.

While there are few obvious historical analogies for the political crisis Britain's scheduled exit from the European Union has precipitated, there is one suggestive parallel -- and it prompts some sobering thoughts.

Whether and how people celebrate Christmas is clearly a complicated affair, bearing only a subtle relationship to Christianity itself. The contemporary, increasingly international version of Christmas is less a religious festival than a celebration of affluence, modernity, and above all Westernness. Without anyone willing it, Christmas has become part of a package of Western soft power.