The foreign policy issues keeping experts up at night in 2023

The world took a dangerous turn in 2022.  

Full-scale war broke out in Europe, something widely considered to be unimaginable just a few years ago, while relations between China and the United States plummeted to their lowest level in decades, mostly because of differences over Taiwan. And, as if these developments weren’t bad enough, the threat from North Korea and Iran grew more menacing as both moved ahead with their nuclear and missile development programs. Many humanitarian crises, moreover, across the globe — whether in the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti or Myanmar — also showed no sign of abating.

All this begs the question of what the United States should worry about the most in the coming year. With its unparalleled set of global interests and security commitments, the U.S. has to be concerned about harmful developments in a lot of places. But resources are finite and busy policymakers have a limited bandwidth to manage not just ongoing crises but also to avert potential new ones. Hard choices, in other words, have to be made. 

For the last 15 years, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has tried to help U.S. policymakers make these difficult decisions. Unlike most year-end prognostications, which typically list growing concerns according to what seems the most likely to occur, CFR polls hundreds of American foreign policy experts to assess both the probability of 30 plausible contingencies over the next 12 months and their likely impact on U.S. interests. The results are then combined and the contingencies are sorted into three tiers of relative priority for U.S. policymakers.  

So what are the main takeaways for 2023? Three stand out. 

First, the risk of a major military confrontation between the U.S. and either Russia or China — and conceivably both simultaneously — has replaced a mass casualty attack on the homeland as the primary concern for American foreign policy experts. For the first time in 15 years, a 9/11-type contingency wasn’t even considered plausible enough to make it into the 2023 survey. A highly disruptive cyberattack targeting U.S. critical infrastructure by a state or nonstate actor is now the top homeland security concern, followed by potential unregulated migration as a result of drug trafficking-related violence and instability in Mexico and Central America.

Second, while the ongoing Ukraine conflict and growing differences over Taiwan represent the most worrisome flashpoints involving nuclear armed powers, they are not the only ones. An additional six contingencies deemed plausible in 2023 could conceivably lead to the use of nuclear weapons — growing political instability in Russia, renewed conflict on the Korean peninsula, a clash between Israel and Iran, war between India and Pakistan, a U.S.-China confrontation in the South China Sea, and further border skirmishes involving China and India. Although none of them were judged to be “very likely” by survey respondents, it is still sobering that several were rated as having an even chance of occurring.

Third, while attention has clearly shifted to the growing risk of major power war and nuclear proliferation, the majority of conflict-related threats around the world continue to be caused by poor governance and state fragility. Increasingly, the effects of climate change and other environmental-related stressors are playing a role, as seen in the Sahel, Somalia, and Central America. 

Judging by the survey results, however, these types of conflicts are no longer viewed with the same level of concern as they were only a few years ago even though the humanitarian consequences have not lessened. Indeed, the majority of contingencies identified in the 2023 survey are judged to be tertiary priorities for the United States including three — Libya, Haiti and Mozambique –– that were singled out by the Biden administration for special attention and long-term U.S. foreign assistance under the 2019 Global Fragility Act (GFA). 

Identifying what to worry about in 2023 is arguably the easy part. How to lessen the risk in a deliberate fashion is a much harder task. With careful planning and preparation guided by high-level engagement, much can be accomplished to avert the worst from happening. Given what is now at stake, no one can question the imperative of making the effort.    

Paul B. Stares is the General John Vessey senior fellow in conflict prevention and director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of “Preventive Engagement: How America Can Avoid War, Stay Strong, and Keep the Peace.” Follow him at @PaulBStares.