January 1, 2024 - 7:00am
A “black swan” is a very unlikely but highly consequential surprise event. By their very nature, black swans can’t be predicted in advance, though they tend to be rationalised later with the gift of hindsight. “Grey swans”, however, are different: though they probably won’t happen, they could plausibly — and foreseeably — change the course of events.
Here, for 2024, are five of these potential game-changers:
1. Let’s start at home with British politics. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has claimed that this will be an election year. But what if we have a change of government before the general election? If Sunak plans on going to the country in the autumn he still has to survive local elections on the 2nd May. It’s conceivable that the results are so bad that he’s forced to resign.
Yet another new Tory PM would face a crisis of legitimacy, but if chosen shortly before the summer, he or she (probably she) could immediately announce an autumn election. The odds are against it, but in the continued absence of a Tory recovery, it’s an underrated scenario.
2. It’s an election year in America, too. Here, the grey swan scenario is that one or both of Biden and Trump don’t make it to the final contest. The most risk-laden scenario is that Trump is stopped from running by legal means. It’s already happening in the states of Colorado and Maine; but if panicking Democrats launch a serious nationwide effort in 2024, American democracy will come under strain as never before.
Then there’s the actual vote. Razor-edge results in swing states could leave the outcome in limbo, while lawyers and judges choose the next president. This would not augur well.
3. Stalemate of a bloodier kind was the story of 2023 in Ukraine. The promise of a Ukrainian breakthrough was clearly oversold, yet the possibility of significant change in 2024 is now being undersold.
Given the near frozen frontlines of the past 12 months, comparisons to the trench warfare of the First World War come naturally. But that’s to forget how that conflict ended in 1918 — with the sudden collapse of one of the sides.
Kiev will hope that, in 2024, it’s the invading side again.
4. A guaranteed event this year is that the UK’s parochial Covid inquiry will continue wasting money on the wrong questions.
The primary, correct question pertains to how we stop such a calamity from ever happening again — and for that we need clarity on the origins on the virus.
There’s scant chance of the Chinese government coming clean. But 2024 might just be the year when the Western scientific consensus shifts decisively in favour of the lab-leak hypothesis. Perhaps then we can get started on global negotiations to control dangerous experiments.
5. In 2024 the once-liberal Netherlands will decide whether to appoint a fiercely anti-immigration Right-winger as prime minister. Geert Wilders came a clear first in November’s general election — but will need the support of mainstream parties to take the top job. They could still block him and force fresh elections, but polls show he’d get even more seats.
It’s a lose-lose scenario for the Euro-establishment. With EU Parliamentary elections due this year, the last thing they want is to normalise populist leaders in Western Europe. But frustrating the will of the people risks a voter backlash.
Looking ahead, the horizon is full of grey swans. Our leaders ought to be prepared, but whether they really will be is an entirely different matter.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeIt’s obvious – a no brainer. We will sign the new, legally binding, WHO treaty, which passes all the responsibility to the unelected shysters, who will tell our politicians when to lockdown, when to ban international flights, where to buy vaccine, who is first in line for vaccine, etc.
Our politicians will never again be blamed for their decisions so they can concentrate on important things like, er, making their fortunes.
I’ll say this again. The WHO is a paper tiger. Any sovereign nation can raise its middle finger and refuse to do whatever the WHO dictates. If local political leaders chose to obey the WHO that’s on them.
I’m not sure about that at all. Obviously the WHO doesn’t have any divisions, bit it could for example impose an international “quarantine” (i.e. blockade) on a recalcitrant country, forcing compliance with the international “consensus” fixed by some deal between its principal funders.
Further to that, a real grey swan might be the populace choosing not to obey political leaders in the event of WHO dictat.
Misses the point. It is something to blame.
Also, there is an old story about when the UK joined the EU. New rules came along and Italy accepted them instantaneously but the UK politicians debated everything to the death. But then the Italians disregarded all the rules and the UK followed them to the letter. NetZero is a good example of this.
We Irish did the same.. but please don’t tell anyone!
Were have you been Mahony? Holed up in Lusitania I presume?
Your absence has meant the ‘Irish corner’ has had to be fought by Ms Nell Clover and the like.
Like a cur at the end of a leash, Ireland does what the EU tells it.
I have a vague recollection of a line from “Yes, Prime Minister” about some new EU regulations (involving identity documents, I think): “The Germans will love them, the French will ignore them, the Italians will be too chaotic to enforce them. It’s only the British who will resent them”.
Sounds like Norway, not even a member of the EU but takes EU rules more seriously than any of the EU countries I do business in.
I so hope you’re right.
The “elected” don’t want responsibility and will therefore keep that middle finger tightly curled in sweaty little fists. They waltz into lucrative public office and do the bidding of their corporate masters without qualm.
It’s going to be up to us proles, and given the level of blind obedience we experienced from 2020 on, I am deeply pessimistic.
You are missing the point. Our government wants to give power to the WHO.
China showed WHO’s impotence by refusing to cooperate in the investigation of the Wuhan lab virus that killed tens of millions around the world.
The WHO didn’t want to investigate the Wuhan lab more to the point, it’s a Chinese puppet.
While technically true, this misses the point. “raising their middle finger at the WHO” would require leaders who are either 1) seriously damaged by WHO dictates and thus incentivized to push back, or 2) opposed to the WHO mandates on principled grounds.
It isn’t a matter of “any nation can”, it’s a matter of whether any nation’s ruling class (other than China) will. As long as our Western leaders are selected from the transnational, uber-educated, professional-managerial class, none of them will. Why would they? The WHO is run by their fellow PMC experts.
We are yet to learn what the consequences of non compliance with WHO dictates will be. I have no doubt they could be very severe indeed. The paper tiger could prove to have razor sharp teeth.
For sure.
Sounds like a plan right enough.
Where SARS-CoV-2 came from is completely irrelevant. Epidemiologists know how to handle outbreaks based on the pathogen’s observed properties.
The question is why all real experts were shunted aside, cancelled, persecuted, and ridiculed, and instead frauds, jokers, nincompoops, apparatchiks and scoundrels dictated policy.
“Where SARS-CoV-2 came from is completely irrelevant.”
I have to disagree with your first statement, while heartily endorsing your second.
It’s not that I wish to persecute the Chinese for hiding their poor controls resulting in the release of the virus. Rather, I think it’s important for World leaders to realize they need to create stricter controls on research laboratories to prevent a recurrence whereby such a virus might actually represent a serious worldwide health crisis.
After all, the tragic deaths that did take place as a direct result of COVID infection were no where near as great as we were told they’d be. Without effective oversight, and consequences for failures, the 8 billion and counting population on this planet is, potentially, looking at a major epidemic that will kill a whole bunch of people.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .
I agree that the question of the origins is relevant for a discussion on biosecurity – in essence, that discussion WAS had, and the Obama Administration sensibly decided that the research was too dangerous, and prohibited it. Fauci schemed to circumvent the prohibition.
I am somewhat comforted by what Luc Montagnier said – viruses mutate fast, and doctored viruses have a tendency to shed insertions once released into the wild (makes intuitive sense, evolution optimises the genome). So a gain-of-function-spiked virus bioweapon might initially be dangerous, but would very rapidly shed its insertions and revert to type. Remember, a virus NEEDS to replicate in an organism, it can’t replicate or spread on its own.
“Remember, a virus NEEDS to replicate in an organism, it can’t replicate or spread on its own.”
Always true, and worth remembering when engaging in any discussion of pandemics.
That being written, can you imagine a virus–manufactured and released unintentionally–with an R number as virulent as the Smallpox or Measles viruses sweeping across the populations of the world? It’s not only the deaths, but the disruptions and debilitating after effects we need to think about.
In any event, I think we all need to appreciate that a virus does not have to be deadly to devastate the world’s economies.
Some of the “grey swans” look like the most likely outcome to me:
The results of the 2024 US presidential election will be litigated extensively in State courts; and
The war in Ukraine will come to an end, probably with the removal of Zelensky as a prelude to an armistice forced upon Ukraine by the West.
I agree that Sunak is more likely than not to be in place for the next UK GE; and the chances of China telling the truth about Wuhan are remote.
If, as seems increasingly plausible, the US health establishment funded the development of Covid in an effort to bypass restrictions on gain-of-function research at home, then the US government could find itself the object of a class action with tens of millions of claimants. This rather suggests we’ll never be allowed to know the truth.
This would be very, very good result. A lawsuit would provide for discovery and all the emails, texts, etc. (that have been discussed already on some media but completely ignored by the MSM) will come out when there is real money at stake. Best case: Fauci et al end up in prison.
Fauci in prison – it will never happen. In fact, he’s going on to collect the highest pension ever for a government employee. You have no idea how corrupt the American government can be.
Oh you mean ‘God Fauci’ beloved by the Democrat Party and the Left? You are right we will never know the truth because the Democrats are duplicitous.
And yet people still wonder why anyone would want to put a 6.5mm round through the back of JFK’s head.
The truth will be known if the Chinese confess, but not otherwise.
The CCP never tell the truth, it’s anathema to them,
The Ukraine military venture (3) depends entirely on (2) the progress of the US elections and the possibility that a peace deal will be offered, the Donbas to Russia in return for future NATO and EU membership.
US intelligence agencies have already come out for the Wuhan lab leak (4) since US policy shifted back to China as enemy #2 but confirmed neocon Boris Johnson set the pro-China parameters of the UK report well in advance.
It’s tricky to call the UK as the Labour result could still be underwhelming owing to their continued enslavery to gender ideologues. The unspoken issue is the UK parliamentary uniparty’s commitment to rejoin the single market when the EU trade deal comes up for renewal.
Apt analysis, mate.
I would agree that there is a link there. We could see a very bloody spring and summer as both Ukraine and Russia try to make their cases so to speak, argued in the lives of their soldiers. If Ukraine inflicts a heavy defeat on the Russians, that will help with the argument that American and Western resources are being used to good effect, helping out the Democrats. If the Russians get a big win on the other hand, or even just hold the Ukrainians to a standstill like this summer, then that will help out Republicans in favour of stopping aid. I guess it comes down to how significant the American electorate views this.
This American has never wanted to spend $1 on Ukraine. If Biden wanted to take some of his bribed $$ and return them to Zelensky, that would be his prerogative. The US has no business in Ukraine, and “we” have done nothing but aggravate the situation since the early 2000’s. At best the CIA and State Department are incompetent.
The US and UK are signatories to the Budapest Memorandum which promised security guarantees to Ukraine so I believe both do have a moral obligation to assist Ukraine against the Russian invasion personally
Plus, if Russia gets away with invasion of Ukraine, where will they invade next? They have got some useful lessons on tank design out of the Ukraine conflict (don’t put all the ammunition right under where the crew sit).
Your statement reminds me that in the distant past many pundits were proclaiming that if South Viet Nam fell, all of SE Asia would fall to the Communists as well.
Well, those things are quite different. The Vietnamese Communists were only ever interested in Vietnam, although granted, they did stage a military intervention in Cambodia. The fear was that other Communists would try to take over other countries. However, Putin is simply keen on invading (although he might not use the word) other countries for his own reasons, in much the same way as that German fellow did in the 1930s and 1940s.
Whle the US could have avoided the Ukraine war entirely if Biden had simply said that NATO membership for Ukraine was not on the table, once things got going it was a good spend for the US to support Ukraine, both morally and strategically. Ukraine was invaded, nuff said. Money spent helping Ukraine degrades the Russian military without the cost of American lives – good investment…up to a point. Like most gov’t spending, however, the moneys have been wildly misspent. More importantly, it has depleted resources the US needs elsewhere. From day 1 we should have put Zelensky on a budget and held him to it, and held them accountable for how it was spent.
The war in Ukraine will end when Kiev runs out of 40-year-olds to send to the front lines.
….or when Russia runs out of illiterate Siberians to send to the front lines.
One ‘swan’ missing from the list here is the occurrence of a terrorist blast in a major Western metropolis reminiscent of that of 9/11. The Hamas/Israeli conflict has created a major fault line in the West that has spread way beyond the geographical confines of the Levant.
It’s an election year in America, too.
But what if the Democrats choose to go along with the Biden impeachment? Fear of Kamala Harris may be all that is keeping the Biden in place, and probably only until a new Democrat candidate is selected.
But with lawfare running rampant there may be a darker grey swan – a period of time when the USA has no President in place.
Yes, if the extremely pale grey swan event of Biden’s death comes to pass, what then? CIA/Pfizer can’t keep him animated forever.
A combination pf AI, deep fake animation and the incredible avatar technology currently being used in the ABBA show in London shows that there is really no reason why Biden can’t be kept animated forever.
..or two perhaps, one on either side of a civil war?
The emergence of a charismatic competent political leader in the UK could make a radical difference. One without Sunak’s naivity and Starmer’s lack of confidence.
Competent. Political leader…
Wait. I’m having trouble understanding you. Is that a reference to aliens from outer-space? A Jonathan Swift story? A popular Halloween costume?
Naivety
The most plausible origin of Covid is a lab leak. It is more plausible that each variant declines by mutation rather than by competition. Competition requires a scarce resource and there was always a very large body of uninfected persons to perpetuate each variant. The most plausible cost effective way to reduce deaths was to protect the vulnerable. The most missed opportunitity is failing to identify what fosters variants.
Reducing deaths is not the goal of globalists.
Nor should it be.
“The primary, correct question”, and still unasked one, continues to be; how did we become a society whose fear of covid was so disproportional to the risk of death, given that the death toll from (with?) covid in 2020 was only slightly higher than global traffic fatalities?
Rephrase the question: How did nations allow themselves to be locked down and jabbed with experimental gene therapies just because billionaires control world media?
The answer of course is that governmental decisions (in all Western nations at least) are driven by incompetence and cowardice.
Electors vote by emotion. The perceived injustice in legal efforts to stop Trump will make him invincable. Particularly if he limited his campaigning to saying nothing more than I am on your side, they are trying to silence me.
Trump limiting what he says would be a black swan event in itself. It is his most grevious fault and the primary cause of most of his troubles.
Trump will win and then all hell will break loose as hundreds of lawsuits are filed. I expect the SCOTUS to have to step in as it did in 2000 to set things right, which will further inflame the leftists. There could be some very serious political violence. Jan 20, 2025 could be the start of the new American Civil War.
Even so leftist billionaires (Zuckerberg, Gates, etc) and dirty players in the FBI and CIA and leftist politicians will do everything to prevent a Trump Presidency. There is just too much at stake for the elites. Ordinary people have lost their ‘democracy’.
I do hope Wilders becomes PM of the Netherlands as a cautionary tale to globalist politicians that there are limits to what people will accept. If you ram through irrational activist progressive policies then at some point the people will elect someone to ram through activist reactionary right wing policies.
Absolutely. It would be a major red flag to the pro-illegalscum liberals.
,,,,and that someone usually has a good head of hair.
I have also noted that.
European political parties are too small to gain overall majorities so the future seems to lie in unlikely coalitions. Not a recipe for competance but hopefully one for non government rather than bad government.
What we want is limited, good government.
No.4 (Cause of Covid) is, I think reasonably clear now, albeit with massive cover-up, obfuscation and denials everywhere to be seen.
The work on developing a race and age biased viral weapon began in Chapel Hill Labs, part of the University of North Carolina in the US. The huge risk was recognised and such (add a function) research was legislated against, exporting the risk instead to China. China may have been duped or may have welcomed such research so as to rid China of foreigners whom they dislike and the aged who will financially destroy China now they are desperately short of young, productive contributors to their economy thanks to their one child policy in the past.
When the lab leak occurred it was thought it could be confined with seriously draconian lockdown measures but they, like every other authority, woefully underestimated the power of viral spread (or perhaps welcomed it for the reasons stated)?
The degree to which British Intelligence knew all this may be an open question but I suspect it was well informed.
If any of this is inaccurate I’d welcome counter views.
Do you have a citation for the weapons work in North Carolina?
I’m not convinced China was/is glad for the virus to ‘leak’ since the consequences were not known. But I am convinced that the Chinese were/are focused on weaponizing viruses.
Generally, when one develops a devastating new weapon, one uses it on someone one doesn’t like, not on one’s own people. China “leaking” COVID in Wuhan would be the equivalent of the US dropping the first atomic bomb on Des Moines, Iowa.
Unless a segment of one’s own people are among the ones they don’t like…
No mention of an all out Middle East war then? Perhaps the slaughter will continue to the bitter end, Arab populations will be whipped back into line and their greedy, self-interested leaders will suck up to the Great Satan Alliance as before next? ..so yeah, no grey Swan there.. just a dead one I guess?
Who in their right mind thinks a Labour government will be better for the UK?
Most of the population, thankfully.
Here’s another gray swan. Trump wins the election and cities across the U.S. are burned to the ground. It will make the BLM riots look like a peace march.
This belief is what the US media is stoking. Not just to make Trump’s election unpopular, but to make it unthinkable, like an extinction event. The Left will not give up power. They want civil war. That is what I fear Dems are building towards, by allowing Biden to lamely fail, charge Trump with a steal and take to the streets. Martial law. Round up guns. A new world order. It’s what they want. How else to explain their rhetoric about Trump while persisting with Biden whose popularity is in the low 30s and losing the battleground states?
Am I missing something here? Wasn’t it Trump that sent his goons to invade Congress?
Invade? As I recall the authorities on the spot invited them in for a show round. Okay, it got out of hand.
Whatever, I for one hope our politicians have plans to help us cope with the worst scenarios and the humility to understand that they are incapable of delivering utopian outcomes. However I fear my hopes are without foundation and that they are bereft of any such plans and humility.
Western scientific consensus is in favour of the lab-leak hypothesis. The question to ask is why no other country is putting pressure on China. The obvious answers are that the US and other countries were involved in the experiments in Wuhan, other countries are involved in similar experiments elsewhere and/or our governments are intent to handing sovereignty to an unelected bureaucracy.
Inherent in the grey swan 4 was that we need to prove that C19 came from a lab leak. No we don’t. We need to stop gain of function research anyway. It didn’t need a pandemic to know that such experiments are world-ending. The next pandemic won’t be so mild
one mistake: you do not need to now the origin of ‘the virus’ to avoid another pandemic. Covid was as much the expression of the illness of society (in its every aspect) as it was an issue with a virus. A ‘healthy’ society will be much less sensitive to any new virus that comes around. If viruses on their own can cause illness (without underlying receptivity of the population) we would not exists any more and everybody would be affected by the same virus. Covid is as much an expression of how we think in general, look at disease, do politics, travel and do economics as it is the expression of a virus going around, ….. Covid was not just the virus, it was everything that came with it… it ideally should be seen as an illness of society
But we do not like the above analysis: we prefer simple ways of looking at illness: it is easier to sell potions …
“But frustrating the will of the people risks a voter backlash.” Pity the writer made to grind out one of these space-filler essays at year’s end.
I always understood that WWI ended because one side gained an advantage on weapons. Ukraine will need such an advantage.
Not sure about that. Adding US manpower and resources certainly counted. Germany was also near starvation after 4 years of British naval blockade. And the German economy wasn’t really set up to fight a long war on this scale.
Nor was the UK financial system, hence Lord Balfour’s ‘begging’ visit to New York in late 1916.
Incidentally had the Kaiser sought a ‘compromise peace’ in April 1918 after ‘his’ stunning victory at Brest-Litovsk the previous month things might have turned out differently for everyone.
Lots of reasons why Germany accepted the game was up,however the main game changer was the allied ability to incorporate all the new weapons Aircraft,tanks,and new management methods,
Intrigrated warfare or blitzkrieg had arrived introduced via a Australian general with a Prussian Jewish background called Monash
‘ Blitzkrieg’ as you call it arrived with opening of the German Offensive on the 21st March 1918, the Kaiserschlacht” as it was called.
It very nearly succeeded, and ironically would had done so if the million odd cavalry left behind garrisoning the recent Russian conquest had been made available, particularly at Amiens.
Without wishing to diminish the reputation of Monash, undoubtedly the finest Allied commander, by the time he got his chance the German Army was a mere shadow of its former self, and defeat was inevitable.
The immediate cause was the collapse of the Austrian forces on the Italian front; this opened up the possibility of a third front on Germany’s southern frontier, which was simply more than the Germans could handle.
There is a sixth ‘grey swan’ event, of course, that would trump all the others — yes, sorry, pun intended. That event being Disclosure: an official government admission that intelligent non-human entities piloting UFOs is a real phenomenon and those entities have been visiting Earth and engaging with humanity for some time.
Given the jaw-dropping testimony delivered under oath by former military intelligence officer David Grusch (and two other Air Force officers) to the U.S. Congress House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on July 26th last year, I wouldn’t rule Disclosure out.
I guess it’s much less a ‘grey swan‘ event than it is a ‘grey alien’ event. 😉
I can’t help feeling that if this was indeed the case, the President of the US would be “in the know” about it, and that one particular President (let’s call him Trump) would have sent out a tweet within 24 hours of being told about it.
As an American, I’m not sure there is a likely outcome to the 2024 election that isn’t fraught with peril. The safest thing that could happen is, IMHO, a Biden victory with a margin similar or greater than that of 2020. It’s a case of ‘the devil you know’. We know basically what a second Biden administration will look like. The country is still divided and it’s still very easy for a small group to grind the American system to a halt. Moreover, the political window has moved decisively. We’re not going back to 2015 normal regardless. The next ten years will be dominated by continued fractures in the international community, more nationalistic economic policies, and some level of deglobalization, especially in vital strategic industries.
Any other result is basically a crap shoot. It’s not hard for me to imagine a plausible series of events that results in a Constitutional crisis, a second American civil war, a military coups, widespread violence, states seceding from the union, terrorism, international intervention. If Trump wins, it’s all on the table. If the other side resorts to undemocratic means to change the outcome of an election, it will basically validate everything Trump has been saying to his followers for years. It’s easy to see a series of escalations spiraling out of control very quickly if both sides perceive an existential struggle is taking place.
In other words, Happy New Year 2024, here’s hoping the US will still exist in 2025.
Cross off Gray Swan #2. Or, at least amend it.
Trump will not be kept off state ballots by the preemptory rulings of state judiciaries. We still have a Supreme Court here in the U.S., and those virtue-signaling state supreme court justices will shortly be reminded of that. It’s just a matter of time.
That being said, there has never been a worse electoral choice presented to the American people than Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I doubt the results will be “razor thin”, but no matter. Heads we lose, tails we lose. DESANTIS FOR PRESIDENT! ( in 2028? )