The game of alliances underway in the reconfiguration of global geopolitics displays some signals of the possible end of wars which are, moreover, drowned in the struggles for global leadership.
Between the return of President Donald Trump to the White House, the exhaustion of the belligerents and the will of the Ukrainian president, everything is being put into play so that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia ends in 2025.
The two front theatres are re-articulating international power relations and contributing to questioning the credibility of the Western world around the rivalry between China and the United States. In Europe, conservatism and the extreme right are progressing in a context of reconfiguration of its relationship with Washington. It is certainly necessary to move on to the essential, which is to limit the energies devoted to the war in Ukraine.
On the other side in Gaza, while waiting for the two-state solution advocated by French President Emmanuel Macron, who also announced the holding of an international conference in June 2025, Israel continues its bombings on the ground. The French President says he wants to “take everyone on this path” with diplomatic initiatives in the coming months, to implement the “two-state solution” that will be at the center of the 2025 meeting co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia.
Who will bring back appeasement?
In his remaining time, Joe Biden is trying to leave behind a legacy that will be remembered in the Middle East. His desire is to be the one who ended the war in Gaza and Lebanon, brought back the Israeli hostages, put an end to the suffering of the Palestinians and deterred Iran. For the Netanyahu government, even if the death of the Hamas leader marked “the beginning of the end” of the war in Gaza, the Trump 2025 is “unknown” and “worried”. Yet the President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, affirmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he wants the war in Gaza to end: “He knows that I want it to end,” Trump told Time magazine.
The role of the UN
The United Nations, which is supposed to advocate for peace between peoples, seems to have lost control of everything and is struggling to find solutions to conflicts. While the 5 States of the Security Council are struggling to use their veto for this or that initiative in favor of this or that partner, the Council finds itself blocked. Even the non-binding resolutions of “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” of the General Assembly have been rejected by Israel and the United States. This happens in a context where several states of the world criticize the functioning of the UN, which is described as an ‘unfair organization’ and is invited to ‘reform itself.’
Although signs of appeasement remain perceptible in certain areas of operations and with the return of President Trump to the White House, the interests of the power nations that are fighting for global leadership could taint the efforts to return to calm. All this assume that the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip have not yet delivered their verdict and could have twists and turns in 2025.
