I’ve reported on more than forty wars around the world since the 1960s. I watched the Cold War reach its peak and then simply evaporate.
Yet I’ve never seen a year quite as concerning as 2025—not merely because multiple major conflicts are raging, but because one of them carries geopolitical implications of unparalleled gravity.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has warned that the war in his country could escalate into a global conflict. After nearly six decades of observing war, I have a growing and uneasy conviction that he is right.
NATO governments are on high alert for signs that Russia may sever the undersea cables that carry the electronic lifeblood of Western society.
Russian drones are accused of probing NATO defenses, while its hackers develop ways to cripple ministries, emergency services, and major corporations.
Western authorities are convinced that Russia’s intelligence services are behind the murder and attempted murder of dissidents who have sought refuge abroad.
An official inquiry into the 2018 attempted assassination of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury—and the subsequent fatal poisoning of a local woman, Dawn Sturgess—concluded the attack was approved at the highest levels of the Russian state.
That means President Putin himself.
By James Kisoo
