PREVIEW: PREDICTIONS AND HOPES FOR THE NEW YEAR – Ken’s Thought of the Week

Threat Analyst Ken Abramowitz is author of “The Multifront War”

Editor: Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, President, American Center for Democracy (ACD)

See the sources for this article and more research in the Additional Reading section

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

PREVIEW: Predictions and Hopes for 2023 – Ken’s Thought of the Week

Numerous conflicting trends are hovering on the horizon of 2023. Russia and Ukraine are slugging it out in a brutal land war in Ukraine. China is threatening Taiwan with warplane and battle ship incursions. Iran is threatening everyone with its nuclear weapons program and growing arms shipments to Russia, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere. Venezuela is shipping weapons, people, and illicit drugs throughout the region. The U.S. southern border is wide open, and the country is being invaded by millions of mostly undocumented migrants from 160 countries, including criminals and terrorists. In the U.S., Republicans and Democrats are hardly communicating with each other. Rising interest rates should dampen inflation and slow down economic growth.

So, here are our key predictions for 2023:

1) The U.S. will continue destabilizing the world economy with irresponsible federal government spending that fuels inflation.

2) The U.S. government will continue weakening the national security of numerous allied countries by purposely withdrawing from crucial trouble spots and lowering the footprint of our armed forces.

3) The U.S. military will continue to mismanage its responsibilities by irresponsibly fostering communist woke nonsense, thus missing its recruiting goals.4) The void created by U.S. mismanagement will encourage our enemies, particularly China and Iran, to fill the void.

5) Stepped-up military investments by our allies will partially fill these gaps.

6) Under the able management of its best government in recent history, Israel will emerge as one of the strongest regional leaders in the world. It will strengthen the Abraham Accords by adding Saudi Arabia, Oman, and perhaps Indonesia. This will help end the Arab-Israel conflict, except for the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporters of Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, and the Shiite radicals of Iran.

7) Israel will still have to contend with tensions with the Palestinian Authority (PA), which is transitioning to new but still dysfunctional leadership, that will inevitably continue to oppose the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

8) Ukraine will continue to resist the brutal and incompetent Russian army. Ukraine is largely destroying the conventional fighting forces and credibility of the Russian military, greatly aided by American and European weapons. The war with Ukraine will further destroy the Russian economy; at least a million of the best and brightest have left the country in the past two years, greatly benefiting Israel and eastern European countries, who welcomed them.

9) In the Far East, China’s neighbors and potential targets are fortifying their defenses; Taiwan is growing its military budget by over 10% in 2023 and expanding its army draft from 4 months to 12 months. Over the next five years, Japan is committing to doubling its 1% of GDP historically devoted to military expenditures. And Australia has committed to buying eight nuclear submarines from the U.S.10) A few European countries with new conservative governments, such as Italy and Sweden, are working with similarly conservative governments in Eastern Europe to save their societies from uncontrolled Muslim migration, which threatens their Christian, secular Western societies.

Optimistically, we also entertain some hopes for 2023:

1) We hope that the brave young women and men in Iran will be able to force regime change in that great country, run by an autocratic, messianic, incompetent, cruel, and corrupt government.2) We hope that the brave citizens of China force the removal of the despot Chairman Xi Jinping and weaken the power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

3) We hope that President Putin’s advisors unite to pressure him to stop the brutal invasion of Ukraine.

4) We hope the expected recession in the U.S. and the world is modest in depth and duration.

5) We pray and hope that Al Qaeda and ISIS do not take advantage of the total mismanagement of DHS (Department of Homeland Security) to accelerate attacks on our homeland.

6) We pray and hope that our enemies will not use an EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) or cyber attack to disable our antiquated and insufficiently hardened electric grid.

7) We hope that England takes advantage of BREXIT to fix its broken immigration policy, deport Imams who insight violence, and rid its schools of communist woke nonsense.

8) We hope that the revelations and new transparency at Twitter will lead other social media companies to voluntarily stop illegally infringing on our Freedom of Speech. If this doesn’t happen by the end of January, Congress should initiate regulations punishing illegal censorship.

9) We hope the nearly 45 million Kurds in the Middle East improve their autonomy by attaining their freedom from the oppressive, corrupt governments that suppress them.

10) We hope the American people will understand the extent of the Biden government’s mismanagement of the economy, national security, and other critical aspects of life in America. We hope this understanding will encourage them to revoke the Marxist drivel of the ‘woke’ lunacy that is usurping Americans’ freedom of speech, impairing their unique form of Federalism, and permanently scarring the nation’s children.

In the immortal words of Charles Dickens epic novel A Tale of Two Cities:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us….”

Let’s hope that in 2023, the “best of times” will prevail.