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A Divided and Increasingly Combustible World

May 28, 2025

Ian Bremmer is Calling Out Political Risks, and What it Means for the Future

By James Martinez

Perhaps the most challenging thing for today’s business and government leaders is connecting the dots to make sense of the rapidly changing world around them as they make decisions impacting the people they serve.

Ian Bremmer headshot

For many, the path for clarity takes them to renowned political scientist and best-selling author Ian Bremmer. His knack for factoring in political risk to financial markets has morphed into its own platform via GZERO Media, a digital media company providing intelligent and engaging news coverage of international affairs.

Bremmer also serves as the President and Founder of Eurasia Group, the world’s leading global research and advisory firm. It has warned of chaotic times for more than a decade and is an important resource for companies and people navigating a world that is evolving at a dizzying pace.

Dangers in a G-Zero World

The post-Cold War geopolitical structure is wavering due to a global leadership deficit that Bremmer has coined a “G-Zero world.” It refers to “an era when no one power or group of powers is both willing and able to drive a global agenda and maintain international order.

According to Bremmer, that leadership deficit appears to be growing to critically dangerous proportions as outlined in the “Top Risks 2025” report published by Bremmer and the Chairman of Eurasia Group, Cliff Kupchan. The annual forecast warns of the political risks that are most likely to play out over the course of the year.

“We are heading back to the law of the jungle. A world where the strongest do what they can, while the weakest are condemned to suffer what they must. And the former— whether states, companies, or individuals — can’t be trusted to act in the interest of those they have power over. It’s not a sustainable trajectory.”

Top Risks 2025, Eurasia Group

Published on Jan. 6, 2025, the 42-page document profiles critical challenges facing the world – the biggest of which is not any single event, but the “cumulative impact of the G-Zero leadership deficit on the breakdown of the global order.”

The report is bad news for those seeking stability and certainty throughout 2025. The deepening G-Zero leadership deficit is defining the world while offering no prospects of peaceful reform or renewal of the global order.

“What’s left is ever greater geopolitical instability, disruption, and conflict. With no one able and willing to uphold global peace and prosperity, the risk of economic disruptions and dangerous military clashes will grow. Power vacuums will expand, and global governance will languish, leaving rogue actors and human misery to proliferate in their wake. The world will become more divided and more combustible,” according to the report.

James Martinez is editor of the Detroiter magazine and a content creation consultant.

Volatile U.S.- China Relations, ‘Trumponomics’ Defining 2025 Risks

 

In addition to the dangers of living in a G-Zero world, the “Top Risks 2025” report analyzes the outlook for a second Trump administration and “Trumponomics”, the breakdown of U.S.-China relations, Russia’s decline, the proliferation of AI, U.S.-Mexico relations, and other risks.

 

  • We’re entering a uniquely dangerous period of world history on par with the 1930s and the early
    Cold War.

 

  • The breakdown in U.S.-China relations will deepen bilateral suspicion, animosity, and mistrust … and the risk of unintended escalation will increase.

 

  • President Trump will follow through on his core campaign promises to a greater extent, and to greater effect on the U.S. economy, than businesses and investors expect.

 

  • No other country in the world is doing more to directly subvert the global order than Russia.

 

  • When the world’s two largest economies – U.S. and China – turn inward, everyone else pays the price.

 

  • As AI capabilities are pushed further, faster, and with fewer checks in place, the risks of a catastrophic accident or an uncontrollable AI “breakout” will grow.

 

For the full “Top Risks 2025” report, visit eurasiagroup.net/issues/top-risks-2025.