Global Risks Weekly Roundup #13/2025: Bombing Iran, Turkey protests, mpox waning.
Executive summary
Tensions between the US and Iran continued, as Iran replied to Trump’s letter demanding that a new nuclear agreement be reached, and the US directed more military assets to positions near Iran. Last week, we estimated that there is a 1 in 3 chance that the US will strike Iran by the end of April, but have since lowered our estimate a bit.
There are large-scale demonstrations in Turkey, although our forecasters assign only a ~4% chance that Erdoğan will be out of power by the end of the year.
Food is running out in Gaza as Israel’s blockade continues, and some demonstrators protested against Hamas.
The Chinese state and media appear to be emphasizing more anti-Taiwan-independence sentiment, in a way reminiscent of Russia’s pre-invasion rhetoric, or the Trump’s administration’s public campaign about the need for taking Greenland.
On the biosecurity side, the mpox outbreak is waning but other threats are waxing, particularly with a potential elimination of US funding for at least some vaccines and vaccine research.
Geopolitics
Middle East
On March 12, the Trump administration delivered a letter to Iran that gave Iran two months to reach a nuclear agreement with the US or face serious consequences, which would presumably include military attacks on Iranian nuclear weapons program targets. Last week, we reported that there was a live possibility of the US bombing Iran’s nuclear programme in April:
Since then, Iran answered Trump’s letter from 3-4 weeks ago, via Oman. The contents of the answer isn’t known. The Ayatollah has likely approved indirect negotiations with the US, through an intermediary. A US official confirmed that the military buildup in the Middle East is "not disconnected" from Trump's ultimatum to Iran. The USS Vinson left port in Guam on Friday as predicted, and a significant number of C-17A cargo flights to Bahrain are also underway, likely bringing air defense systems and ordnance.
A pilot wrote to us to clarify that NOTAM timelines aren’t that reliable. Forecasters vary between already knowing this and thinking that the NOTAM might also be used to signal the seriousness of the timeline to Iran, and changing their minds a bit and thinking that a bombing beyond April would be less surprising. We are now at a 25% chance (15% to 65%) of US/Israeli military action against nuclear weapons program targets in Iran by the end of May. Our forecasters view US threats against Iran's nuclear program as analogous to pointing a gun at a car: the US is not threatening to invade Iran, only to damage facilities and assets that are important to it.
More than 50,000 have been killed in Gaza since the Israel offensive began, a Hamas-run ministry says. Israel invaded more of Gaza and approved the creation of a new agency for ‘voluntary departure’ of Palestinians from Gaza. Food is running out in Gaza nearly a month into an Israeli blockade. The World Food Programme says that tens of millions are at risk of extreme hunger and starvation throughout the world.
The population of Gaza is hard to precisely estimate, but it seems to be in the range of 2M. 50K is thus 2.5%. For comparison, the death toll in Russia's invasion of Ukraine is more like 250K. But if Gaza does have a famine, it could match or exceed that number.
More: Iran showed off an underground missile city. US strikes against the Houthis continue, and “Hamas PM” was killed in an Israeli strike on a hospital. The Lebanese army may be preparing for a large operation to dismantle Hezbollah's military infrastructure in the country. Some demonstrations in Gaza this week protested against Hamas, and local clan leaders also reportedly called on people to protest against Hamas.
Europe
Ukraine has been engaging Russian troops in the Russian region of Belgorod, according to several Russian military bloggers, even as it retreats from the Kursk region.
The UK and France are to send military advisers including their defence chiefs to Ukraine over the coming week. The US has had advisers stationed at the Office of Defense Cooperation at its Embassy in Kyiv, but not for training purposes. French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated that any Franco-British troops sent to Ukraine in the future would be better described as a "reassurance force" situated in and around strategic cities, ports and energy infrastructure (presumably west of the Dnieper river), rather than a "peacekeeping force" deployed to the frontlines.
Regarding President Putin refusing to negotiate with Zelensky, Trump said, " ...I was very angry, pissed off, then Putin said yesterday that, you know, - when Putin started getting into Zelensky's credibility, because that's not going in the right location..." He continued that if he cannot reach a deal on the War in Ukraine, and decides "...it was Russia's fault, I am going to put secondary sanctions on all oil coming out of Russia." Whether this change in rhetoric results in a change of policy towards Russia remains to be seen.
In a speech, Putin gave license to Trump to take control of Greenland, effectively dividing part of the world into Russian and US spheres of influence.
Poland suspended migrants’ rights to apply for asylum.
The EU told the public to keep 72 hours of emergency supplies on hand.
Large demonstrations continue in Turkey. Anonymous is helping protesters by leaking police data. Forecasters give an aggregate 4.3% (range, 3% to 6%) chance that Erdogan will be out of power by the end of 2025, with about 1.7% of this for health reasons.
Asia-Pacific
Chinese researchers from state-affiliated institutions have developed a device capable of severing undersea cables, even heavily fortified ones. This could be deployed for maintenance purposes but could also be used to disrupt Taiwan's connection to the outside world.
Chinese news appears to be emphasizing more anti-Taiwan independence sentiment. We saw a similar signal before Russia invaded Ukraine. A researcher at a mainland Chinese think tank has published an article stating that renewed “civil war operations” in Taiwan may be an option for Beijing and that China could impose “direct governance” on Taiwan.
Taiwan unveiled its first domestically produced sea drone.
The Chinese coast guard expelled Japanese vessels entering “Chinese territorial waters around the Diaoyu Islands”—Senkaku islands in Japan.
Relations between India and China continue to improve, and India's Foreign Minister has said that while there will continue to be issues they can be resolved without conflict.
An earthquake struck Myanmar, killing at least 2,000 people.
The Americas
Top-level US defense officials, including Secretary of Defense Hegseth and the National Security Advisor Waltz, discussed specific attack plans for Yemen on a Signal chat—and included the editor of The Atlantic in the chat. Signal has been used for other national-security discussions as well. In addition, Der Spiegel reporters found a lot of private data and passwords for senior national-security personnel online.
The significance of Signal is partly that chats are easily deleted, allowing members of the administration to coordinate unhindered by some checks and balances on power, like the Presidential Records Act, which also binds Vance.
Trump said that the U.S. will "go as far as we have to go" to gain control of Greenland. Later, VP Vance, during a brief visit to Greenland, gave a speech in which he reiterated Trump’s rationale for taking control of Greenland. Greenland's prime minister pushed back against Trump's statement. Malcolm Nance offered some warning signs to watch for that could indicate that the US is making military preparations to invade Greenland. Forecasters are at ~25% (12% to 40%) on a Greenland acquisition or free association by the end of 2029—Polymarket is at 10cts by the end of 2025.
Trump is expected to impose new tariffs on April 2, and markets are unhappy about it.
Speaker Johnson discussed the possibility of eliminating some federal courts, in support of the Trump administration's increasing pressure on the judiciary. Trump targeted law firms that file lawsuits opposing administration policies, and a judge pushed back.
In Canada, PM Carney said, "The old relationship we had with the United States, based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military co-operations, is over." Later, Trump said that a call with the Canadian PM was “extremely productive”. Flight bookings from Canada to the US have dropped by about 70% for each month through September.
Africa
Conflicts in Africa are heating up: The Uganda military says it has killed 242 rebels in east Congo this week. There is renewed fighting in eastern parts of the DRC. The Sudanese army dstruck a North Darfur market, killing hundreds of civilians and injuring many. Tensions are escalating between Ethiopia and Eritrea, primarily over Ethiopia’s desire for maritime access to the Red Sea; reports indicate that military mobilization in Eritrea and troop deployments on the Ethiopian side of the border are occurring. Members of the opposition in South Sudan have been detained.
Tech
“A person familiar with the matter” said that OpenAI has to transition into a for-profit company by the end of the year in order to get the full $40 billion that SoftBank is raising. By 2029, OpenAI expects its revenue will surpass $125 billion, and they don’t expect their cash flow to be positive until then.
Microsoft pulled back from more data center leases:
The tech giant's withdrawal from new capacity leasing was largely led by the decision not to support additional training workloads from ChatGPT maker OpenAI, [TD Cowen analysts] said in a note.
DeepSeek released a major upgrade to its V3 AI model.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un oversaw testing of AI suicide drones, and said unmanned control and AI capabilities must be the top priorities in modern arms development.
Musk merged xAI and Twitter/X, by buying Twitter for 37.5% of X.ai, in a deal that values Twitter without its debt at $33B and X.ai at $80B.
In Paraguay, 1.2K people who were working on a call center and transcribing voice to text were fired. Not hugely significant in itself, but a concrete sign of things to come.
More: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s World Network (formerly Worldcoin) is reportedly in talks with Visa for a stablecoin wallet. Scale AI is reportedly seeking a $25 billion valuation in a potential tender offer. Anthropic got a California federal judge to reject a preliminary bid to block it using copyrighted lyrics to train Claude. The EU is to invest $1.4 billion in AI and cybersecurity. And Dan Hendrycks argues against the US launching an AI Manhattan Project, saying that it would be destabilizing and would be credibly deterred.
Biorisks
New monthly mpox cases are starting to decline.
Ending Gavi’s funding may lead to a million deaths. But the Trump administration might also be restarting HIV funding. It is also terminating grants funding work to develop new therapeutics and vaccines for Covid—and future pandemics.
More: An illness is spreading in Russia: the etiology is unknown but could be Mycoplasma pneumoniae. A ‘Moroccan Measles’ variant was detected in Brussels sewage. The world's first case of bird flu in sheep was detected in Yorkshire, England. Hundreds of millions of honeybees have died in the US over the past eight months, in "the worst bee loss in recorded history."
Global economy
Goldman-Sachs forecasts that the price of gold will reach $3,300 an ounce, or higher, by the end of the year, with China and other central banks increasing their holdings. The price of copper is expected to reach $12,000 this year, which would reflect an increase of about 20% above current prices.
Ocean freight prices from Asia to Northern Europe have fallen 47% this year, primarily as newly constructed ships have entered shipping fleets, increasing shipping capacity. New ships were built in response to the shipping crunch in the first years of the Covid pandemic.
European stocks will likely outperform US stocks by the largest margin ever.