As year 2024 begins, wars are raging in Africa, Israel and Gaza and Ukraine. These are indeed explosive and most troubling. In addition, the US presidential race has begun, with two diametrically opposed political parties. The isolationist tilt of some in the Republican Party is worrisome. This will be a “make-or-break year for the post-1945 world order.” The new dynamic is one of increasing instability. The Economist argues that “In the 1990s many countries aspired to a self-reinforcing cycle of freedom, market economics and rules-based globalization. Now there is an unpredictable cycle of populism, interventionist economics and transactional globalization. As a result, three threats loom in 2024.”

A new poll from YouGov/The Economist points out that young Americans appear to be remarkably ignorant about one of modern history’s greatest crimes. Some 20% of respondents aged 18-29 think that the Holocaust is a myth, compared with 8% of those aged 30-44. An additional 30% of young Americans said they do not know whether the Holocaust is a myth. “Many respondents espouse the canard that Jews wield too much power in America: young people are nearly five times more likely to think this than are those aged 65 and older.”

I have been reading Rabbi Meir Y. Soloveichik’s Providence and Power: Ten Portraits in Jewish Statesmanship. It is a remarkable read, for in it he surveys the leadership qualities of King David, Queen Esther, Benjamin Disraeli and Abraham Lincoln, among others. He makes two profound observations that are so helpful for 2024

What motivates the rulers of Iran? Why do they invest billions of dollars in arming themselves and their proxies (e.g., Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis of Yemen, etc.) against Israel? Is it simply to destroy the growing acceptance of Israel by several Arab nations? Was the 7 October genocidal attack designed to thwart the seemingly imminent recognition by Saudi Arabia of Israel? Or was it something more egregious, more dastardly?

Columnist Daniel Henninger correctly observes that “There was a time when most American schoolchildren had a functioning knowledge of the Holocaust and the camps. No longer. Universities’ hiring and enabling of activist left-wing professors—proponents of the anti-Israel movement called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions—has affected a generation of students. A Quinnipiac poll found 51% of Democrats younger than 35 don’t support sending military aid to Israel after Hamas’s attack.”

The ethical case against abortion rests on the proposition that life begins at conception—and that killing a baby in the womb is ethically wrong. The life of the baby in the womb is as valuable in the eyes of God as that of the mother. However, since the 1970s, abortion has been defended on the grounds of privacy and bodily autonomy: “my body, my choice.” The legal and philosophical debates that culminated in Roe v. Wade (1973) considered abortion in terms of competing rights: the woman’s right to control her body against the baby’s right not to be killed.

We live in a world where one of the few constants in life is change. I recently read media theorist Douglas Rushkoff’s book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now. It captures quite effectively the unsettledness and disorientation many feel in our postmodern, post-Christian, media-saturated culture. Rushkoff’s analysis is brilliant, but he offers few solutions and little comfort in a world of religious skepticism, moral/cultural progressivism and animosity toward traditional values and religious convictions.

I have come to appreciate David French, a columnist for the New York Times and an evangelical Christian. Writing in one of the most liberal newspapers in America, his voice is surprisingly refreshing and wise. Recently, he wrote a column highlighting the difference between a libertarian and a libertine.

Former Republican senator from Missouri, John Danforth, recently wrote, “Since the end of World War II, Republicans have stood firm against Russian designs in Europe. Now, populists have injected an isolationist element into the party.” The Economist also observed that “in place of a foreign policy that saw America as a protector of freedom and democracy is a new doctrine of America First that shuns allies (barring Israel) and would give up on the Ukrainians fighting off a Russian invasion even when no American soldiers are at risk . . . Although [Ronald] Reagan remains beatified within the party, the institutions he was aligned with have changed.” The party now stands for protectionism, isolationism and nativism.

Even a cursory study of history indicates that the central goal of geopolitics is maintaining a balance of power in the world. This was true in the ancient world with a balance between Egypt and the various Mesopotamian powers. It was true in the Napoleonic era when Napoleon sought dictatorial control over Europe, only to be defeated and a new balance established at the 1815 Congress of Vienna. Both World War I and World War II saw Germany destroy the fragile balance of power in Europe. Post World War II saw a perilous balance of power maintained between the United States and the Soviet Union. Today the balance of power in the world is shattered and, in 2023, only the United States can restore this much-needed balance.