Week signals: The long and short of it
Plus: watch points for Davos, Gaza, Syria, China, and North Korea.

This week:
IN REVIEW. A series of breakthroughs, timely developments, historical contingency, and inauguration preparations.
UP AHEAD. Twilight of the oligarchs, follow-through on Gaza, risks in Syria, cross-Strait calm, and Pyongyang's dilemma.
The Week in Review: Time is of the essence
The week began with elections in Comoros and Croatia, plus sanctions on Russia, sending oil prices to six-month highs. It ended with a new government in Bulgaria, new candidates for prime minister in Canada (albeit temporarily), plus a new partnership between Russia and its rival for most-sanctioned oil producer, Iran (the other contender, Venezuela, has tried to stay quiet). In between, South Korea’s president was arrested, confirmation hearings began in Washington, fires were put out in LA, and the US placed new curbs on Beijing (as others were eased on Havana).
Most of all, a ceasefire was announced in Gaza, with Biden and Trump claiming a truce-for-hostages accord that had eluded negotiators for 15 months. At the time of writing, it was yet to be implemented but its approval by Israel's cabinet is a relief for Trump, who’ll want to use the momentum for a deal on Ukraine. It’s also a rare example of an ancient conflict conforming (so far at least) to the US political cycle.
If there was a theme to the week, it was time itself. From Keir Starmer's 100-year security pact with Ukraine Thursday, to Sweden's commencement of a 100,000-year nuclear storage facility Wednesday, there was no lack of historic ambition (particularly for Britain’s PM, whose polls are nearing those of a predecessor outlasted by a lettuce). At the other end of the temporal scale, physicists Wednesday published a breakthrough finding on reducing errors in quantum computing through Schrödinger's Cat and antimony. Shares across the nascent industry jumped, while those of sceptic Nvidia fell (Bitcoin, possibly most at risk from quantum cryptography, didn't get the memo). And then there’s TikTok, a platform beloved of sub-quantum attention spans, for which the clock is literally ticking until tomorrow, and the US debt ceiling, which Janet Yellen has warned will be reached the day after Trump’s inauguration.
Time has always been the essence of geopolitical analysis. Alongside studies of space (geography), understanding the past is essential to anticipating the future (strategy). From Issac Asimov’s Foundation to Neustadt and May's Thinking in Time – two books with a cult following among intelligence analysts – the historical method is seen as the essential ingredient in political forecasting, and political survival. We’ve tried to grapple with this before – finding an analogy to 2024 in our recent Year in Review, and examining the theory of historical patterns and whether events are determined from above or below.
But this week, we want to be a bit more short-term, particularly as we head into what my colleague Damien Bruckard calls the beginning of the geopolitical new year, with a list of what to watch for at Trump’s inauguration on Monday.