What are the big security threats coming down the track?

On the surface, last week’s NATO summit in Washington ticked the boxes: the alliance was able to show it was bigger and stronger than ever, its military support for Ukraine appears unabated, and it has just sent a strong message to China to end its covert support for Russia’s war in Kiev.

Sir Keir Starmer’s new government has a chance to establish itself as the linchpin of the transatlantic alliance at a time of political uncertainty in the White House and across much of Europe.

In the UK itself, the priorities for the new government are the economy, housing, immigration and the NHS, to name just a few.

However, often times undesirable threats or scenarios emerge that can ruin even the best laid plans.

So what is likely to happen during this new UK government’s term in office?

This isn’t surprising — it’s on everyone’s radar — but it doesn’t make it any less dangerous for Lebanon, Israel and the entire Middle East.

“The possibility of a major Israeli invasion of Lebanon this summer should be at the top of the new administration’s list of geopolitical risks.”

That’s the view of Professor Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director of the Whitehall think tank, the Royal Institute for Security Studies (RUSI).

As the conflict in Gaza continues and Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea continue, Prof Chalmers believes “the region may be entering a period of sustained, multi-front warfare for which neither Israel nor the West will be prepared.”

Since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year, there have been fears that subsequent Israeli military operations in Gaza could escalate beyond the border into a full-scale regional war.

The disputed northern border between Israel and Lebanon is the area most at risk of such a war breaking out.

Daily gun battles across the border between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Iran-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah have already killed hundreds of people, most of them inside Lebanon.

More than 60,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods in northern Israel, and many more in Lebanon.

There is growing domestic pressure on the Israeli government to “deal” with Hezbollah by pushing its forces north of Lebanon’s Litani River, reducing the exposure of Israel to rocket attacks.

“We don’t want war,” said IDF Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, “but I don’t think any country will accept 60,000 displaced citizens. This situation has to end. We want a diplomatic solution, but Israel’s patience is at its limit.”

Both sides have strong reasons not to go to war.

Lebanon’s economy is already fragile – it was only just recovering from the 2006 war with Israel, and another full-scale conflict would have a devastating effect on the country’s infrastructure and people.

Hezbollah, on the other hand, would likely respond to a major Israeli attack and incursion with a massive and sustained barrage of missiles, drones and rockets that could overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome air defense bases.

No part of Israel is beyond its reach.

At this point, it’s entirely possible that the U.S. Navy, which is based offshore, will join Israel, which then raises the question of what Iran will do.

Russia also has a significant stockpile of ballistic missiles and a network of proxy militias in Iraq, Yemen and Syria that could be mobilized to step up attacks on Israel.

One way to ease tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border would be to end the fighting in Gaza, but nine months and a horrific death toll have yet to see a lasting peace.

The Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), designed to contain and monitor Iran’s nuclear program, was the Obama administration’s greatest foreign policy achievement in 2015.

But that collapsed a long time ago.

A year after President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the agreement, Iran is no longer adhering to the rules.

Buried deep within massive mountains, seemingly out of reach of even the most powerful bunker-buster bombs, Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spin ferociously, enriching uranium to concentrations far beyond the 20 percent needed for peaceful civilian purposes. (Highly enriched uranium is needed for nuclear bombs.)

Iran officially claims that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and purely for energy production.

But Israeli and Western experts have expressed concern that Iran has secret plans to reach a so-called “breakout capability” – achieving a state where it has the ability to build a nuclear bomb, but not necessarily do so.

Iran must be aware that North Korea, an isolated global pariah, is steadily building up its nuclear warheads and delivery systems, posing a major deterrent to any aggressor.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, it would almost inevitably see its regional rivals, Saudi Arabia, seek to acquire one as well, as would Turkey and Egypt.

And suddenly, a nuclear arms race began across the Middle East.

This depends on what you define as a “win.”

In the most extreme cases, it would mean Russian forces overwhelming Ukrainian defenses, occupying the rest of Ukraine, including the capital, Kiev, and replacing the pro-Western government of President Volodymyr Zelensky with a puppet regime appointed by Moscow.

Of course, this was the original plan for a full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022, but that plan failed spectacularly.

This scenario is currently considered unlikely.

But Russia does not need to conquer all of Ukraine in order to declare some kind of “victory” that it can present to its public to justify the astronomical numbers of casualties it is suffering in this war.

Russia already occupies about 18 percent of Ukraine and is gradually expanding its influence in the east.

More arms are expected to arrive from the West, but Ukraine is severely short on manpower and its forces are fighting valiantly but are vastly outnumbered and outgunned and exhausted.

Russian commanders seem to care little for the lives of their men, but the public is on their side: Russia’s entire economy is on a war footing, with nearly 40 percent of the state budget going to defense.

President Vladimir Putin, who recently insisted on complete Ukrainian surrender as a “condition for peace talks,” believes time is on his side: He knows that his old friend Donald Trump will return to the White House within a few months, and Western support for Ukraine will likely begin to unravel.

By holding on to the territory it has already seized and denying Ukraine the opportunity to join NATO and the EU, Russia can claim a partial victory in a war it has portrayed as a fight for Russia’s survival.

Again, there have been plenty of warnings that this might be coming.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government officials have repeatedly said the self-governing island democratic nation of Taiwan must be “returned to the motherland”, by force if necessary.

Taiwan does not want to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing.

But China considers Taiwan a renegade province and wants it to be “reunified” well before the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China in 2049.

The United States adopts a position of so-called “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan.

The U.S. military is legally obligated to cooperate in the defense of Taiwan, but Washington wants to keep China guessing about whether that means sending in U.S. troops to thwart a Chinese invasion.

China almost certainly does not want to invade Taiwan.

It would entail an enormous cost, both in blood and treasure. Ideally, Beijing would like Taiwan to give up dreams of complete independence and be willing to submit to rule by mainland China.

But as that seems unlikely at present (Taiwanese have watched in horror as Hong Kong’s democracy collapsed), Beijing has another option.

If China decided to invade Taiwan, it would seek to cut off Taiwan from the outside world and make life unbearable for the Taiwanese people, but would keep bloodshed to a minimum so as not to provoke a war with the United States.

Is Taiwan important? Yes, it is.

This is more than a lofty principle about defending a democratic ally half a world away.

Taiwan produces more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced microchips, the tiny technologies that power nearly everything in modern life.

A US-China war over Taiwan would have a devastating impact on the global economy far more than the war in Ukraine.

Not exactly, but there are some mitigating factors here.

For China, trade is paramount, and Beijing’s ambitious plans to drive the U.S. Navy out of the Western Pacific and dominate the entire region may be thwarted by damaging sanctions and a reluctance to spark a global trade war.

In Ukraine, Putin may be slowly expanding his territory, but it is coming at a huge cost to his country.

The Red Army’s occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s left some 15,000 people dead over a decade, sparked protests across the country and hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In Ukraine, Russia has suffered many times as many deaths in just a quarter of that time. So far, protests have been limited — the Kremlin largely controls the news Russians see — but the longer this war goes on, the greater the risk that Russians will finally balk at the idea of ​​continuing to kill rising numbers of their compatriots.

Amid fears that a future Trump administration could roll back historic protections, a new British-led security pact is being prepared in Europe.

As the US presidential election in November approaches, plans to mitigate any negative impact on the continent’s security are accelerating.