The Biggest Geopolitical Winners and Losers of the Year

The largest war in Europe since World War II continued in Ukraine for the third year. At the same time, a series of escalations between Israel and the so-called “Axis of Resistance” completely upended the existing order in the Middle East.

Here are the biggest geopolitical winners and losers of 2024:

Turkey

Though its rise has often fallen under the radar, Turkey has one of the best records of power projection of the 21st century. Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has decisively intervened in conflicts in Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Azerbaijan-Armenia, winning all of them.

All the while, Ankara has been able to successfully strong-arm Russia and the West and maintain good relations with each.

Turkey pulled off another massive victory in 2024, being the central figure that backed and armed the rebel coalition that toppled the Assad government, finally reaping dividends for the central role it played in organizing the Free Syrian Army beginning in 2011.

The Syrian Salvation Government, closely allied with Turkey, became the government of Syria on Dec. 8. The Syrian National Army, effectively a Turkish proxy, played a pivotal role in the final rebel offensive, setting itself up as one of the dominant forces in the fragile new coalition governing Syria. With deposed leader Bashar al Assad gone and Turkey’s allies in control of Syria, Ankara looks poised to finally crush the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the north, long a thorn in its side.

It is likely that the new Syrian government, ruling over a country devastated by nearly 14 years of war, will be hugely reliant on Turkey for recovery efforts, allowing Ankara to exert enormous influence.

With the drastic losses suffered by Iran in 2024, Turkey looks set to fill the power vacuum and establish itself in 2025 as the preeminent Islamic power in the Middle East.

Israel

On one hand, Israel experienced its worst year in recent memory in the realm of global opinion. Casualties from the war in Gaza saw anti-Israel protests break out across the world, particularly across U.S. college campuses. It also received one of its greatest legal blows when the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

On the other hand, 2024 saw Israel achieve military victories unseen since its famous triumph in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israeli intelligence regained the prestige lost by failing to detect Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, first through the detonation of thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies on Sept. 17-18, killing or wounding thousands. This was followed up with a series of decapitation airstrikes that killed every senior Hezbollah commander. Its Oct. 1 invasion of Lebanon met little organized resistance.

Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, while Hamas’s Gaza head, Yahya Sinwar, was killed in a gunfight with the Israel Defense Forces. Hamas’s conventional strength was largely eliminated.

Two Iranian drones and missile strikes on Israel failed to inflict any significant damage, while Israel responded with massive strikes on strategic targets within Iran.

The crown jewel of Israeli success was the fall of longtime enemy Assad, cutting off Iran’s main supply route to Hezbollah. To prevent jihadist rebels from seizing Assad’s weapons, Israel launched a series of airstrikes that annihilated the Syrian Navy and Air Force. It also launched its first invasion of Syria since 1973, establishing a buffer zone while encountering no resistance.

Israel enters 2025 at the peak of its power, having quashed or degraded nearly every regional enemy while suffering minimal casualties. The massive swell of negative public opinion has been largely irrelevant.

The Houthis

While 2024 was distinguished by a series of shocking defeats for Iran and the “Axis of Resistance,” the Houthis proved to be a major exception.

The radical Shia militia group has consistently surprised observers in recent years, gaining the upper hand in the Yemeni Civil War and then fighting a nine-country coalition led by Saudi Arabia to a stalemate over the past decade. Following Hamas’s Oct. 7 surprise attacks against Israel, the Houthis entered the war by attacking shipping in the vital global trade chokepoint in the Red Sea. They vowed to continue the attacks until a ceasefire was declared in Gaza.

A coalition of over 20 nations led by the United States announced Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023, aiming to protect shipping and degrade Houthi military capabilities. One year later, the massive armada has failed to have a major discernable effect. The Houthis have continued their attacks and even expanded military efforts to strike Israel with ballistic missiles. 

Analysts have described the effort as the most intense combat experienced by the U.S. Navy since World War II. Some analysts have gone so far as to declare a Houthi victory over the coalition.

The Houthis’s victories have won them plaudits from the Islamic world and anti-Israel groups, even winning some sympathy from a few leftist figures in the U.S. They enter 2025 with their prestige at an all-time high, a sole bright point for Iran and the “Axis of Resistance.”

Argentina

While not experiencing dramatic victories such as Turkey’s or Israel’s, 2024 was Argentina’s best year in recent history.

In July, it won a morale boost after winning a record third Copa America title, its third straight major title after winning the same contest in 2021 and the World Cup in 2022.

Victories for Argentina extended well beyond the sports realm, however, with controversial President Javier Milei’s first year in office seeing success. Inflation was drastically cut, the economy began to stabilize, and the deficit was slashed.

His work has won him the praise of the Bank of America, IMF, and President-elect Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Argentina’s aggressive foreign policy against Venezuela and Iran won plaudits from several Western allies, boosting its prestige.

A recent poll gave Milei a 56% approval rating, the highest of any president in the country’s recent history. For the first time in recent memory, Argentina enters the new year with a sense of optimism.

Iran

Following the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988, the young Islamic Republic of Iran began carefully building up its stance as a major regional player. By 2024, Iran had built a network of militias numbering in the hundreds of thousands scattered across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Gaza, and Yemen.

Following a series of escalations in April, Iran launched its first direct missile attack on Israel, dealing minimal damage. Israel responded with devastating airstrikes on strategic targets, a pattern that repeated itself in September and October. Its deterrence was shattered by the degradation of Hezbollah and its failure to respond to the assassination of Haniyeh in Tehran.

Its leadership was left in disarray after the death of its President Ebrahim Raisi, viewed by some as the most likely successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a helicopter crash.

The year concluded with Iran’s biggest loss after jihadist rebels seized Damascus in a lighting offensive. After 13 years of investing tens of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars in its longest-standing ally, Iran saw its largest base of operations outside of the mainland disintegrate in 10 days.

Hezbollah and the ‘Axis of Resistance’

Except for the Houthis, the “Axis of Resistance” appeared hesitant to come to Hamas’s aid with the onset of the conflict, with Tehran reportedly angry that the group hadn’t informed it about its attack plans. Hesitation from the “Axis of Resistance” allowed Israel to seize the initiative on every front, to devastating effect.

Hezbollah, which dealt Israel its only major defeat in its history in 2006, was viewed as the most feared and capable paramilitary organization in the world. This mythos was thoroughly shattered beginning in September with the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. The ensuing Israeli air campaign stripped Hezbollah of the leadership that guided it through the 21st century.

By the time Israel launched its invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, Hezbollah was in such disarray that it was unable to launch any significant attacks on IDF forces. The IDF suffered a few dozen killed, compared to potentially thousands of Hezbollah fighters.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Shia militias failed to save the Assad government or take any significant moves against Israel.

After the ceasefire was signed on Nov. 27, Hezbollah emerged as a spent and battered force, if not defeated. Its weakening may challenge its dominance of Lebanese politics in 2025, while Israel may seek to finish it off.

Hamas

Hamas launched its surprise cross-border raid into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, fully knowing that it could not defeat the IDF. Instead, it hoped that the Israeli invasion of Gaza would draw in Iran and the vaunted “Axis of Resistance” in order to overwhelm and defeat Israel.

Hamas’s strategy did partially work, bringing Iran and the “Axis of Resistance” into the conflict, but not at all in the way it expected.

With Hezbollah’s apparent defeat, the fall of Assad, and the ineffectual response of Iran, Hamas now faces the might of the IDF with no real major allies.

The war in Gaza continued throughout 2024 with just as much ferocity as in 2023, leaving all of Gaza devastated. Haniyeh was assassinated on July 31, while Sinwar was killed by the IDF on Oct. 16. The fighting strength of Hamas was further diminished throughout the year. Its conventional fighting strength has vanished, while its overall manpower has been cut in half, according to analysts.

Ukraine

Ukraine’s 2024 saw quite a few successes, including an audacious operation in August that marked the first invasion of Russia since Nazi Germany’s Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Ukrainian drone and missile attacks continued to disrupt the Russian economy and society, while Russia ended the year unable to kick Ukrainian troops out of Kursk fully.

However, 2024 was also a year filled largely with defeats for Ukraine, marking the first year where Russia fully seized the momentum across the front for nearly the entire year. Rather than any dramatic defeats such as those seen by Hezbollah and Iran, Ukraine largely saw a constant, grinding series of losses.

Beginning with the humiliating loss of Avdiivka in February, Russia proceeded to slowly but steadily advance across the entire Donbas front throughout the year. 

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Russia surpassed U.S. analysts’ expectations, making significant gains in the year’s second half after a predicted stalemate. Russian drone and missile attacks increased drastically, going from 350 in July to 1,500 in September. Despite heavy losses, a U.S. military official told the New York Times that the Russian Army has transformed itself since the stumbles of the initial invasion into a far more capable force. The Russian economy also weathered the massive sanctions for a third straight year, once again outperforming expectations.

Meanwhile, Ukraine suffered from heavy losses, manpower and equipment shortages, plummeting morale, and the waning of international interest — particularly from the U.S. Perhaps the biggest loss for Ukraine in 2024 was psychological. After two years of insisting that it would only accept a return to its 1991 borders, Kyiv now increasingly signals a willingness to compromise on an unfavorable peace to end the war.