Brett McGurk is a CNN global affairs analyst who served in senior national security positions under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
As world leaders gather in New York this week for the UN General Assembly (UNGA), their focus will be on immediate crises, including Gaza and Ukraine, with both conflicts now poised to last through the rest of this year and into 2026.
I have participated in numerous UNGA meetings with presidents of both political parties. The issues tend to be dominated by the current headlines, but looking back, the story of those gatherings is often what wasn’t covered, rather than what was.
At UNGA in 2013, for example, nobody anticipated the following year would be dominated by the global scourge of ISIS. Ten years later, at UNGA in 2023, nobody anticipated that within weeks, Hamas would invade Israel and ignite the Middle East. Similarly, in 2019, nobody anticipated a global pandemic that would soon change our way of life.
This year seems no different, because if we peer ahead, today’s relentless pace of events in global affairs may be an appetizer for what’s coming.
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