The pull of home can be strong – even when it is a place you can’t remember.

That is how it is for Ahmed, 18. He emerges from a mosque in the heart of Gaziantep in south-east Turkey – not far from the Syrian border – wearing a black T-shirt with “Syria” written on the front.

His family fled his homeland when he was five years old, but he is planning to go back in a year or two at most.

“I am impatient to get there,” he tells me. “I am trying to save money first, because wages in Syria are low.” Still, he insists the future will be better there.

“Syria will be rebuilt and it will be like gold,” he says.

If he goes back, he will be following in the footsteps of more than half a million Syrians who have left Turkey since the ousting of Syria’s long-time dictator, Bashar al-Assad, in December 2024.

Many had been here since 2011, when civil war began devouring their country.

In the years that followed, Turkey became a safe haven, taking in more Syrians than any other country. The number reached 3.5 million at its peak, causing political tension and – on occasion – xenophobic attacks.

Officially, no Syrian will be forced to go, but some feel they are being pushed – by bureaucratic changes, and by a waning welcome.

Civil society organisations “are getting the message from the authorities that it’s time to go”, says a Syrian woman who did not want to be named.

“I have a lot of good Turkish friends. Even they and my neighbours have asked why I am still here. Of course we will go back, but in an organised way. If we all go back together, it will be chaos.”

Aya Mustafa, 32, is eager to leave – but not yet. We meet under a winter sun by the stone walls of a castle, which has towered over Gaziantep since the Byzantine era. Her hometown, Aleppo, is less than two hours’ drive away.

She says going back is a constant topic of conversation in the Syrian community.

“Every day, every hour, we speak about this point,” says Aya, whose family were lawyers and teachers back home, but had to start again in Turkey, baking and hairdressing to earn a living.

“We are talking about how we can return, and when, and what we can do. But there are many challenges, to be honest. Many families have children who were born here and can’t even speak Arabic.”

Then there is the level of destruction in new Syria – where war has done its worst – and where the interim president, Ahmed Al Sharaa, is a former senior leader of Al Qaeda who has worked to reinvent his image.

Aya saw the ruins of Aleppo for herself when she went back to visit. Her family home is still standing but now occupied by someone else.

“It’s a big decision to go back to Syria,” she says, “especially for people with elderly relatives. I have my grandmother and my disabled sister. We need the basics like electricity and water and jobs to survive there.”

For now, she says, her family can’t survive in Syria, but they will return in time.

“We believe that day will come,” she says, with a broad smile. “It will take some years [to rebuild]. But in the end, we will see everyone in Syria.”

A short drive away, we get a very different view from a Syrian family of four – father, mother and two teenage sons. The father – who does not want to be named – runs an aid organisation helping his fellow countrymen. Over glasses of tea and helpings of baklava, I ask if he and his family would move back. His response is swift and adamant.

“No, not for me and for my family,” he says. “And the same goes for my organisation. We have projects inside Syria, and we hope to extend that activity. But my family and my organisation will stay here in Turkey.”

Asked why, he lists problems with the economy, security, education and the health system. Syria’s interim government “hasn’t any experience to deal with the situation”, he tells me. “Some ask us to give them a chance, but one year has passed and the indications are not good.”

He too has visited the new Syria, and, like Aya, was not reassured. “The security situation is very bad,” he says. “Every day there are killings. Regardless of who the victims are, they have souls.”

His voice softens when he speaks of his 80-year-old father in Damascus, who hasn’t seen his grandsons for 12 years, and may never see them again.

For now, he and his family can remain in Turkey, but he’s already making contingency plans in case government policy changes.

“Plan A is that we will stay here in Turkey,” he says. “If we cannot, I’m thinking about plan B, C and even D. I am an engineer, always planning.”

None of those plans involve a return to Syria.

If going home is hard, staying in Turkey isn’t easy either. Syrians have “temporary protection” that comes with restrictions. They are not supposed to leave the cities where they are first registered. Work permits are hard to get, and many are in low paid jobs, living on the margins.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who backed the uprising against Assad – has insisted that no Syrian will be driven out, but refugee advocates say there are growing pressures beneath the surface.

They point to the ending of free medical care for Syrians from January, and new government regulations which make it more expensive to hire them.

“These new elements cast a shadow over how voluntary returns are,” says Metin Corabatir, who heads an independent Turkish research centre on asylum and migration, IGAM.

And he says presidential and parliamentary elections – due by 2028 – may be another threat for Syrians here.

“Normally President Erdogan is their main protector,” Mr Corabatir tells me. “He says they can stay as long as they want. And he repeated this after the regime changed. But if there is an election, and a political gain for the AKP [ruling party] to make, there might be some policy changes.”

Fresh elections could revive the xenophobic rhetoric that featured in the last polls, he warns. “Those feelings went to sleep,” he says, “but I am quite sure the infrastructure of this xenophobic attitude is still alive.”

On a cold grey morning at a border crossing an hour’s drive from Gaziantep the hills of Syria are visible, a short distance away.

Mahmud Sattouf and his wife Suad Helal are heading to their homeland – this time just for a visit. They have Turkish citizenship, so they will be able to return. For other Syrians, the journey is now one-way.

Mahmud, a teacher, is beaming with excitement.

“We are returning because we love our country,” he says. “It’s a great joy. I can’t describe it in words. As we say in English: ‘East, west, home is best’.”

He and Suad will move home in about a year, he tells us, when Syria is more settled, along with their four sons, and their families.

“I am 63,” he says, “but I don’t feel like I am an old man. I feel young. We are ready to rebuild our country.”

How will it feel to be back for good? I ask.

“I will be the most happy man in the world,” he says, and laughs.

Sensitive content: This article contains a graphic description of death that some readers may find upsetting

I’ve reported on more than 40 wars around the world during my career, which goes back to the 1960s. I watched the Cold War reach its height, then simply evaporate. But I’ve never seen a year quite as worrying as 2025 has been – not just because several major conflicts are raging but because it is becoming clear that one of them has geopolitical implications of unparalleled importance.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the current conflict in his country could escalate into a world war. After nearly 60 years of observing conflict, I’ve got a nasty feeling he’s right.

Nato governments are on high alert for any signs that Russia is cutting the undersea cables that carry the electronic traffic that keeps Western society going. Their drones are accused of testing the defences of Nato countries. Their hackers develop ways of putting ministries, emergency services and huge corporations out of operation.

Authorities in the west are certain Russia’s secret services murder and attempt to murder dissidents who have taken refuge in the West. An inquiry into the attempted murder in Salisbury of the former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skrypal in 2018 (plus the actual fatal poisoning of a local woman, Dawn Sturgess) concluded that the attack had been agreed at the highest level in Russia. That means President Putin himself.

The year 2025 has been marked by three very different wars. There is Ukraine of course, where the UN says 14,000 civilians have died. In Gaza, where Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu promised “mighty vengeance” after about 1,200 people were killed when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 and 251 people were taken hostage.

Since then, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military action, including more than 30,000 women and children according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry – figures the UN considers reliable.

Meanwhile there has been a ferocious civil war between two military factions in Sudan. More than 150,000 people have been killed there over the past couple of years; around 12 million have been forced out of their homes.

Maybe, if this had been the only war in 2025, the outside world would have done more to stop it; but it wasn’t.

“I’m good at solving wars,” said US President Donald Trump, as his aircraft flew him to Israel after he had negotiated a ceasefire in the Gaza fighting. It’s true that fewer people are dying in Gaza now. Despite the ceasefire, the Gaza war certainly doesn’t feel as though it’s been solved.

Given the appalling suffering in the Middle East it may sound strange to say the war in Ukraine is on a completely different level to this. But it is.

The Cold War aside, most of the conflicts I’ve covered over the years have been small-scale affairs: nasty and dangerous, certainly, but not serious enough to threaten the peace of the entire world. Some conflicts, such as Vietnam, the first Gulf War, and the war in Kosovo, did occasionally look as though they might tip over into something much worse, but they never did.

The great powers were too nervous about the dangers that a localised, conventional war might turn into a nuclear one.

“I’m not going to start the Third World War for you,” the British Gen Sir Mike Jackson reportedly shouted over his radio in Kosovo in 1999, when his Nato superior ordered British and French forces to seize an airfield in Pristina after the Russian troops had got there first.

In the coming year, 2026, though, Russia, noting President Trump’s apparent lack of interest in Europe, seems ready and willing to push for much greater dominance.

Earlier this month, Putin said Russia was not planning to go to war with Europe, but was ready “right now” if Europeans wanted to.

At a later televised event he said: “There won’t be any operations if you treat us with respect, if you respect our interests just as we’ve always tried to respect yours”.

But already Russia, a major world power, has invaded an independent European country, resulting in huge numbers of civilian and also military deaths. It is accused by Ukraine of kidnapping at least 20,000 children. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for his involvement in this, something Russia has always denied.

Russia says it invaded in order to protect itself against Nato encroachment, but President Putin has indicated another motive: the desire to restore Russia’s regional sphere of influence.

He is gratefully aware that this last year, 2025, has seen something most Western countries had regarded as unthinkable: the possibility that an American president might turn his back on the strategic system which has been in force ever since World War Two.

Not only is Washington now uncertain it wants to protect Europe, it disapproves of the direction it believes Europe is heading in. The Trump administration’s new national security strategy report claims Europe now faces the “stark prospect of civilisational erasure”.

The Kremlin welcomed the report, saying it is consistent with Russia’s own vision. You bet it is.

Inside Russia, Putin has silenced most internal opposition to himself and to the Ukraine war, according to the UN special rapporteur focusing on human rights in Russia. He’s got his own problems, though: the possibility of inflation rising again after a recent cooling, oil revenues falling, and his government having had to raise VAT to help pay for the war.

The economies of the European Union are 10 times bigger than Russia’s; even more than that if you add the UK. The combined European population of 450 million, is over three times Russia’s 145 million. Still, Western Europe has seemed nervous of losing its creature comforts, and was until recently reluctant to pay for its own defence as long as America can be persuaded to protect it.

America, too, is different nowadays: less influential, more inward-looking, and increasingly different from the America I’ve reported on for my entire career. Now, very much as in the 1920s and 30s, it wants to concentrate on its own national interests.

Even if President Trump loses a lot of his political strength at next year’s mid-term elections, he may have shifted the dial so far towards isolationism that even a more Nato-minded American president in 2028 might find it hard to come to Europe’s aid.

Don’t think Vladimir Putin hasn’t noticed that.

The coming year, 2026, does look as though it’ll be important. Zelensky may well feel obliged to agree to a peace deal, carving off a large part of Ukrainian territory. Will there be enough bankable guarantees to stop President Putin coming back for more in a few years’ time?

For Ukraine and its European supporters, already feeling that they are at war with Russia, that’s an important question. Europe will have to take over a far greater share of keeping Ukraine going, but if the United States turns its back on Ukraine, as it sometimes threatens to do, that will be a colossal burden.

But could the war turn into a nuclear confrontation?

We know President Putin is a gambler; a more careful leader would have shied away from invading Ukraine in February 2022. His henchmen make bloodcurdling threats about wiping the UK and other European countries off the map with Russia’s vaunted new weapons, but he’s usually much more restrained himself.

While the Americans are still active members of Nato, the risk that they could respond with a devastating nuclear attack of their own is still too great. For now.

As for China, President Xi Jinping has made few outright threats against the self-governed island of Taiwan recently. But two years ago the then director of the CIA William Burns said Xi Jinping had ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. If China doesn’t take some sort of decisive action to claim Taiwan, Xi Jinping could consider this to look pretty feeble. He won’t want that.

You might think that China is too strong and wealthy nowadays to worry about domestic public opinion. Not so. Ever since the uprising against Deng Xiaoping in 1989, which ended with the Tiananmen massacre, Chinese leaders have monitored the way the country reacts with obsessive care.

I watched the events unfold in Tiananmen myself, reporting and even sometimes living in the Square.

The story of 4 June 1989 wasn’t as simple as we thought at the time: armed soldiers shooting down unarmed students. That certainly happened, but there was another battle going on in Beijing and many other Chinese cities. Thousands of ordinary working-class people came out onto the streets, determined to use the attack on the students as a chance to overthrow the control of the Chinese Communist Party altogether.

When I drove through the streets two days later, I saw at least five police stations and three local security police headquarters burned out. In one suburb the angry crowd had set fire to a policeman and propped up his charred body against a wall. A uniform cap was put at a jaunty angle on his head, and a cigarette had been stuck between his blackened lips.

It turns out the army wasn’t just putting down a long-standing demonstration by students, it was stamping out a popular uprising by ordinary Chinese people.

China’s political leadership, still unable to bury the memories of what happened 36 years ago, is constantly on the look-out for signs of opposition – whether from organised groups like Falun Gong or the independent Christian church or the democracy movement in Hong Kong, or just people demonstrating against local corruption. All are stamped on with great force.

I have spent a good deal of time reporting on China since 1989, watching its rise to economic and political dominance. I even came to know a top politician who was Xi Jinping’s rival and competitor. His name was Bo Xilai, and he was an anglophile who spoke surprisingly openly about China’s politics.

He once said to me, “You’ll never understand how insecure a government feels when it knows it hasn’t been elected.”

As for Bo Xilai, he was jailed for life in 2013 after being found guilty of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.

Altogether, then, 2026 looks like being an important year. China’s strength will grow, and its strategy for taking over Taiwan – Xi Jinping’s great ambition – will become clearer. It may be that the war in Ukraine will be settled, but on terms that are favourable to President Putin.

He may be free to come back for more Ukrainian territory when he’s ready. And President Trump, even though his political wings could be clipped in November’s mid-term elections, will distance the US from Europe even more.

From the European point of view, the outlook could scarcely be more gloomy.

If you thought World War Three would be a shooting-match with nuclear weapons, think again. It’s much more likely to be a collection of diplomatic and military manoeuvres, which will see autocracy flourish. It could even threaten to break up the Western alliance.

And the process has already started.

Top picture credits: AFP / Getty Images

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