1.Israel stupidly keeps attacking everyone and US weapons supply runs dry. They get destroyed by their victims retaliation.
2.China actually decides to do something.
3.Russia does that Simpsons bit where robot Lenin breaks out of his grave. But says "Haha joke!" And continues being shitty and capitalist.
4.Ukraine does something stupid and Nazi-coded to get attention from US senpai.
5.The US accidentally nukes itself.
Y'know the saying "never get involved in a land war in Asia"? Pretty much everyone disregards that, and instead takes a page from Russia on consistently having the most troll-ish foreign policy.
Tuerkeeyeh leaves NATO and starts making moves on a pan-Türkiq alliance. Also they annex the parts of Syria heretofore held by their army and the FSA, effectively ending the 14-year civil war. Al-Assad al-Dimashq does the United Russia two-step and returns to the presidency in 2029.
Kashmir conflict pops off into outright war between India and Pakistan. China arms Pakistan, Russia arms India, the US advocates for India but arms both sides, not getting further involved because it's staring China down across the Strait. The Naxalites are effectively defeated in detail, and flee to Nepal.
Yoon Suck Y'all gets doohickied (first as farce, second as farce), and the result ends up being that Koreas decide it's a good time to reapproach. But that ends up meaning that they just allow a couple visas, the DMZ stays in place.
Poland yolos into the Ukrainian rump state, this time they're the ones Partitioning. Russia is too busy holding off an insurgency in central Ukraine and proxy wars in Africa to contest western Ukraine.
The Sahel gets extremely hot, literally and figuratively. There are a few more cast changes from Guinea to the CAR but somehow they all stay really well-aligned with each other. France tries to do an intervention at some point and gets promptly chased out; this leads to their next election being 45% RN and 35% leftists. Sudan is the only Sahel country that doesn't end up sovereign, they become a Russian proxy. With control over their mineral wealth, in the face of desertification they are able to avoid famine with increased grain imports from Russia and India, for now.
The UK gets involved in some AUKUS complication that makes the Triton missiles a pressing matter. Scotland is finally pressured to leave. Especially without the Labour strongholds in Scotland, Starmer immediately loses a vote of no confidence, but the party keeps pivoting to the right and stays in power for awhile, mirroring the Democrats in America.
Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela start more brazenly breaching the Cuba embargo. Losing its grasp on Colombia, the US State Department tries to turn Guyana into its regional outpost but it's too little too late, the pink tide gets redder with each passing year.
We end up getting new military juntas in Myanmar and Thailand, but also in Bangladesh and Cambodia too. India likes this "Asian Dictatorship Belt", China and Vietnam aren't happy about it but they don't do anything about it. More CQC border shenanigans between China and India end up morphing into a cross between rugby and kabaddi. Deepfakes of Erdogan and Putin playing this sport are stunningly popular, and it becomes the 2nd most popular sport on the planet in the 21st century.
Japan keeps rearming, and they goad the Philippines into fighting a naval war in the SCS. The Philippines gets trounced but no border changes happen except for renouncing a claim on the Spratlys. Learning from this, Japan decides not to go after China, but BBM is deposed and the country careens into civil war, with the NPA starting to make gains. All throughout this, China still doesn't make a move on Taiwan.
Israel strikes and kills at least 5 consecutive leaders of each of Iran, the IRGC, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansarallah. They still lose the war, and for the first time in 75 years, the grinding roller of settlement expansion is reversed, with a few more West Bank settlements closing down. Likud eats shit, Benny Gantz starts a "Moderate Party" that sweeps the election but continues to govern like fascists.
The international blockade on Gaza is de jure lifted, but de facto Israel still limits who and what comes in. Sea is the only way in because Egypt joins Israel in keeping the land border closed. The US spends a huge amount of resources propping up el-Sisi and MBS as open revolt pops up.
Kamala wins the election and makes Tom Cotton her secretary of state. She reinstates the draft, but instead of actually deploying, they build The Wall and set up a whole bunch more prisons for draft-dodgers.