Former CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin explains why Washington’s wavering ways mean America is the biggest puzzle piece on the global stage.

Projecting the outlook for a year ahead is always difficult and should be approached with a degree of humility by all who try — particularly in these times.

All the think tanks and experts who do this usually run through the world’s “hot spots” — places that are particularly volatile and unpredictable. The problem is that, for the first time in this century, the United States qualifies as one of those “hot spots.” Normally, the prognosticator can assume a degree of stability and predictability on the part of Washington. But no more. Today, other countries justifiably wonder what U.S. principles, priorities and policies are — and how policymakers arrive at them.

With the world unable to calculate American actions, it’s harder for them to plan theirs, and therefore harder to estimate which countries will do what. With that gigantic caveat, let’s pick five international issues that especially merit our close attention in 2019.

Dr. Maree Batchelor tries to heal with the help of higher-dimensional beings — and, yes, she would’ve called herself crazy 10 years ago.

In the 20 years that Maree Batchelor worked as a family doctor, she never gave much thought to alternative medicine. To be more precise, her rigorous academic training made her suspicious of anything that even hinted of woo-woo. But then an underage driver plowed into her 4-year-old son, William, outside her home city of Melbourne, Australia, in June 2008. William died 11 days later, and everything in Batchelor’s life began to change.

Now on a mission to connect the worlds of metaphysics and medical science, the 52-year-old finds herself in the curious position of advocating for a new way to think about our health that her pre-accident self would have deemed crazy. In short: The human race is undergoing an evolutionary leap in consciousness to prepare us to take our rightful place in a community of extraterrestrial civilizations. If you want to feel your best, you’d better figure out what part in this cosmic drama you’ve been put on planet Earth to play.

Across the U.S. and U.K., universities are grappling with the question of funding from Middle Eastern countries seeking to buy influence.

When Matthew Hedges, a Durham University Ph.D. student, set off on a two-week trip to the United Arab Emirates, he was following a tradition of British academics conducting research in the Arabian Peninsula. But when he tried to leave Dubai in May he was detained, held in solitary confinement in Abu Dhabi for six months and sentenced to life in prison for spying.

Hedges’ sentencing triggered a rare public spat between the United Kingdom and one of its closest Middle East allies. Both sides now appear keen to move on after the UAE pardoned Hedges in November. But British academia may find it more difficult to return to “business as usual.” The Hedges case revived Western scrutiny of the Gulf — which has periodically been criticized over labor conditions and human rights abuses — and the rewarding relationship U.K. universities have long enjoyed with the oil-rich states.

Some U.S. institutions are also reassessing their ties with Gulf entities in the wake of the October murder of Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad. A preliminary report by MIT into its links with Saudi donors and sponsors found no reason to end the relationships. But Harvard has chosen not to renew a five-year fellowship program with the MiSK Foundation, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s charity.