What in the world will go wrong this year? Whatever precautions politicians take to cover themselves, they are always caught out by the unexpected. What throws governments off course and plans into turmoil are, in Macmillan's phrase, “events, dear boy, events”.

A year ago it was already clear that Pakistan would remain one of the world's most dangerous and unstable nations in 2008 - though no one foresaw the fall of Pervez Musharraf or the Mumbai attacks. Bombings and killing were never likely to cease in Iraq. And the relentless increase in Taleban attacks, roadside bombs and Nato casualties in Afghanistan was sadly predictable. But who foresaw Russian tanks in Georgia, the banking collapse, or the worst riots in Greece for 30 years?

It is always the unexpected that has politicians, journalists and the UN Security Council scrambling. It will be the same in 2009. We will suddenly know the names of small towns caught up in a new conflict zone, understand the ethnic balance of warring communities or recapitulate forgotten history to show why the eruption of violence was always on the cards.

Planning can already begin for some of Donald Rumsfeld's “known unknowns”: for another terrorist atrocity in Pakistan or a provocative redoubling of nuclear enrichment in the laboratories of Iran to test the mettle of the new US president. Diplomats can gird themselves for a promised new round of Middle East diplomacy to salvage whatever is possible from the conflict in Gaza.

Nothing can be done to prepare governments for the unknown unknowns, however, or get foreign ministers to pay attention to the pleading of a minor diplomat in a faraway country who sees a tsunami rolling his way. But perhaps foreign ministries ought, for a change, to use their hindsight in advance.

The Georgian attack on South Ossetia, during the Olympic Games in Beijing, caught many by surprise. But not the Russians. And not those diplomats who had given warnings about Europe's “frozen conflicts”, unresolved disputes that arose from ethnic antagonisms within the old Soviet Union. There are still three others that could trigger violence.

One is Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a patch of territory, inhabited mainly by ethnic Armenians, inside the borders of neighbouring Azerbaijan. In 1988 the local assembly passed a resolution calling for unification with Armenia. Violence against local Azeris triggered a massacre of Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait. The conflict escalated and in 1991 the Azeris occupied most of the region. The Armenians counterattacked and by 1994 had seized back the enclave and a swath of adjacent territory. Some 600,000 Azeri refugees fled. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was imposed in 1994, by which time about 25,000 people had died.

Little has changed since. Periodic talks on a settlement have failed. Armenia still controls the territory it occupied and the refugees are still homeless. But with Azerbaijan's new oil wealth, increasing assertiveness and hostility to Russia, an attack to retake the territory is always possible - provoking a counterattack by Armenia, intervention by Russia and the same international escalation seen in Georgia in the summer.

Then there is Transdniestria, the sliver of territory along the boundary of Moldova and Ukraine, largely Russian-populated and a hotbed of smuggling, corruption and organised crime. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region proclaimed secession from Moldova, triggering fighting along the Dniester river. A ceasefire was signed in 1992 and a stand-off is still in place after the Russian Army prevented Moldova subduing the province. In any of these regions, renewed fighting could provoke a wider dispute between Russia and its neighbours.

The Balkans could also have a new round of fighting. The Kosovo Serbs are unreconciled to the province's independence, and might provoke violence in order to draw in Serbia. In neighbouring Macedonia, the Albanian minority is chafing at what it sees as discrimination against it and hankers for union with Albania. And the tranquillity in Bosnia may be deceptive if any of the former combatants attempts to alter the status quo.

Europe, however, is more prepared than Asia for trouble. Thailand shows that democracies are not immune to subversion by the mob. The airport blockades, defiance of the police and demonstrations have exposed a collapse in government authority and deep-seated hostility between the urban middle class and rural supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, the exiled former Prime Minister. Another military coup looks all too possible.

As the economic downturn bites, conflicts masked by fast growth could gather pace. Long-running rebellions have racked India's isolated north east; and in the central provinces Maoists, known as Naxalites, have been waging a campaign of terror against government targets. Most ominous, however, is the possible radicalisation in India of the 150 million-strong Muslim minority, marked by the emergence of groups claiming responsibility for recent terrorist bombings. The run-up to the general election in May could see communal violence on an unprecedented scale, paralysing India's politics and driving away investment.

China, too, has ethnic rebellions. There seems little chance that Tibetans will again be able to defy Beijing. But in the remote north west the Uigurs, non-Han Muslims, are fiercely opposed to Chinese rule and further terrorist attacks in Xinjiang could provoke a violent response from the Chinese Government.

Clashes triggered by religious conflict could also threaten Indonesia, where massacres by extremist Muslims of Christians in Sulawesi have led to reprisals and heightened tensions. The central Government has only weak control in the fissiparous provinces; a worsening of the economic situation could fuel widespread anger that is easily exploited.

Similar long-running clashes in the Philippines, where a Muslim insurgency in the south has been helped by al-Qaeda, could lead in turn to terrorism in an attempt to provoke government repression. Tensions along the religious faultline splitting the Muslim north of Nigeria and the south have already led to sporadic violence. That can easily spread. And unless the political turbulence is resolved in Thailand, the Muslim insurgency in the southern provinces could threaten much of the peninsula.

Africa, too, will provide more horrors: Zimbabwe, Somalia, Darfur and Congo could all implode into renewed war, massacres and starvation, each having the potential to suck in neighbours. Neither on this continent, nor across a restless world, can stability be underpinned as long as markets, economies and global trade remain in turmoil: 2009 will be a year that many statesmen would like to avoid.

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