If its first days are anything to go by, 2026 may end up the most pivotal year in geopolitics since 1989, a hinge point that began in a moment of geopolitical calm but ended with the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
Within a few years the Soviet Union had fallen, the European Union had been born, and an era of hyper-globalized trade took off on the wings of NAFTA and the WTO (World Trade Organization). This year could be equally pivotal—only this time with a vaster range of possible outcomes for world order.
It is possible to hear echoes of the late Cold War, and imagine regime change in Tehran, Caracas and Havana—which would strike a heavy blow to the ambitions of Beijing and Moscow. It is also possible Donald Trump will detonate NATO unity by coercively annexing Greenland, and that Beijing will wage war to subjugate Taiwan and seize its semiconductor plants, toppling a century of American-led Western technological dominance.
