2026: War, Elections and a Warming Planet Test the Global Order

The year 2026 has exposed a global order stretched to breaking point, as wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and Yemen drove military spending to record levels, displaced millions and disrupted energy supplies, while a worldwide debt crisis and a massive artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom concentrated wealth in ever fewer hands [16740][16757]. Across every crisis, the same pattern repeated: those with power fueled the conflicts, and those without paid the price [16765].

The Countdown to an Iran War

The most urgent flashpoint was the standoff between Washington and Tehran. The United States and Israel reportedly drew up plans for renewed military strikes on Iran after the US midterm elections, with possible targets including Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities and missile arsenal, even as the White House insisted no attack would take place before the November 3 vote [16727][16747]. The Pentagon presented President Donald Trump with options for military action, and Washington sent additional warships to the Middle East as tensions remained high [16887]. US embassies tightened security after a warning that Iran was in the "advanced stages" of planning attacks on Americans [16887].

Regional powers scrambled to prevent escalation. Qatar spearheaded mediation efforts, returning its negotiators to Tehran for a last-ditch push before the midterms, while Saudi Arabia sent its defense minister to Tehran for direct talks with Iran's top security official — the first time the kingdom had entered such talks — with Türkiye, Pakistan and Egypt joining the diplomatic scramble [16850][16887]. Gulf states worked on a broader peace plan centered on reopening the Strait of Hormuz within four days of sanctions being lifted on Iran and calling for Houthi forces to withdraw inside Yemen [16887]. But Iran rejected new ideas presented by Qatari mediators as "unacceptable," and Tehran said it had no plans for direct talks with US officials even while reviewing a secret message from Vice President JD Vance and keeping indirect channels open through regional intermediaries [16907][16853].

The war's economic fallout was already being felt. The average price of regular gas in the US hit $4.29 a gallon, up from $2.98 before the conflict began, while diesel jumped to $6.35 from $3.75 [16853]. Trump acknowledged at a Georgia rally that oil companies were making a "fortune" from the war, saying "we're making a freaking fortune," as a sample of 38 US producers and refiners grew revenues by about $140 billion year over year [16853]. Globally, Brent crude surged past $117 per barrel as attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure raised fears of supply disruptions, and European natural gas prices broke through €100 per megawatt-hour for the first time in nearly four years [16853].

Ukraine: Drone Warfare and a Fading Peace

Russia expanded its war in Ukraine, encouraged by growing energy agreements between Moscow and Washington, as the chance of peace talks continued to fade [16862]. Moscow escalated strikes on Kyiv while deepening commercial ties with Washington, and a Russian dealmaker worked to convince the White House that peace in Ukraine must come through commercial deals first [16862]. Ukraine pushed for talks with Russia in Abu Dhabi before a proposed summit involving Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, though Kyiv said the meeting depended on Washington [16862].

The air war intensified on two fronts. Ukraine struck drone hangars at a Crimean airfield housing more than 20 hidden shelters, while a new 4-watt video link extended the range of interceptor drones from 20 to 30 kilometers [16841]. Ukraine's military said it was intercepting nearly 60 percent of Russia's Geran-4 jet-powered drones, with the rate reaching 80 percent during some attacks [16841]. But a senior officer warned that Ukraine's air defenses were running out of weapons, saying "we have run out of everything" as Moscow's new jet-powered drones radically changed the war [16877]. The cost of shooting down cheap Russian drones was draining millions of dollars per interception — each downed drone could cost between $25,000 and $4 million, a price gap Russia exploited with every launch [16841]. Ukraine renewed its request to Washington for Patriot air defense systems, nearly a month after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had yet to sign off on the transfer [16853].

In a rare humanitarian breakthrough, a local ceasefire brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump allowed around 2,000 trapped civilians to begin evacuating from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine, marking the first joint relief mission of its kind in nearly five years of war [16898]. Ukrainian, Russian and US delegations coordinated the operation after mine clearance along designated routes, with both sides halting drone attacks as the truce took effect [16898]. However, the Institute for the Study of War warned that Russia may exploit the truce to rebuild its military forces, and Putin called Oleshky a "Russian settlement," raising concerns that evacuees may lose a free choice to return to Ukraine [16862][16898].

Israel's Political Earthquake

Israel held its first national election since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, with turnout reaching its highest level in over 50 years [16853]. The vote was widely seen as a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nearly two decades in power, and provisional results showed major losses for his bloc, though his Likud party remained the largest single party with 26 seats [16853]. Neither Netanyahu's far-right coalition nor the opposition bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot could form a government, leaving the country in political deadlock [16853].

Arab-Israeli parties emerged as potential kingmakers, winning a historic 19 seats driven by record voter turnout from a community that makes up 20 percent of Israel's population [16853]. However, every Jewish party — including those in the opposition — ruled out cooperating with them, creating an impasse, and the uncertainty shook financial markets, pushing Israeli bonds and the shekel lower [16853]. The campaign was fought under extraordinary conditions: days before the vote, Netanyahu ordered a full, indefinite closure of the occupied West Bank following a shooting attack that wounded five Israelis, and he reportedly pressured Israel's military to take action against Iran as his coalition trailed in the polls [16853].

The ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community is becoming a decisive force in coalition math [16873]. The community largely refuses compulsory military service, and many Haredi schools do not teach core subjects such as math and English, focusing instead on religious study [16873]. It is growing quickly and voting as a bloc, making Haredi parties key partners in forming any government [16873]. In Gaza, Palestinians had no vote in the election, yet its outcome will shape their lives; a United Nations commission said in a report that Israel continued to commit genocide in Gaza after the US-brokered ceasefire last October, a claim Israel rejected as part of a "misinformation campaign" [16873].

Yemen's War Widens

Yemen's long-running war entered a dangerous new phase, with heavy airstrikes and ground battles erupting across multiple fronts [16838]. Heavy airstrikes struck Houthi-held Sanaa and the port city of Mocha, and Yemen's military said it had "neutralized" more than 200 Houthi fighters in the past 24 hours [16838]. The human cost mounted sharply: more than 135,000 people were displaced in Yemen's Taiz province in the past two months, with nearly 53,000 of those displaced being children [16838]. The Houthi movement claimed responsibility for attacks on a Saudi oil refinery and the defense ministry, marking a serious escalation, and Egypt's parliament approved military support for Saudi Arabia, moving the country closer to the regional conflict [16838].

A New Defense Alliance and the Arms Trade's Broken Promises

Turkey's parliament approved a three-way military alliance with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement — under which an attack on any one of the three nations would be treated as an attack on all [16853]. The pact rested on different needs for each side, with Saudi Arabia seeking to address security requirements while Turkey and Pakistan looked to economic and strategic expectations [16853].

The year's defense story was defined by a costly mismatch: expensive defense systems proving powerless against cheap weapons, while the money spent on them flowed away from the schools, hospitals and food aid that keep societies stable [16901]. Houthi missile and drone strikes killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 330 in Riyadh, forcing the closure of King Khalid International Airport for a week, even though Saudi Arabia spends tens of billions of dollars annually on multi-layered air defenses — a $1 million interceptor often chases a $1,000 drone [16901]. Britain deployed Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets to defend the kingdom, with pilots authorized to shoot down missiles and drones targeting Saudi cities [16901]. More weapons, more deployments, more spending — none of it addressing why the attacks succeeded [16901].

A Debt Crisis and an AI Gamble

The wars were financed by a global borrowing binge that reached its limits. A worldwide selloff in government bonds pushed yields to levels not seen in decades, with the 10-year US Treasury yield reaching its highest level since 2002, the United Kingdom's 30-year government bond yield hitting 6 percent, and France's public debt exceeding the size of its economy [16899]. Russia's 2026 budget deficit nearly doubled to more than $81 billion as war spending blew past plan [16899]. The burden fell hardest on developing countries, which paid nearly $1 trillion in debt interest in 2025, according to the United Nations Trade and Development body (UNCTAD); in 51 developing countries, interest costs exceeded spending on health or education [16899].

Meanwhile, the AI boom poured unprecedented sums into chips, data centers and software but concentrated wealth in ever fewer hands. Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, filed for an initial public offering seeking to raise $100 billion at a valuation of up to $2 trillion, revealing $16.3 billion in revenue for the first half of the year alongside massive losses and plans to spend $807 billion on AI infrastructure, and warning investors about risks including bioweapons, AI blackmail and "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity" [16899][16853]. The S&P 500 hit a record high, but the gain came almost entirely from a small group of AI-linked companies — most US stocks were down [16899]. Fears of a bubble grew: a wave of selling wiped over $1 trillion from AI companies, with six of the world's richest people losing a combined $130 billion in a single day [16899]. In a stark illustration of the correction, Intel's worst one-day stock drop since the 1970s wiped out roughly $12 billion from the US government's stake in the chipmaker as disappointing earnings from Amazon and Intel triggered a broad technology selloff [16903].

A Planet Pushed Past Its Limits

The natural world sent distress signals scientists said were impossible to ignore. More than 50,000 people died as five heat waves swept across Europe during the summer of 2026, with researchers attributing two-thirds of those deaths — more than 32,000 — to human-caused global warming [16894]. The World Meteorological Organization reported that greenhouse gas levels reached a record high in 2025, making it the deadliest summer since the start of the millennium [16894]. The United Nations confirmed that the 1.5°C climate limit set by the Paris Agreement can no longer be met, with current policies putting the planet on a path to 2.6°C to 2.8°C of warming this century [16894].

A report from the Lancet Countdown, written by 146 researchers across more than 30 countries, warned that heat waves, storms and wildfire smoke are already killing millions worldwide and called for the crisis to be officially declared a global health emergency [16846]. A World Wide Fund for Nature report found global wildlife populations plummeted by an average of 73 percent since 1970 [16894]. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global body responsible for assessing climate science, faced an existential crisis, struggling to secure its future while maintaining scientific integrity [16894].

Democracy Under Pressure

Democracy itself came under strain as major elections — in Brazil, Israel, Serbia and the United States — converged within days of each other, with basic democratic standards at stake in each contest [16905]. The Sweden-based V-Dem Institute reported that the democratic freedoms of the average person worldwide had fallen to levels last seen in 1978 [16905]. In Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won re-election in a dramatic political comeback, defeating right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, a result that triggered immediate turmoil as Brazil's financial markets crashed and Bolsonaro refused to concede [16905].

In the United States, Trump's approval rating on the economy fell to its lowest point, with eight out of 10 Americans describing the economy as fair or poor ahead of the midterms, and corruption overtook the economy as voters' top concern [16905]. A single Texas Senate race could decide whether Republicans keep control of the chamber for the rest of Trump's presidency, as the party faced mounting midterm pressure over gas prices, healthcare costs and internal MAGA divisions [16906]. Electricity costs climbed about 5 percent over the past year, and voters headed to the polls angry about it [16895]. The strain reached ordinary households in wealthy nations too: in France, protests over the rising cost of living swept the country, with police detaining more than 2,000 people, while in Turkey police raided the Istanbul headquarters of opposition broadcaster Halk TV, halting its live broadcast and appointing a government trustee to run the network [16905]. The Trump administration also imposed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court, hours after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to Navi Pillay, a South African jurist and former ICC judge [16905].

Diplomatic Realignments

The Trump administration backed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the role of United Nations secretary-general, reportedly counting on support from Moscow and Beijing, while Finland and Norway made a rare direct call to Putin, breaking with Western efforts to isolate him diplomatically and exposing a split in Europe's approach to ending the war [16853]. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the erosion of the global order meant middle powers in Europe and Asia must become more assertive [16853]. In West Africa, Togo deepened ties with China and military-led Sahel states, positioning its capital Lomé as a strategic trade hub, and Chinese President Xi Jinping presented a new plan for handling African conflicts built on four principles linking peace to development [16853]. The problem of foreign recruits also grew more urgent: more than 1,400 Africans have been enlisted to fight for Russia in Ukraine since 2023, with families in Tunisia and Cameroon demanding answers about loved ones who were forcibly conscripted [16879].

A System at Odds With Human Welfare

Taken together, the year's developments painted a picture of a global order that prioritized financial accumulation and profit over human welfare. The debt crisis forced governments to choose between servicing creditors and meeting citizens' needs. The energy crisis enriched fuel traders while leaving ordinary motorists struggling to afford petrol. The AI boom concentrated wealth in a few hands while workers faced displacement and new security risks. And the humanitarian crises from Gaza to Sudan to Somalia showed how conflict and restricted access — not simply bad weather — decided who ate and who did not [16853].

As bond markets wobbled, oil prices surged and the AI bubble threatened to burst, the fundamental question remained: who would bear the cost of these converging crises, and who would benefit from any recovery?