| Adapt to change or be swept along by events. These are the two paths facing the world in 2026, after a 2025 marked by major geopolitical shifts. Donald Trump’s second term in the White House has confirmed a return to power politics, at the expense of multilateralism, in which the strongest asserts their weight over the weakest.
In the year ahead, Europe will have to contend with an increasingly unpredictable ally, at a time when the war in Ukraine still appears far from a resolution. 2026 will also be a decisive year for the fragile truce in the Middle East, which is struggling to move into its most politically complex phase. In a context where power seems to matter more than rules, competition among major players is no longer confined to traditional geography, but extends to new arenas of confrontation: from the geopolitical race for space to rivalry in the field of artificial intelligence. And if the arrival of the “Trump cyclone” has brought leadership back to the forefront, 2026 will also be a year of women and men called upon to make decisive choices for the future of their countries, across all regions of the world. How international actors adapt to change will shape not only the year ahead, but also the future balance of an increasingly uncertain world. |











