2026: TRENDS AND EVENTS TO WATCH

The beginning of each year is a psychologically valuable moment to recalibrate our thoughts and plan our actions in alignment with them. In the political context, it helps us to make predictions and lock our focus on certain themes in politics. Accordingly, we are looking at the potentially most important dynamics and events in 2026. Of course, there will also be new and surprising developments in 2026, but we also expect many changes in existing dynamics that will continue to unfold in the fresh year of 2026. Among them are the following topics that we are going to focus on in this outlook for the year: the general theme of deepening systemic shifts (both vertically within regions, as well as horizontally among regions); the global financial markets (including effects of the crypto and artificial intelligence sectors); and the wars in Ukraine, Palestine, Venezuela and potentially Taiwan (and how they are related to one another).

Systemic Shifts

Vertical Shifts

In a number of works, we have observed and examined the intra-societal development of marginal diminishing returns in the social sense, arising from the exhaustion of the capitalist mode of governance. Especially in this article, we showed that major shifts are inevitable within societies in the near future. In short: we see that the social proximity between economic groups has become less even though the nominal gap between those groups in the economic sense has widened. In 2026, this development will deepen further, increasing pressure between social groups. Also, with the qualitative decline of consumption, we will move closer to a point within highly capitalised societies where consumption will be harder to uphold – the marginal cost of consumption rises.

Therefore, we might experience first clear instances of demand-driven policies in the traditional sense, such as expansionary monetary policy or psychological media strategies, that do not create the expected return in terms of increased consumption in the European and Neo-European world. As we will see later, this will drive the economically affluent groups towards harmful behaviour against other societal groups. In other nations’ context, where the integrational depth of the contemporary capitalist system with the contemporary democratic system has not progressed as much, we will see an intensification of intra-societal upwards movement of a lot of societal groups. We can think about it on a time scale, where many nations, such as Türkiye, China, Russia and Brazil, trail 20 years behind Europe and its successor states in terms of capitalist development. In 2026, we will see that those nations will enter, or at least prepare to enter, a growth phase similar to Europe and Neo-Europe in the 1990s; China’s goal to become a “moderately developed nation” within the next five years neatly emphasises the persistent developmental gap between the said regions. As we will see later, there is a structural hurdle that needs to be taken, but that, too, has similarities with the 1990s and early 2000s.

Summarising the development of vertical shifts, 2026 will be interesting as highly capitalised and moderately capitalised nations will show different patterns of intra-societal growth. While the former will see closing societal gaps, resulting in societal clashes, life in the latter will enter a boom phase – unaware that with increasing success of financial integration, societal clashes inevitably move closer.

Horizontal Shifts

Staying with the comparison of Europe/Neo-Europe and traditional nations, 2026 will also be the year of horizontal wealth distribution in the world – from Europe to Asia. China has presented its next five-year plan, which is heavily focused on achieving broad wealth within the Chinese population through expansionary monetary policies, demand and innovation-driven approaches, opening of financial markets and capitalisation on its global investments through the Belt & Road Initiative. It is a well-crafted and mature plan that will guarantee China’s success. This is no guarantee because the approach is so unique, but because it follows the development steps of economically highly successful (Neo-)European nations, with the difference that the policy course is not accidental, incremental or explorative but conscious and optimised. Instead of building advancement momentum reactively, China saves resources, energy and expertise by using the learnings from other nations, while using the saved resources to amplify growth and innovation.

Likewise, some Southeast Asian nations optimised their growth models to enter the next development stages, as well as, though only recently picking up pace, the Turkic nations of Central Asia. While former concentrate on international cooperation, Central Asian nations benefitted from the Ukraine war, as Russia needed to abolish its interventionist policies in the region to bundle resources in their war. If these nations can sustain their domestic production efforts, build meaningful economic alliances without compromising independence and sovereignty and ensure political and societal stability, the power shift from Europe to Asia will deepen and widen in 2026. As we have established above, it will be more difficult in certain parts of the world to sustain growth rates. Consequently, global capital will flow where growth is faster and has more potential. This wealth distribution, which has become evident in 2025, will consolidate itself in 2026. It is likely that the global perception will start to internalise the realisation of this shift more and more, leading to additional pressures on the highly capitalised economies in this world to counteract the perceived loss of wealth and power.

The Global Financial Market In 2026

As the dynamics above unfold, reactions will follow. Traditionally, soft and technical approaches will be resorted to first, before more physical measures are taken – something we might also see in 2026, as we will explore later. With capital moving to the financial markets in Asia, we might see a moment of high pressure on the major stock exchanges in New York and London. Globally, the volume of stock exchanges has reached such heights that major corrections in the markets are very likely in 2026. This would fit into our prediction that capital movements will increasingly head towards Asia. It could well be that some sort of triggering event occurs that leads investors to pull capital from the (Neo-)European stock exchanges.

In light of our assumption that vertical societal shifts will intensify, we could also think about a situation in which the institutional capitalists realise their capital market gains to redirect them into the Asian markets, triggering a large-scale market correction. This would have a dual effect: capital gains are secured and invested in growing markets, while the less affluent societal groups will suffer losses that widen the gap between societal groups. As we have said boldly, the cryptocurrency sector is the main vehicle that will serve the interests of the most affluent societal groups to let the broad society invest their capital, thus leveling the whole sector at once. This might not happen this year, but it will happen at some point as it restores the desired gap between societal groups and eradicates inflation. Our prediction foresees a crypto market crisis towards the end of the 2020s.

Instead, it is quite likely that the predicted market correction of 2026 will be triggered by a bursting bubble of the artificial intelligence stock sector. This would suit well into the cyclical nature of markets, marking a repetition of the dot-com crisis in the early 2000s – both in terms of time and theme. Surely, this would mean that the Asian markets will also be hit by the crisis, implying that capital is not directly redirected towards the Asian stock exchanges. However, if such a market correction occurs on the basis of artificial intelligence stocks, the recovery of global financial markets will be much easier for Asian financial markets, as from that point onwards, global capital will have an increasing tendency to move towards those markets in the future.

Global Wars In 2026

International wars were one of the main topics in 2025. With the global society quickly adapting to this renewed intensification of wars, we can be sure that war as a political tool will also be part of the political repertoire of states in 2026. Whether to achieve direct or indirect effects, wars will either intensify or become more or both. Interestingly, our predictions point to an end of the Ukraine war in 2026 with an agreement that is structured around the current territorial status quo. However, just because this war ends, this does not mean that our world becomes more peaceful.

Palestine & Syria

On the other hand, Israel is going to start attacking the West Bank of Palestine, intensify its attacks on Lebanon, expand into Syrian territory and potentially revive military hostilities with Iran. This is due to the mounting domestic pressures on the Prime Minister, who, with increasing age, becomes more aggressive in pursuing his expansionist goals for his personal legacy, especially in the light of his ongoing corruption trial. Interestingly, these conflicts were all also part of 2025 and before. Often, the start of one of the conflicts served as the cover-up of critical developments in other conflicts. As this tactic has proven to be effective for Israel, this is likely to continue in 2026, though in a more intense form. So, whenever an intensification of a military conflict with Israel occurs, increased activity at other venues of Israeli foreign policy needs to be tracked.

As its ally, the United States of America (hereinafter: USA), now retarget Syria as a re-entry point into Sub-Anatolia with their own troops, we will see more military activity in this state, predominantly with coincidentally reviving terrorist activity. This self-created and controlled terrorism serves as the legitimising pretext for interventionism in Sub-Anatolia. Here too, past success with this rhetoric strategy serves as the basis for the decision to also adopt it in re-entering Syria. Depending on the first months of 2026, we might see spillovers into other Sub-Anatolian nations as well in the later course of the year. It is clear, however, that North American interventionism will increase in 2026.

Venezuela

Another venue of this interventionism is Venezuela. Within the first week of this year, the USA attacked Venezuela and kidnapped its President. Further, the USA have already installed a proxy government and will ensure that Venezuela remains under their control. Surely, this is not the first instance of aggression from the North American nation. However, the blatant illegitimacy of this intervention, paired with the impertinent way of communicating the aggression with the world, has made it clear: the USA will wage more wars in 2026. They will not only wage more wars, but they will also be less interested in legitimising them and attack more directly, calculating that no other nation will stop them. The way the USA act in Venezuela also has a deterrent effect: if Syria cooperates and becomes a proxy of the USA and Israel voluntarily, blood can be avoided. Unfortunately, we cannot expect other nations to intervene and hinder the USA from exercising this state behaviour, due to perceived fears of retaliation through their economic might. As the world’s second biggest economy, the international community surely expects China to step in and hold the USA accountable for their aggressions. However, this is very unlikely – at least in 2026.

Taiwan

China’s growth in the past three decades is remarkable but still fragile. The Asian nation only has one goal, and it is to develop as fast as possible and as much as possible within the territorial borders of China (including the territories that China claims historically belong to it). This is also why China never interfered in the normative workings of its partners in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative. It is much too early for China to risk growth due to hostilities from the USA if China were to intervene in the Venezuelan war. Further, the USA might back off in the China-Taiwan case in exchange for non-intervention in the Venezuelan war and other wars that the USA will wage in 2026 and beyond.

In other words, we can expect China to intensify its efforts to take over Taiwan and integrate it into its mainland in 2026. Whether this will be fully accomplished this year depends on the applied strategy. However, the enabling factor for China will be the informal trade-off with the USA: “China stays out of the USA foreign policy, and the USA drop the defence of Taiwan”. Interestingly, we could also debate whether the intervention of Venezuela was a result of the USA realising that Taiwan would not remain an independent ally of the USA in the long run. Maybe it was assessed that Taiwan will surely be annexed by China, which would leave the USA without their much-needed semiconductor chips. To make up for the gap, Venezuela, with the world’s largest oil reserves, became the target of the USA. It is an unequal trade-off, but the USA will likely use Venezuelan oil to exercise pricing power and fuel domestic production, enabling it to uphold economic growth pace even in the event of China gaining the ultimate technological advantage.

Final Remarks

Other political publishers usually end their predictions with cliché statements, such as “what really happens in 2026, remains to be seen”. We firmly stand behind our predictions due to other advanced forecasting models that help us to anticipate these developments. Of course, there will be modifications in how those developments unfold, and also, the time axis is difficult to predict. However, the developments above are going to come up, as well as other topics that will newly arise but be related to the points above. One of the developments that unfolded as we predicted, unfortunately, is the invasion of Venezuela, which just recently happened. What we hope is that when we make such predictions, these actually do not turn out to be true. But as long as this stays the same, we aim to produce solutions that solve the persistent political problems of this world so that we can make forecasts on positive developments, about which we will then also have a better feeling when they ultimately turn into reality.