One year in the past this week, Joe Biden was president. I used to be in Doha, Qatar, negotiating with Israel and Hamas to finalize a ceasefire and hostage launch deal. The incoming Trump workforce labored intently with us, a uncommon show of nonpartisanship to free hostages and finish a warfare. It seems like a decade in the past. Rather a lot can occur in a year, as 2025 has proven.
Today, the United States has the biggest army buildup within the Caribbean because the Cuban missile disaster. Russian envoys are in Miami to talk about a new ceasefire proposal for Ukraine, at the same time as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to escalate the warfare there. The US put in a three-star normal in Israel to oversee a ceasefire in Gaza after bombing Iran over the summer time. President Donald Trump is planning a Beijing summit that may decide the destiny of Taiwan, in addition to our competitors with China within the fields of superior applied sciences and AI.
The previous year feels extra transformational than transitional, with 2026 now shaping up to be a hinge year — with a number of inflection factors on the global agenda.
Let’s break it down, with seven points that I’ll be watching intently:
1. Venezuela: Standoff
The Trump administration has deployed the biggest armada within the Caribbean and western Atlantic because the top of the Cold War. The power contains an plane service strike group, a number of destroyers, amphibious assault forces, stealth bombers, and particular operations items. The aim stays unclear, however the US army is enterprise a lethal marketing campaign in opposition to alleged drug traffickers — now with practically 30 strikes with none congressional authorization or open debate. Over the previous week, Trump upped the strain with a declared army blockade in opposition to illicit oil shipments and seizure of extra oil tankers.
This seems to be like a regime change coverage with army power to again it up. The White House appears to hope that Venezuela’s chief, Nicolas Maduro, will go away power willingly to reside out his days in Russia or elsewhere. Trump reportedly made that demand instantly.
But that is unlikely to occur. There are few examples of financial stress and exterior threats alone forcing a chief like Maduro to cede power. (The elimination of Haitian army chief Raoul Cedras in 1994 is one, however there the US army was already within the air to invade the nation earlier than he succumbed.)
Trump is now asserting that the US would be the predominant power within the Western Hemisphere, ready to use power when essential to advance American pursuits.
The administration calls its new coverage a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European colonial powers to keep out of our yard. In the time of Monroe, nonetheless, the US didn’t have a navy. Now, a significant slice of the strongest naval power on the planet is positioned off Venezuela.
What does all of it imply? The destiny of Maduro in 2026 could reply that query. If he stays in power, Trump dangers being considered as extra bark than chunk. If he leaves, few may doubt Trump’s seriousness as a hemispheric hegemon. For me, none of this appears nicely thought by, however the die has been forged and the way it resolves over the approaching year will say a lot about what to anticipate from the “Trump Corollary” over the remainder of his second time period.
In February, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will enter its fifth year. Putin’s intent again then was to seize Kyiv and destroy Ukraine as a sovereign nation. Today, his forces are slowed down in jap Ukraine not removed from Russia’s borders and have suffered over 1 million casualties. This warfare has been a debacle for Russia, and but Putin reveals no indicators of backing down even when his targets at the moment are extra restricted.
The fifth year of a warfare will be a tipping level, in the direction of peace as combatants strategy exhaustion or take riskier gambles to break a stalemate. Putin claims to be a scholar of historical past and certain views the approaching year as a possibility to break Ukraine’s will.
In Ukraine as we speak, nonetheless, neither aspect appears poised for a breakthrough. Year 5 could look very like the final 4 — with Putin pouring manpower into a meat grinder to choose up restricted territory month-by-month, and Ukraine relying on help from its companions within the West for financial help and army provides. Trump is pursuing a peace deal that will reportedly assure Ukraine’s safety in trade for Ukraine ceding land as a means for Putin to climb down from maximalist goals.
Putin so far reveals no signal of doing this and the query then is whether or not Trump rightly blames him for the failed negotiations or decides to again away altogether and weaken Ukraine’s skill to face up to the onslaught. In this regard, the fifth year of this warfare could also be decisive certainly — albeit extra so in Washington than on the battlefield.
One defining picture of 2025 stands out as the chummy embrace throughout a Beijing gathering of Putin together with China’s President Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s President Kim Jong Un, with Iran’s president within the background. These 4 nations (often called CRINK) are working collectively to help Russia in Ukraine and intention for a divided world with Russia and China calling the photographs of their so-called spheres of affect because the US recedes. Theirs is a world by which giant powers assert their will, and smaller powers succumb to it.
Curiously, the insurance policies of the Trump administration appear to align with this view. Its new National Security Strategy, or NSS, describes the US as a hemispheric power and says, “The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over.” The doc goes on to berate conventional European allies as feckless and prone to “civilizational erasure” due to lax immigration insurance policies. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned Trump’s NSS appears to “correspond in many ways to our vision.”
Taiwan is the place this not turns into educational. Washington for a half century has enabled the expansion of Taiwan and helped hold the peace with an ambiguous coverage that acknowledges Taiwan as a a part of China whereas sustaining safety and financial ties with the island. Trump final week authorized the biggest arms package deal in historical past for Taiwan, totaling practically $11 billion in missiles, drones, and superior air protection gear. China, in the meantime, is identified to be getting ready its army to be prepared for an invasion of Taiwan by 2027.
When Trump travels to Beijing for a summit with Xi as anticipated this spring, Taiwan will likely be a central subject — and its future could also be on the road. This is among the many highest-stakes challenge on the global safety agenda. Taiwan is central to our every day lives, the place most semiconductor chips that power our automobiles and telephones are made, and the projections of global disruption ought to China invade or de-stabilize the island strategy $10 trillion.
Yet, it stays unclear whether or not Trump will again up many years of American coverage — as his latest arms sale suggests — or cede curiosity in pursuit of a commerce deal and acceptance of Beijing as dominant in its sphere — as his NSS previews. His Beijing summit will likely be watched intently in Taipei, with the adage: when not on the desk, you’re on the menu.
In phrases of army success, Israel had a good year. It began with a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza and is ending with all residing hostages freed and a 20-point ceasefire plan that is endorsed by the UN Security Council and calls on Hamas to disarm. Iran is in its weakest place since its 1979 revolution. Leaders of the terrorist teams that after surrounded Israel — Hamas and Hezbollah — are lifeless.
Overall, nonetheless, Israel has failed to translate army success into lasting political and diplomatic achievements, partially due to its personal divisions. Israel as we speak is ruled by one of many narrowest coalitions in its historical past, dominated by nationalist rightwing events that polarize Israeli society and alienate new openings with Arab capitals. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the longtime chief of Israel’s conventional proper, refers to himself as probably the most liberal member of his personal excessive proper coalition authorities.
Few Israelis imagine this slim governing components after two years of warfare can or ought to final for much longer. In 2026, they’ll have a probability to do one thing about it. Israel should maintain parliamentary elections by October 27, 2026, 4 years after the final vote, and the elections would possibly come sooner if Netanyahu calls for them or his authorities fails to move a finances within the spring. The end result could decide whether or not Israel is ready to consolidate its army success or stay in a fragile and unsure establishment.
If Israel emerges from these elections with a new unity coalition or a minimum of a coalition with out the extremist members of Netanyahu’s present authorities, the chances improve that Trump can broaden the Abraham Accords earlier than the tip of his time period — to embody a cope with Saudi Arabia. If the elections impasse and fail to produce a new authorities or worse produce the federal government that Israel has now, then there is unlikely to be any diplomatic progress, and Israel could nicely forfeit a historic alternative.
Iran had a horrible year, and 2026 could also be worse. Not way back, Iran claimed power and affect throughout the Middle East by proxy networks it managed — Hezbollah, Hamas, Iraqi militias, and the Houthis — in addition to a vaunted missile program, refined Russian air defenses, and a nuclear program advancing past any conceivable civilian use case. Tehran loved a staunch ally in Bashar al-Assad and used Syria as a staging floor to strengthen its networks throughout the area and encompass Israel with a declared intention to wipe it from the map.
That’s all been turned on its head. Iran made the fateful alternative to be part of the mayhem after Hamas’ invasion of Israeli on October 7, 2023. It by no means anticipated the blowback. Today, a lot of its leaders are lifeless. Its proxies are dismantled. Its air defenses are destroyed. Its nuclear program is buried. Its Syrian ally is gone.
The nation is hobbled militarily and economically. A water scarcity could end in evacuations and rationing in Tehran. On high of that, its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is 86 years previous, reportedly sick, hardly ever seen in public, and there is no named successor.
In 2026, nothing will get higher for Iran. Israel could nicely strike Iran once more ought to the nation transfer to restore its nuclear program or — as has been reported — its missile arsenal. Iran’s youthful inhabitants rejects the ruling clerical system and with a succession disaster after Khamenei, that system could teeter. At the identical time, a hobbled regime would possibly lash out with terrorism or with reckless assaults on Israel. So, concentrate to Iran this year. As in 2025, there could also be some surprises there.
I used to be lately requested on a podcast what retains me up at evening after twenty years within the discipline of nationwide safety and diplomacy. My reply was terrorism. That has not been a modern reply in nationwide safety circles during the last decade, as successive administrations have sought to emphasize nice power competitors with China and Russia partly to veer away from the arduous and resource-intensive work of countering threats from extremist teams world wide, together with Al Qaeda and ISIS.
Unfortunately, we’re all the time one assault away from altering the course of historical past — one thing we should always remember even 25 years after 9/11.
Between 2014 and 2018, I helped lead the marketing campaign in opposition to ISIS. The US constructed a global coalition of 80 nations and organizations resembling INTERPOL to observe ISIS operatives, fight its financing, counter its ideology, and uproot its networks. It labored: between 2014 and 2020, the variety of terror assaults worldwide, closely influenced by ISIS, dropped by practically 60%. The refined assaults that we noticed throughout Europe in 2015 and 2016, resembling in Paris (November 2015) and Brussels (March 2016), stopped altogether.
That is not the case. From 2022 to 2025, fueled by the Hamas assaults in Israel, incidents and deaths are rising once more. Global networks are recharging.
This previous month alone witnessed the bloodbath in Australia, concentrating on Jews at Hanukkah, and disruption of a plot in Los Angeles to detonate bombs in crowds on New Year’s Eve. In Syria final week, ISIS killed two American troops for the primary time since 2019. The US responded with strikes in opposition to “70+ ISIS targets” in Syria days in the past, which begs the query why these targets weren’t destroyed earlier. The UK’s head of inner safety lately described the ISIS menace there as “huge,” and European Union officers mentioned it’s as soon as once more “the most prominent threat” in member nations.
The coming year appears poised to proceed this worrying trendline. To reverse it, the US and its companions should strengthen legislation enforcement cooperation throughout borders with no tolerance for those that espouse or excuse violence to additional a political trigger. The counter ISIS coalition is a good mannequin.
Few points have risen as rapidly — or as decisively — to the highest of the global agenda as synthetic intelligence. It is poised to keep there. In each Beijing and Washington, AI is considered as an existential competitors — usually in contrast to the Cold War house race — given its army purposes and its capability to rework practically each area of nationwide coverage.
In 2025, China stunned the world with the launch of a new frontier reasoning mannequin, DeepSeek R1, which challenged main American fashions at a fraction of the price. It quickly climbed to the highest of Apple’s App Store and briefly rattled monetary markets, triggering a sharp Nasdaq dip and a historic one-day loss for a main US chipmaker. Markets recovered — however the shock was the lesson. The episode underscored how rapidly assumed technological benefits can erode.
The United States has sought to strengthen its place by export controls and an increasing community of companions reliant on US know-how for AI adoption. The Trump administration has moved to deepen these partnerships whereas additionally proposing to loosen some export restrictions —together with to China — a step that has raised bipartisan concern and has but to be carried out.
At house, constraints are mounting. The United States lags China within the electrical energy technology wanted to help a quickly increasing community of information facilities, at the same time as power demand surges. Some Democrats have begun calling for limits on new data-center building altogether. As through the Cold War, global technological competitors could more and more collide with home political pressures.
In 2026, anticipate rising friction between fast advances in AI, unsettled coverage debates, and intensifying geopolitical rivalry. Together, they’re possible to make AI one of the consequential forces shaping global politics within the years forward.