In much of the world, the consensus has been consolidated that 2026 will be a pivotal year in which there will be radical changes not only in the chronically troubled Middle East but also in East Asia, Africa and, although much less violently, Western Europe and Latin America. The fact that so many think this way virtually guarantees that the coming months will hold many surprises for us. As the feeling spreads that the tectonic plates are in motion and the days of the status quo are numbered, those concerned about what could happen to them in the coming months can only prepare to defend their interests.
Is the Iranian theocratic tyranny about to fall? Those impressed by the dimensions reached by the street protests against the ayatollahs’ regime, and by Donald Trump’s declared will to protect the protesters from the holy wrath of the clerics and their sympathizers, believe that he will not be able to survive for much longer. It is possible that they are right, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the brutality of those who see themselves as the earthly representatives of God and who, according to reports, have already killed thousands of people who in all significant cities dared to defy him.
Unfortunately, there is very little chance that Iranian Islamists will opt for a peaceful “transition” to a republican democracy or a constitutional monarchy headed by Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah who was overthrown in 1979. It is also slim that a US military intervention will be enough to persuade “supreme leader” Ali Khameini and his minions to seek refuge in Moscow, as former Syrian dictator Bashar did. al-Assad.
Another conflict that causes anxiety among those convinced that the world is about to see accelerated changes is that of mainland China against Taiwan. According to Xi Jinping, the island’s independence, which has the support of Washington and Japan, must be ended as soon as possible; In his opinion, accepting it would be an aberration. From his point of view, what his pre-communist predecessors called “the mandate of heaven” forces him to restore the unity of the territories that in the not-so-distant past made up the Middle Kingdom. It is striking that the Chinese government has recently sanctioned maps in which regions that were occupied by Russia in 1860 bear their traditional names; for China, Vladivostok should be called Haishenwai.
Meanwhile, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who has every reason to suspect that at any moment his great ally Xi could abandon him to his fate, remains obsessed with Ukraine. Although Trump wants the war to end in the hope of appearing as a great peacemaker, the Ukrainians, led tenaciously by Volodymyr Zelensky, are reluctant to throw in the towel and have retained the support of most European governments who fear that, if Putin has his way, he might be tempted to try his luck by invading the Baltics in defense of Russian minorities.
Be that as it may, although so far it seems that Putin’s “special military operation”, in which more than a million Russian soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded, has not caused him many internal political costs, since the bulk of the casualties come from the poorest rural areas of his gigantic country, the situation thus assumed would change if he were forced to call up young people from Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Although the immediate prospects for Western European countries seem less alarming than those faced by many others, the tensions caused by mass immigration from regions with very different cultures are causing nervousness, especially in France and the United Kingdom, where many are wondering whether the current governments of President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer will manage to complete the term provided for by their respective constitutions. If they are forced to resign, they would open the doors to leaders described as “far-right.” Something similar could happen in Germany; In that case, the main countries of the Old Continent would have governments determined to combat “Islamization” that according to Trump and others, poses an existential threat to the civilization that Europe forged.
While autocrats with expansionist aspirations, such as Putin, Xi and, until recently, Khamenei, believe that unless they act very soon they could see an unrepeatable opportunity to achieve their objectives pass by, in the democratic world there is also a tendency to feel increasingly impatient, members of social classes and ethnic, religious or sexual groups who fear being left behind. Thus, a sense of urgency has spread throughout almost the entire world, which, in itself, is having a powerful impact on the behavior and attitudes of millions of people.
The plight of the leaders of countries like Russia and China can be understood. Putin and Xi know that soon they or their successors will have to face the consequences of the plummeting birth rate. With 1.4 children per woman, Russia will no longer be able to afford to send hundreds of thousands of young people to the Ukrainian slaughterhouse every year; Like China, it will have to worry about the problems faced by aging societies that, unlike those in the capitalist world, lack the economic resources necessary to mitigate them.
In China the situation is even worse than in Russia, since the birth rate is below one child per woman (2.1 are needed to maintain the population at its current level). Even if China managed to economically surpass the North American superpower, its reign as world hegemon would be brief.
Needless to say, autocracies are far from the only places where the birth rate has fallen so much that from now on each new generation will be equivalent to half of the previous one. South Korea seems destined to disappear before the beginning of the 22nd century, followed by Japan, Italy, Spain and, perhaps, Argentina and other countries. The collective sterility thus assumed tells us that something is rotten in modern civilization, but for a multitude of reasons, few dare to propose remedies that might work.
The pessimism felt by so many has its roots in how extremely difficult it is to think of viable solutions to the economic and social problems of “advanced” countries where electorates refuse to allow rulers to do what is necessary to adapt to reality. It is also very important that, unlike other times, currently no political or religious movement seems capable of offering convincing alternatives to the status quo that so many are repudiating.
Last century, hundreds of millions of people felt so inspired by political ideas that they were willing to defend them – or impose them – with their lives; It would seem that those days are gone. Likewise, while in the Muslim world there are still many who will not hesitate to die for their faith, in the rest of the world such people are scarce. Although at first glance it is very positive that in the most prosperous countries the overwhelming majority privilege material well-being above everything else, there are those who believe that such an attitude is a symptom of the emotional weakness that is undermining all Western societies.
It would seem that the abandonment of faith in the traditional religions of Europe, and the resounding fall of communism and the discredit of the democratic variants of socialism, in addition to the capture of progressivism by woke sects and the inequality that is intrinsic to meritocratic liberalism, have left a conceptual vacuum that adventurers of different types, including Trump, are taking advantage of.
Trump has surrounded himself with ideologues who, like him, want the United States to act like the superpower that it is and, to begin with, strengthen its own sphere of influence, which in their opinion must be the entire Western Hemisphere from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego. To make their task easier, one of the countries most likely to ally with China, Venezuela, was collapsing for internal reasons before Trump managed to kidnap Nicolás Maduro and take him to a New York prison, while another, Cuba, continues to commit suicide in slow motion.
Trump’s aggressive behavior that is causing so much alarm has a lot to do with his desire to take revenge on the “coastal elites” of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, who have always treated him like a vulgar rich man. He would do so by mobilizing against him those harmed by deindustrialization who, like him, felt despised by those who boasted of their cultural superiority. And once in power, Trump realized that he could do the same with the European “elites” who have much in common with their North American counterparts. Based on the resentment he feels toward those who never took him seriously, Trump behaves as if he believes that the United States has always been the victim of the rapacity of countless ungrateful parasites and that the time has come to charge them for the services he has provided.
