The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

As we begin year 2026, what are important global trends to watch?  Every year The Economist publishes an issue with forecasts and analyses for the coming year. It is always a helpful tool in what to look for in the coming year.  There are several important observations in this issue.

First, Editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, argues that year 2025 was a “year when an old order ended. President Donald Trump demolished decades-old norms and institutions as dramatically as he set about reshaping the White House. His tariffs bludgeoned the multilateral trade system. The machinery of international diplomacy, from the UN to foreign aid, was hit by American funding cuts. Long-standing security alliances were refashioned into more transactional relationships which monetized American military and economic heft. At home, Mr. Trump unleashed the most expansive assertion of executive power in a century. Soldiers were sent into Democrat-run cities; universities brought to heel with threats and funding cuts; the independence of the Federal Reserve attacked; and the machinery of government deployed against the president’s foes.”

• The most obvious gain was the ceasefire in Gaza. It created the potential for a new beginning. Getting tough with NATO allies led to increases in defense budgets that few thought possible a year ago. And in spats between smaller countries, a president craving a Nobel peace prize, willing to threaten tariffs and twist arms, helped solve, or at least paper over, disputes.
• But there were also clear failures. Strategically, the imposition of punitive tariffs on India (ostensibly as punishment for buying oil from Russia) and Brazil (for putting Jair Bolsonaro on trial) made little sense. Both decisions will push those countries closer to China. Mr. Trump made little headway with Vladimir Putin. And he was outmaneuvered by Xi Jinping. China was the clear winner from 2025’s trade brinkmanship.

The contours of the new world will become much clearer in 2026—in three main areas.

1. First, the future of Western liberal democracies. The midterm elections in November will determine whether America is at serious risk of quasi-authoritarianism. If Democrats win control of the House of Representatives, there will be a meaningful check on the Trump administration. If history is a guide, they should win. But these are not normal times. The Democrats are even less popular than Mr. Trump. On the other side of the Atlantic, 2026 will show whether MAGA-style populist nationalists are on the cusp of power in Europe’s biggest economies. In Britain, where Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party leads in the polls, local-government elections will reveal whether that lead translates into votes—and thus, when a general election is next called, the chances of a prime minister Farage. In France, recent history suggests another government collapse is all too likely in 2026. That would force parliamentary elections and probably lead to Jordan Bardella as France’s first prime minister from the populist right. In Germany it will become apparent whether the “firewall” against the hard-right Alternative for Germany can hold.
2. The second area of clarity will be in geopolitics. Mr. Trump’s desire for a Nobel peace prize will keep him engaged in the Middle East. He will prevent Israel from returning to full-blown war in Gaza.  The clearest signals of where American foreign policy is heading will come from Asia and Latin America. In Asia, prepare for Mr. Trump’s desire to do business with China to lead to a dangerous erosion of support for Taiwan. “America’s strategic ambiguity may give way to studied nonchalance, especially if a weakening American economy makes it more important for Mr. Trump to strike a big trade deal with China.”
3. The third area of clarity, for good or ill, will be on the economy. Whether or not there is a severe market correction, surging share prices will not underpin confidence as they did in 2025. Nor will the productivity-transforming impact of artificial intelligence appear as quickly as boosters hope. “Damage from tariffs will become more evident, pressure on consumers more burdensome and the unsustainability of America’s budget deficits more obvious. Mr. Trump’s choice for the next chair of the Federal Reserve will show whether central-bank independence is over or not. Given the mess other rich countries are in, a stampede from the dollar is unlikely. But by the end of 2026 America’s economy may not seem quite so exceptional.”

Second, on 10 June 2026, fighting between Russia and Ukraine will have lasted longer than the first world war. As Edward Carr demonstrates, “The root of Mr. Putin’s problem is he has been unable to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield. The offensive in summer 2025—his third and most ambitious—has been an abject failure. Russia’s tactic is to send small groups of men into the killzone. Yet, if some break through, the rest cannot take advantage of their progress. As soon as they mass, they are obliterated.  The numbers tell this terrible story. In the year to mid-October, Russian casualties grew by almost 60%, to somewhere between 984,000 and 1,438,000. The dead now number between 190,000 and 480,000. Perhaps five Russian soldiers are dying for every Ukrainian. And yet over the summer Mr. Putin’s armies failed to take a single large city. Russia is advancing, but to occupy the four oblasts it claims as its own would require five more years. If the killing continues at 2025’s rate, total Russian casualties will reach almost 4million . . . That lack of progress explains why Mr. Putin is also striking Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. He hopes to make parts of Ukraine uninhabitable and to destroy morale. Russia has started talking about the devastating winter that lies ahead. Nobody should trivialize Ukrainian suffering, but attacking civilians rarely causes a country to collapse. People already know that Russia is merciless. Every missile that strikes a civilian target only underlines how much they have to lose should Mr. Putin prevail.”

Putin may hope European resolve will crumble. The money Ukraine needs to keep on fighting will run out in February. The prospect of populist governments that are less hostile to the Kremlin already hangs over the continent. A divided and dysfunctional Europe will struggle to give Ukraine the long-term backing it needs to thrive once the fighting stops. But if none of these things happen, “Putin will be storing up a terrible reckoning. Russia has mortgaged its economy, harried Finland and Sweden into joining NATO, subordinated itself to China and scythed through a generation of young men. And for what? The moment this question forms on Russian lips, the world will face a new danger. Mr. Putin could accept defeat abroad and impose terror at home. Or he could escalate.”

Third, Europe faces “the specter of direct conflict with Russia. Cyber-attacks and incidents of sabotage are increasing. Russian drones are flying over Poland, Germany and Denmark, causing shutdowns of civilian airports. In Europe, there is at best an icy peace, which at any time can erupt into hot confrontation, Martin Jäger, the head of Germany’s intelligence service, said recently. Baltic countries are practicing mass evacuations in case Russia invades.”

Arkady Ostrovsky argues that “Mr. Putin’s war in Ukraine is central to his battle against the West, which he believes has treated Russia (and him personally) unfairly and treacherously. Feeling rejected by the West and unable to compete with it economically, he chose war as the only way to dismantle the American-led security system and expand his own power. He aims to undermine NATO, destabilize European democracies, and divide and intimidate societies that have grown used to peace. Russia’s ‘grey-zone’ provocations in northern Europe will intensify in 2026.”

Fourth, David Rennie shows that “countries that know China best—its neighbors and those reliant on its trade—know it as an unsentimental giant, bent on returning to the pinnacle of global power and increasingly willing to use its dominance in some sectors, such as the production of rare-earth minerals and permanent magnets, to coerce and intimidate foreign rivals. Chinese officials and state-backed scholars talk publicly of the need to dominate global manufacturing for decades to come. They call for a ‘realist’ international order that offers ‘universal security’ rather than universal values.”

China does not deny being guided by self-interest and is willing to show its strength.  America’s policy shifts have opened up numerous opportunities for China to increase its influence. Three stand out.

1. The first is clean tech. In his first presidency, Mr. Trump was a sceptic about climate change and renewable energy. Since his re-election, he has cut subsidies for green technologies and berated foreign governments for shunning fossil fuels. Enter China, already a dominant provider of solar panels, wind turbines and advanced batteries, and an expert in building the smart electrical grids needed to knit green technologies together.
2. Then there is Africa. In 2025 Mr. Trump slapped 30% tariffs on South Africa, while Republicans in Congress threatened to curb tariff-free access offered to the poorest African countries under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Right on cue, China extended tariff-free access to imports from 53 African nations, though many African governments mutter about unbalanced trade relationships, built on selling China raw materials in exchange for finished goods.
3. Third is India. During Mr. Trump’s first term and the Biden administration, India edged closer to America, spurred by a shared wariness of China. That wariness was deepened by border clashes between Indian and Chinese troops. Yet in his second term, Mr. Trump has demeaned India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and imposed punitive tariffs for buying Russian oil. In September Mr. Modi went to China to join Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, at a gathering hosted by China’s ruler, Xi Jinping. It brought together leaders of a regional grouping that India regards with suspicion, the Shanghai Co-operation Organization.

Trump’s unpredictability is thus helping China in its contest with America for global influence.

Finally, for two decades Iran and its allies had imposed their writ on the region. But, argues Gregg Carlstrom,  “then Israel smashed the network of militias backed by Iran and brought its empire to ruins. The Assad regime in Syria collapsed. Then, with America’s backing, Israel broke the taboo of attacking Iran itself.  Yet Iran’s empire is not entirely gone. Hamas is weakened but still a force, as is Hezbollah in Lebanon. The clerical regime in Iran survived 12 days of Israeli and American bombardment. In Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa has a fragile grip on his country. The coming year will thus be a battle between change and continuity.”

1. The biggest question is what happens in Gaza. For reconstruction to begin in earnest, many things must go right. Hamas must agree to disarm. Arab states must deploy peacekeeping troops, despite concerns that they will end up in a fight with the Palestinians. Israel must accept some role for the Palestinian Authority and offer some guarantee that the war is really over. All of this seems unlikely.
2. A second question is whether Israel and Iran will engage in another round of conflict. The Islamic Republic could avoid one by making a deal with America, but Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, is unwilling to make the sorts of concessions Mr. Trump demands. His nuclear program is in tatters after the 12-day war in June, but he will not relinquish it entirely.
3. Third is whether Mr. Trump manages to expand the Abraham accords, the 2020 agreements in which four Arab states normalized relations with Israel. It is unrealistic to hope that Syria and Lebanon will establish full ties with the Jewish state. But it is plausible that Syria will sign a non-aggression pact in order to curtail Israel’s encroachments on its territory. Lebanon may not even go that far, particularly with an election looming in the spring. It will be harder still to make progress with Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince. His kingdom is the big prize: if it normalizes ties with Israel, other Arab and Muslim states would probably follow. But the Saudis have been clear for more than a year that they will not recognize Israel unless it agrees to a real peace process with the Palestinians. They have little reason to renege on that promise. In years past they hoped that joining the Abraham accords would unlock a formal defense pact with America. In 2026 they may get one anyway.

Regardless of what happens in 2026, we affirm God’s sovereignty and providential superintendence of events for His glory.  The Bible tells us that His primary focus is redemptive, completing the rescue plan for lost humanity.  The return of Jesus inches closer every day.  That is our blessed hope and that is where our primary focus should be in 2026.

See The World Ahead 2026, pp. 9-10; 13; 67; 51; 45-46.