Even 2026, as we are now used to seeing, will certainly be increasingly distant from the “certainties”of the unipolar moment following the end of the Cold War.
The “international order”redesigned in 1989 – ’91 is crossed by evident fault lines, in which high geopolitical tension has effectively become a structural condition; with the unipolarity – multipolarity comparison which is no longer a mere “academic discussion”, but rather the common thread that links armed conflicts, regional crises and strategic realignments on a global scale.
To put it in the words of the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin: “the conflict in Ukraine is the first multipolar conflict”.
The geopolitical world is therefore characterized by the clash between countries that seek to defend the global order that arose after the dissolution of the USSR and those that instead aspire to modify it towards an architecture composed of multiple “geopolitical poles”.
A large part of the world is therefore trying to definitively build a “multipolar phase”, characterized primarily by the end of Western hegemony and the emergence of multiple centers of power, whether in competition or cooperation with each other. But certainly with the aspiration that the latter are never at war with each other.
In this scheme I believe it is possible to affirm that the Ukraine – Russia conflict is not “only”a regional conflict but, as mentioned above, also a “material & immaterial”clash between two visions of the international order: on the one hand the Euro-Atlantic one and on the other the one that contrasts it.
At the same time, the Middle East remains one of the main epicenters of global instability.
In this context, the massacre in Gaza and the resurgence of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is impossible to neutralize without addressing and resolving its most dramatic and profound causes, as well as the role of the “unipolar axis”which has its “bridgehead”in Israel in the area as opposed to Iran (leader of the region as regards the “multipolar axis”) contribute to a climate of permanent tension.
A climate of regional tension which, however, is intertwined with absolutely global dynamics, with a “proxy confrontation”also between the major global Powers: the United States, Russia and China.
Even in Latin America and the Caribbean the situation is explosive from a geopolitical (and not only) point of view. In fact, if countries like Venezuela and Cuba (just to mention the most “famous”) continue to represent nodes of significant resistance to US influence, always seeking new spaces for maneuver through relations between themselves and with Russia, China and some emerging players, other nations are aligning themselves more and more decisively with Trump’s USA (see, for example, Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, Bolivia).
A region often mistakenly considered “peripheral”is therefore returning to the “history”for being a decisive terrain for unipolarity – multipolarity clashes.
A battleground primarily due to its resources and its strategic position.
Finally, the change that is taking place in Africa, particularly in the Sahel, is very evident. The “pro-multipolar” government changes in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali mark a break with the recent past and with the Western presence that arose with colonization. These countries are looking for new alliances, new forms of sovereignty and new strategic references, inserting themselves into a global dynamic that redraws the maps of international influence. Africa is moving to no longer just be a terrain of “geopolitical competition”between great Powers, but to increasingly become an actor aware of its own weight and relevance.
Without ever forgetting the tensions in the Indo-Pacific and, in particular, the “Taiwan Affair”which continues to be a source of regional and global tension of great importance.
All the “old and new”regional and global “unitary experiences”obviously fit into this general context, with the expansion of the BRICS representing the clearest symbol of a changing world.
In conclusion, it is possible to state that, by putting all these pieces together – from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, from Latin America to Africa and up to the Indo-Pacific and the new global geopolitical balances – a clear picture emerges: 2026 will certainly not be a year of firm and linear geopolitical stabilization, but of further acceleration of the tensions and changes that have already been underway for some years. In a multipolar world still in the making, made up of open conflicts and latent rivalries, 2026 also promises, without too many mincing words, to be a decidedly “hot geopolitical year”.
By Alessandro Fanetti, cese-m.eu
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