Tag: geopolitics

  • Global Connectedness Report 2026 by DHL and NYU Stern

    Global Connectedness Report 2026 by DHL and NYU Stern

    About the paper

    The paper is a data-driven globalization report by Steven A. Altman and Caroline R. Bastian of NYU Stern, produced in partnership with DHL.

    It is not survey-based; it is a secondary-analysis and index report using more than 9 million country-to-country data points on trade, capital, information and people flows, ranking 180 countries globally.

    Its geographic scope is worldwide, with country profiles and regional analysis across major world regions.

    Length: 320 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.dhl.com/global-en/microsites/core/global-connectedness/report.html

    Core Insights

    1. Is globalization actually reversing, or is the report arguing that deglobalization is overstated?

    The report’s central argument is that deglobalization is overstated. It does not deny that geopolitical risk, tariffs, war, policy volatility and public scepticism have increased. But it argues that the actual data on cross-border flows do not show a broad retreat from international to domestic activity.

    The DHL Global Connectedness Index reached a record high in 2022 and has remained broadly stable through 2025. The report’s key measure of “depth” — international activity relative to domestic activity — sits at around 25%. That means globalization is historically high, but still limited: the world is far from “hyperglobalized”. Most economic and human activity still happens within countries rather than across borders.

    This distinction is central to the report’s logic. The authors are not saying that globalization is smooth, frictionless or politically uncontested. They are saying that globalization is being reshaped rather than reversed. The world is more volatile, but not meaningfully less connected.

    2. What evidence does the report give that global flows remain resilient?

    The report examines four broad types of flows: trade, capital, information and people.

    On trade, the report finds that goods trade grew faster in 2025 than in any year since 2017, excluding the post-Covid rebound. Part of this was driven by U.S. importers front-loading goods before tariff increases, but China’s exports to non-U.S. markets and AI infrastructure investment also supported growth. AI-related goods reportedly accounted for a large share of goods trade growth in the first three quarters of 2025.

    On capital, the picture is more mixed, but not one of retreat. Foreign direct investment and M&A activity remain broadly in line with historical patterns, even though greenfield FDI announcements weakened in some areas. The report emphasises that companies continue to invest abroad and that multinational firms still conduct close to record shares of activity outside their home markets.

    On information, the report is more cautious. Information flows have been the fastest-growing part of globalization over the past two decades, but some indicators have plateaued or weakened since 2021. International patenting has slowed, scientific collaboration has declined slightly, and cross-border intellectual property flows have eased. The report suggests that geopolitical tensions and data restrictions may now be constraining this part of globalization.

    On people, the report finds that international travel has recovered from the Covid-19 collapse, while international student mobility and migration remain on longer-term rising trends. However, people flows remain the least globalized category: only a small share of the world’s population lives outside its country of birth.

    3. How serious is geopolitical fragmentation, especially between the U.S., China and Russia?

    The report treats geopolitical fragmentation as a real risk, but argues that its global effects remain limited so far.

    The clearest evidence of fragmentation is in U.S.–China ties. Since 2016, the share of U.S. trade, capital, information and people flows involving China has fallen substantially, while China’s share involving the U.S. has also declined. Direct U.S. imports from China fell from a peak of 22% in 2017 to 13% in 2024, and then to 9% during the first three quarters of 2025.

    However, the report adds an important complication: the U.S. has not necessarily reduced its underlying reliance on Chinese content. Goods imported from third countries may still contain Chinese inputs. When looking at direct and indirect China-origin content, the report says there is no clear evidence of a major decline in U.S. reliance on goods from China through 2024.

    Russia is the more dramatic case. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s flows with the EU have collapsed across trade, investment, information and people flows. Russia’s exports have become less diversified and more dependent on a few destinations such as China, India and Türkiye.

    But the report’s broader conclusion is that these cases do not amount to a global split into rival blocs. Only a small share of global trade and investment has shifted away from geopolitical rivals. Most international business already takes place among friendly or neutral countries, which limits the likely impact of “de-risking” on globalization as a whole.

    4. Is globalization being replaced by regionalization or nearshoring?

    The report’s answer is: not yet, at least not in the data.

    Despite widespread discussion of nearshoring, friendshoring and regional supply chains, the report finds that many international flows are crossing longer, not shorter, distances. The average distance traversed by flows in the DHL Global Connectedness Index reached a record high in 2024. Goods trade and greenfield FDI crossed record average distances in 2025.

    This directly challenges the idea that globalization is giving way to regionalization. If international activity were becoming more regional, the average distance covered by flows should be falling. Instead, the report finds the opposite for several major flow types.

    That said, the report does not dismiss regionalization entirely. It notes that many governments and companies are interested in nearshoring and supply-chain resilience, and that such changes can take years to implement. It also acknowledges that international flows are already highly regionalized: roughly half of global trade, capital, information and people flows occur within major world regions. The report’s point is not that regionalization is irrelevant, but that there is not yet robust evidence of a major new shift from global to regional patterns.

    5. Which countries are most globally connected, and what does that reveal about globalization?

    Singapore ranks as the world’s most globally connected country, followed by Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong SAR, the United Arab Emirates, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Denmark.

    The report distinguishes between two dimensions of connectedness: depth and breadth. Depth measures the size of international flows relative to domestic activity. Breadth measures how widely a country’s flows are distributed across the world.

    Small, wealthy economies tend to score highly on depth because their domestic markets are limited and they rely heavily on cross-border trade, capital, people and information flows. That explains the strong performance of places such as Singapore, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Ireland and the UAE.

    Larger economies often score higher on breadth than depth. The United Kingdom ranks first on breadth, followed by the United States, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Australia. These countries have flows that reach widely across the world, but their large domestic economies mean that international activity can still represent a smaller share of total activity.

    This country-level analysis reinforces one of the report’s core themes: globalization is uneven. Some countries are deeply and broadly connected, while others remain peripheral. Wealth, peace and security, openness, regional integration, infrastructure and domestic business conditions all shape how connected a country becomes.

  • Global Foresight 2036 by the Atlantic Council

    Global Foresight 2036 by the Atlantic Council

    About the paper

    The report is a mixed-methods strategic foresight publication from the Atlantic Council that combines original survey research, expert commentary, six “snow leopard” horizon-scanning essays, and a shorter AI discussion section.

    Its core empirical base is the organisation’s fourth annual survey of 447 geostrategists and foresight practitioners from 72 countries, fielded in November and December 2025; the respondent pool is global, though roughly half are US citizens and the sample is drawn from the Atlantic Council’s network rather than a general population sample.

    Length: 76 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/global-foresight-2036/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the world of 2036?

    The report’s central argument is that the decade ahead is likely to be more unstable, more fragmented, and more dangerous than the present, even though the exact future cannot be predicted with certainty. Rather than offering a single forecast, the report uses foresight to map the pressures, risks, and directional shifts that experts think are most likely to shape 2036.

    Its overall tone is notably pessimistic. The opening findings state that 63 percent of respondents expect the world in 2036 to be worse off than it is now, while only 37 percent think it will be better. The report frames this darker mood through a cluster of reinforcing trends:

    • intensifying US-China rivalry
    • a possible hot conflict over Taiwan
    • weakening multilateral institutions
    • democratic decline
    • nuclear proliferation
    • climate stress
    • and rapid AI advances whose benefits are matched by growing concern.

    At the same time, the report is not purely apocalyptic. It argues that foresight is valuable precisely because it helps policymakers and readers prepare for multiple possible futures, including surprising ones. That is why the publication pairs survey findings with under-the-radar “snow leopards” and a separate AI section: the aim is not just to describe probable big trends, but to widen the reader’s field of vision.

    2. What are the report’s main findings from the expert survey?

    The report organises its main survey results into ten headline findings. The most prominent is that respondents broadly expect China to surpass the United States economically by 2036, even if they do not think China will simply replace the US as an uncontested global hegemon. Instead, most foresee either bipolar competition or a more diffuse multipolar system. They also increasingly expect China to attempt to take Taiwan by force, and more than 40 percent foresee another world war, most likely sparked in Taiwan or surrounding waters.

    A second major finding is that NATO is expected to survive, but not unchanged. Respondents are divided on whether it will become more or less influential, yet 44 percent think it will no longer exist in its current form by 2036. The survey also suggests growing doubts about whether the United States will still play the same commanding role within the alliance.

    On Russia and Ukraine, the survey points away from a decisive Russian victory and toward a frozen conflict. Respondents also see Russia as a diminished power by 2036, though still potentially dangerous, especially in nuclear terms. On AI, a majority believe artificial general intelligence could emerge within the decade, and more respondents still see AI as a net positive than a net negative, though the gap has narrowed as concern rises.

    Other major findings include:

    • expectations of wider nuclear proliferation, especially involving Iran and possibly Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, and some NATO countries
    • a more autonomous but still strategically limited Europe
    • declining climate cooperation even as warming worsens
    • weakening global institutions alongside democratic erosion
    • and continued dollar dominance, though with crypto seen as the biggest challenger rather than another national currency.

    3. What evidence and patterns in the report best reveal how experts think power is shifting?

    One of the clearest patterns is that respondents do not think the future belongs to a single dominant actor in the way the post-Cold War era was often understood. The report repeatedly points to diffusion, contestation, and erosion of established forms of leadership. China is seen as rising strongly in economic power, nearly matching the US in technology and diplomacy, while the United States is still expected to remain militarily pre-eminent. That split itself is telling: respondents appear to be imagining a world where different forms of power are no longer concentrated in one state.

    Another pattern is institutional weakening.

    Respondents expect the United Nations, UN Security Council, WTO, World Bank, and IMF all to lose influence over the next decade.

    That suggests not merely dissatisfaction with current institutions, but a broader expectation that the post-1945 order is fraying. The report explicitly connects this decay with democratic recession, arguing that respondents who foresee deeper democratic decline are especially likely to expect institutional weakening and a worse overall world.

    A third pattern concerns regional and bloc-level reconfiguration. Europe is not expected to become the world’s leading military, economic, or tech power, yet respondents increasingly think it will achieve greater strategic autonomy. NATO may endure, but in altered form. The Global South section then adds another layer by showing that respondents from those countries often expect even sharper shifts away from US primacy and are more inclined to see China rising, Russia doing better in Ukraine, and even internal US breakdown.

    Together, these patterns show that the report is less about simple replacement of one superpower by another and more about a messy redistribution of influence across states, blocs, technologies, markets, and non-state actors.

    4. What does the report suggest about the role of technology and underappreciated trends in shaping the future?

    The report treats technology as both a direct force of change and a lens that reshapes how other global risks unfold. AI is the most obvious example. Respondents expect major advances, including the possible arrival of AGI within a decade, and the report presents AI as a technology with systemic implications for economics, geopolitics, knowledge production, and everyday life. But the accompanying expert discussion is more cautious than the survey toplines: Atlantic Council specialists stress that today’s AI is not good at truly forecasting the future, that AGI is far from certain, and that trust, energy demands, and market instability could constrain progress.

    The six “snow leopards” deepen this technological and horizon-scanning emphasis. These essays focus on phenomena that may be easy to overlook now but could become highly consequential. They include:

    1. Private tech firms shaping conflict outcomes
    2. Circular rather than one-way migration
    3. Kelp forests as climate and economic assets
    4. The erosion of the human rights order
    5. AI-driven cultural erasure
    6. Neurotechnology capable of decoding thought.

    What unites these cases is the report’s belief that future disruption will not come only from the usual headline issues. Some of the biggest shifts may emerge from domains that sit between established categories: companies behaving like geopolitical actors, migration functioning as an innovation loop, environmental restoration becoming industrial strategy, or data bias turning into cultural loss. This part of the report broadens the frame beyond interstate competition and argues for paying attention to early signals and second-order effects.

    5. What are the report’s biggest implications for policymakers, strategists, and communicators?

    The report’s main implication is that leaders should prepare for a world defined less by stability and rule-bound cooperation than by rivalry, fragmentation, and institutional stress. For policymakers, this means planning for deterrence, alliance adaptation, nuclear risk, democratic erosion, and climate-related conflict at the same time rather than treating them as separate silos. The report’s structure itself makes that point: geopolitics, democracy, climate, finance, and technology are deeply entangled.

    A second implication is that strategic assumptions inherited from the post-Cold War period look increasingly fragile. The report suggests that US leadership can no longer be taken for granted, NATO may need redesign rather than maintenance alone, and multilateral bodies may not be capable of managing future crises in the way they were once expected to. That pushes strategists toward resilience, contingency planning, and coalition-building under less favourable conditions.

    For communicators, the report is especially useful as a map of narratives that may dominate the coming decade:

    • democratic decline
    • technological disruption
    • geopolitical fragmentation
    • and competing visions of order.

    It also shows that audiences are unlikely to share a single worldview.

    The section on Global South respondents is particularly important here, because it demonstrates that expectations about the future vary significantly by geography and political vantage point. In practical terms, this means communication about global risk, strategy, or public policy will increasingly need to account for fragmented perceptions rather than assuming one shared interpretive frame.

    The final implication is methodological: the report argues implicitly for foresight as a discipline of disciplined imagination rather than prediction. Its value lies not in claiming certainty, but in helping readers test assumptions, notice emerging signals, and think more seriously about consequences before they fully arrive.

  • The Global Risks Report 2026 by World Economic Forum

    The Global Risks Report 2026 by World Economic Forum

    About the paper

    The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026 examines global risks across 2026, 2028 and 2036, framing the period as an “age of competition” shaped by geo-economic confrontation, societal fragmentation, technological acceleration and environmental stress.

    It is a mixed-methods report based on the Global Risks Perception Survey of over 1,300 experts worldwide, the Executive Opinion Survey of over 11,000 business leaders in 116 economies, and foresight input from 161 experts through interviews and workshops conducted between May and November 2025.

    Length: 102 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2026/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the global risk landscape in 2026–2036?

    The report’s central argument is that the world is entering an “age of competition” in which cooperation is weakening just as global risks are becoming faster, more interconnected and more systemic. The report does not present predictions, but rather a set of plausible risk trajectories intended to support prevention and preparedness.

    Its core diagnosis is that geopolitical and geo-economic rivalry are no longer separate risk categories; they are becoming organising forces that shape the entire risk landscape. Trade, finance, technology, supply chains and infrastructure are increasingly treated as instruments of power. This creates a world in which confrontation replaces collaboration, and where multilateral institutions struggle to manage cross-border problems.

    The report’s tone is notably pessimistic. Half of surveyed experts expect a turbulent or stormy global outlook over the next two years, rising to 57% over the next decade. Only 1% expect a calm outlook across either time horizon. The implication is that instability is not viewed as a temporary disruption, but as a structural condition of the coming decade.

    2. Which risks dominate the short-term outlook, and why?

    In the immediate and two-year outlook, geo-economic confrontation is the dominant concern. It is identified as the top risk most likely to trigger a material global crisis in 2026, selected by 18% of respondents, followed by state-based armed conflict at 14%. Over the two-year horizon, geo-economic confrontation is also ranked as the most severe risk.

    This reflects the report’s view that economic instruments are increasingly being used for strategic advantage. Sanctions, tariffs, investment controls, technology restrictions, supply-chain weaponisation and resource competition are no longer peripheral policy tools; they are becoming central features of international rivalry. The report argues that this threatens the core of the interconnected global economy.

    Other short-term risks cluster around the same underlying instability. Misinformation and disinformation ranks second over the two-year horizon, societal polarisation third, extreme weather fourth, and state-based armed conflict fifth. Cyber insecurity, inequality and erosion of civic freedoms also feature in the top 10. This shows that the report sees short-term risk as a combination of geopolitical confrontation, social fragmentation and information disorder.

    Economic risks also rise sharply in the two-year outlook. Economic downturn and inflation each rise eight places compared with the previous year, while asset bubble burst rises seven places. The report links these concerns to debt pressures, volatile markets, potential AI-related investment bubbles and the broader uncertainty created by protectionism and geo-economic rivalry.

    3. How does the long-term risk outlook differ from the two-year outlook?

    The long-term outlook shifts from geopolitical and economic confrontation towards environmental and technological risks. Over the 10-year horizon, extreme weather events rank first, followed by biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, critical change to Earth systems, misinformation and disinformation, and adverse outcomes of AI technologies. Half of the top 10 long-term risks are environmental.

    This creates one of the report’s central tensions: environmental risks are being deprioritised in the short term even though they remain dominant in the long term. The report notes that most environmental risks decline in the two-year ranking and also show reduced short-term severity scores compared with the previous year. Yet over 10 years, environmental risks remain the most severe category.

    The report’s interpretation is that immediate geopolitical, economic and societal pressures are crowding out longer-term collective priorities. In practical terms, climate and biodiversity risks remain existential, but political attention is being pulled towards wars, protectionism, inflation, debt, social unrest and technological disruption.

    This is one of the report’s most important implications: the world may be paying less attention to the risks that experts still see as most severe over the coming decade.

    4. What role do technology, AI and quantum developments play in the report’s risk assessment?

    Technology is presented as a source of enormous opportunity and systemic risk. In the short term, the report is most concerned with misinformation and disinformation, cyber insecurity and the way digital technologies amplify social polarisation. Misinformation and disinformation ranks second in the two-year outlook, while cyber insecurity ranks sixth.

    AI becomes much more important over the long term. “Adverse outcomes of AI technologies” rises from #30 in the two-year outlook to #5 in the 10-year outlook — the largest upward shift across all 33 risks surveyed. The report highlights several possible consequences: labour-market disruption, higher inequality, loss of purpose and social belonging, information chaos, concentration of economic power, and risks from military uses of AI.

    The report’s AI chapter is especially concerned with a scenario it describes as “jobless productivity”: productivity rises because of AI, but employment opportunities shrink or become more unevenly distributed. This could deepen inequality and social polarisation, particularly if middle-class and white-collar work is disrupted faster than societies can adapt.

    Quantum technologies are treated as a more distant but potentially severe frontier risk. The report highlights the possibility that quantum computing could undermine current cryptographic systems, threatening digital authentication, data privacy and trust infrastructure. It also warns that quantum leadership could become another domain of strategic rivalry, widening economic and geopolitical divides.

    5. What does the report imply about cooperation, governance and resilience?

    The report’s underlying message is that cooperation is becoming harder at precisely the moment when it is most needed. Multilateralism is described as under pressure from declining trust, protectionism, weakening rule of law and the rise of more adversarial national strategies.

    The report does not argue that cooperation has disappeared. Rather, it suggests that cooperation will need to look different. In a more fragmented world, global treaties may be harder to achieve, so the report points to coalitions of the willing, minilateral agreements, public-private partnerships, multi-stakeholder engagement, public awareness, education, R&D and corporate resilience strategies as practical mechanisms for risk reduction.

    The report’s perspective is pragmatic rather than optimistic. It assumes that the current order is weakening, but not that collapse is inevitable. Its conclusion is that resilience will depend on rebuilding trust, protecting institutional capacity, investing in adaptive infrastructure, preparing societies for technological disruption, and finding new forms of cooperation even amid competition.

    The most important strategic implication is that risk management can no longer be treated as domain-specific. Geopolitics affects economics; economics affects social trust; social distrust affects governance; technology affects all of them; and environmental risks continue to intensify in the background. The report’s core warning is that leaders must prepare for compounding risks, not isolated crises.

  • Global Foresight 2025 by the Atlantic Council

    Global Foresight 2025 by the Atlantic Council

    About the paper

    The report is a mixed-methods foresight study on what the world may look like in 2035, combining an expert survey, short horizon-scanning essays on six under-the-radar “snow leopards,” and three written future scenarios.

    The original research element is a survey of 357 geostrategists and foresight practitioners drawn from the Atlantic Council’s networks, fielded in late November and early December 2024, with respondents spread across sixty countries plus the United States and representing every continent except Antarctica; the survey sample, however, skewed US-based, male, and older.

    Length: 84 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/global-foresight-2025/

    Core Insights

    1. What overall picture of the world in 2035 does the report present?

    The report presents a distinctly darker-than-light global outlook. Its central message is that many leading strategists expect the next decade to be shaped less by steady progress than by heightened instability, strategic rivalry, institutional weakness, and accumulating systemic risks. The report explicitly says that 62 percent of respondents think the world in ten years will be worse off than today, while only 38 percent think it will be better off.

    That pessimism is not absolute. The report notes some areas of guarded optimism, especially around artificial intelligence and climate cooperation. A majority of respondents think AI will have a net positive impact on global affairs over the next decade, and about half foresee expanded cooperation on climate change. But those brighter notes are outweighed by broader anxiety about war, nuclear risk, democratic decline, and geopolitical fragmentation.

    Structurally, the report is trying to do more than predict single outcomes. It says foresight cannot provide certainty, but it can help readers understand the forces already driving change and the possible consequences of those forces over the coming decade and beyond. That framing matters: this is not a forecast claiming “this will happen,” but an effort to map where expert opinion sees the heaviest risks and most consequential uncertainties.

    So the overall picture is of a world entering 2035 under pressure from several overlapping dynamics at once:

    • hard-power rivalry
    • erosion of the postwar order
    • weak prospects for conflict resolution
    • technological disruption
    • and climate-linked stress.

    The report’s worldview is therefore not just pessimistic but systemic: it suggests that multiple domains of instability are reinforcing each other.

    2. Which geopolitical and security risks do surveyed experts see as most likely to shape the next decade?

    The headline risk is major war. The report’s most striking finding is that 40 percent of respondents expect another world war by 2035, defined as a multifront conflict among great powers. It adds that this war could go nuclear and could extend into space, with 48 percent expecting nuclear weapons to be used by at least one actor in the coming decade and 45 percent expecting direct military conflict in space.

    The report identifies China and Russia as the main vectors through which a broader conflict could emerge. On China, 65 percent of respondents think Beijing will try to retake Taiwan by force within the next decade, a sharp rise from the previous year’s survey. On Russia, 45 percent think Russia and NATO will engage in direct military conflict, also a significant increase year-on-year. In other words, the report suggests that expert concern is moving away from abstract rivalry and toward concrete expectations of military confrontation.

    Another major concern is bloc formation. Just under half of respondents expect China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea to become formal allies by 2035, and many foresee a world divided into China-aligned and US-aligned blocs. The report treats this as a potentially war-amplifying trend rather than merely a diplomatic realignment. Respondents who foresaw both bloc division and formal alliance-building were much more likely also to expect world war.

    Nuclear proliferation is another core risk. The report says 88 percent of respondents expect at least one new country to obtain nuclear weapons in the next decade. Iran is by far the most cited likely new nuclear power, but expectations also rose for South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. On use, Russia and North Korea are seen as the most likely current nuclear powers to launch a nuclear strike.

    The report also shows pessimism about existing conflicts. On Ukraine, only 4 percent think the war will end on terms largely favourable to Ukraine; most expect either terms favourable to Russia or a frozen conflict. On the Middle East, respondents are much more optimistic about Israeli-Saudi normalisation than about Israeli-Palestinian peace. More than 60 percent expect the current status quo of occupied Palestinian territories to persist by 2035.

    Taken together, these findings suggest the report sees the coming decade as one in which escalation risks are rising across several theatres at once, while the mechanisms for resolving those conflicts appear weak.

    3. How does the report assess the future of US power, alliances, multilateral institutions, and democracy?

    The report’s view of the United States is nuanced: it still sees the US as the likeliest dominant military power in 2035, but a weaker and more uncertain leader in other domains. Seventy-one percent of respondents expect the US to remain militarily dominant, and 58 percent still see it as the leading technological innovator. But fewer expect it to dominate economically, diplomatically, or in soft power, and confidence has dropped across several of these measures compared with the previous year.

    That matters because the report implies that US power is increasingly relative rather than comprehensive. It is not presenting a picture of outright American collapse, but of a more limited United States operating in a multipolar world. Three-quarters of respondents expect the world in 2035 to be multipolar, with multiple centres of power.

    Alliances remain part of that picture, but with more uncertainty than before. A majority still expect the US to maintain its alliance network in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, yet this figure fell sharply from the previous survey. At the same time, almost half expect Europe to achieve greater “strategic autonomy” by taking more responsibility for its own security. So the report suggests a future in which alliances may persist, but under new terms and with more burden-sharing or hedging.

    On multilateral institutions, the mood is much grimmer. Large majorities expect the United Nations, the UN Security Council, and the World Trade Organization to be less capable of solving problems by 2035 than they are today. The World Bank and IMF fare somewhat better, while respondents are relatively more hopeful about regional groupings such as ASEAN, the EU, and even BRICS. That pattern reveals an important assumption in the report: global governance is likely to weaken, while regional or alternative formations may gain relative importance.

    The report is similarly downbeat on democracy. Nearly half of respondents think today’s democratic recession will worsen into a democratic depression by 2035, while only 17 percent foresee a democratic renaissance. It also says 65 percent expect global press freedom to decrease. So the report does not treat democratic backsliding as a side issue; it sees it as one of the defining trends of the next decade.

    There is also a gender dimension to that pessimism. Women in the survey were more negative than men across several questions, especially about nuclear use, democratic decline, rights curtailment, and future US dominance. The report interprets this as reflecting persistent inequalities and the unequal burden crises place on women.

    4. What overlooked “snow leopards” does the report argue could have outsized future impact?

    One of the report’s most distinctive features is its “snow leopards” section: six under-the-radar developments that may not dominate headlines now but could become highly consequential. This is the horizon-scanning part of the report, and it broadens the analysis beyond headline geopolitics.

    1.The first is the threat that non-state actors could attack undersea cables.

    The report argues that the global digital and financial system depends heavily on these cables and that they are vulnerable not only to states but also to militant groups or terrorists. Its core point is that a relatively low-cost attack on critical subsea infrastructure could produce outsized disruption across communications, finance, and military operations.

    2. The second is enhanced geothermal systems.

    The report presents this as a low-carbon energy source with major underexploited potential, noting that if technological and cost barriers fall, it could become a significant contributor to electricity generation in the United States. This is framed not merely as a climate story but as a strategic energy-development story.

    3. The third is a new carbon-capture material, COF-999, described as a yellow powder that could dramatically reduce the cost and resource intensity of pulling carbon dioxide from the air.

    The report does not claim this solves climate change, but it treats the discovery as an example of the sort of scientific breakthrough that could shift the economics of mitigation.

    4. The fourth is rewilding.

    Here the report argues that land abandonment, urbanisation, changing food systems, and ecological restoration could together make much more land available for rewilding, with implications for biodiversity, carbon capture, tourism, and land use. It also notes trade-offs and possible backlash, so this is presented as a consequential but contested trend.

    5. The fifth is quantum batteries.

    The report uses this as an example of a frontier technology that may transform energy storage, with particular attention to medical devices, emergency systems, and electric mobility. The point is not that the technology is ready now, but that its eventual impact could be large if the science translates into scalable applications.

    6. The sixth is Gen Z’s vulnerability to misinformation.

    This may be the most sociologically revealing of the snow leopards. The report challenges the assumption that digital natives are naturally better at navigating false information, arguing instead that heavy social media exposure, algorithmic feeds, parasocial influence, and weak verification habits may leave this generation especially susceptible. The long-term implication is that future elites may enter positions of power with distorted information habits and weaker trust.

    Across all six, the deeper message is that the future will not be shaped only by visible great-power rivalry. It may also be shaped by overlooked vulnerabilities, scientific breakthroughs, and social shifts that sit below the surface until they suddenly matter.

    5. What do the report’s three scenarios suggest about the range of possible global futures—and what is the report ultimately trying to make readers understand?

    The report ends with three scenarios for 2035:

    1. “The reluctant international order”
    2. “China ascendant”
    3. and “Climate of fear.”

    These are explicitly presented not as predictions but as plausible futures designed to stimulate thinking. That distinction is crucial. The scenarios are a tool for exploring interaction effects between present-day trends, not for declaring which future is most likely.

    “The reluctant international order” imagines a world in which the rules-based international order has neither collapsed nor been revitalised. Cooperation persists because major powers and non-state actors still need it, even if they engage reluctantly and pragmatically. This scenario suggests that messy, improvised, partial cooperation may be more realistic than either liberal renewal or total breakdown.

    “China ascendant” imagines a world in which Beijing becomes the dominant global power, not through one dramatic rupture but through a slow shift enabled by US inwardness, economic influence, institutional repositioning, and strategic patience. The point here is that geopolitical transformation need not come through open war; it can happen gradually through hedging, institutional drift, and changing perceptions of who is reliable and effective.

    “Climate of fear” imagines a world where worsening climate instability drives migration, political conflict, democratic stress, and escalating interest in radical responses such as geoengineering. This scenario shows the report’s assumption that climate change is not just an environmental issue but a force multiplier affecting politics, conflict, mobility, governance, and public fear.

    Taken together, the three scenarios reveal the report’s deeper purpose. It is not merely asking, “What will happen?” It is asking readers to think about how today’s choices, vulnerabilities, and neglected signals can combine into very different but still plausible futures. That is why the report mixes survey data, horizon scanning, and narrative scenarios. It wants to move the reader from passive consumption of trends to active strategic imagination.

    The underlying perspective is clear: the future is not predetermined, but it is being shaped now by decisions on deterrence, alliance maintenance, institutional reform, climate action, technology governance, and democratic resilience. The report’s central implication is therefore strategic rather than descriptive: if leaders fail to act early on compounding risks, the darker futures it sketches become more plausible.

  • The Global Risks Report 2025 by World Economic Forum

    The Global Risks Report 2025 by World Economic Forum

    About the paper

    The Global Risks Report 2025 is the World Economic Forum’s 20th annual assessment of major global risks across geopolitical, environmental, societal, economic and technological domains.

    It is a mixed-methods report based primarily on the 2024–2025 Global Risks Perception Survey of over 900 experts worldwide, collected from 2 September to 18 October 2024, supplemented by the Executive Opinion Survey of over 11,000 business leaders in 121 economies and qualitative input from 96 experts.

    The geographic scope is global.

    Length: 104 pages

    More information / download:
    https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2025/

    Core Insights

    1. What is the report’s central argument about the global risk landscape in 2025?

    The report argues that the world is entering 2025 in a state of deepening fragmentation, with risks increasingly reinforcing one another across domains. Its central diagnosis is that geopolitical conflict, societal polarization, environmental stress and technological disruption are converging in ways that existing governance systems are poorly equipped to manage.

    The immediate risk that dominates the 2025 outlook is state-based armed conflict, selected by 23% of GRPS respondents as the risk most likely to present a material global crisis in 2025. This is a major shift from the previous year, when it ranked eighth. The report connects this rise to the wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan, and to broader fears that conflicts could escalate or spread.

    But the report does not present conflict as an isolated geopolitical problem. It describes a risk environment where conflict is linked to geo-economic confrontation, cyber warfare, misinformation and disinformation, forced displacement, humanitarian crises and weakening multilateralism. In other words, the world is not only experiencing more crises; it is losing some of the connective tissue needed to manage them collectively.

    The tone is notably pessimistic. Only a small share of respondents see the near-term outlook as stable or calm, while a majority expect an “unsettled” world and sizeable minorities expect turbulence or stormy conditions. The report’s broader message is that short-term crisis management is no longer enough because many immediate risks are symptoms of deeper structural shifts.

    2. Which risks dominate the short-term outlook to 2027, and why?

    The top risk over the two-year horizon is misinformation and disinformation, which ranks first for the second year running. The report sees this as especially dangerous because false or misleading content now interacts with political polarization, conflict, elections, distrust in institutions and advances in generative AI.

    The short-term top risks also include extreme weather events, societal polarization, cyber espionage and warfare, state-based armed conflict, inequality, involuntary migration or displacement, erosion of human rights and civic freedoms, geo-economic confrontation and pollution.

    Several patterns stand out. First, geopolitical risks have moved sharply upward. State-based armed conflict is now third over the two-year horizon, and geo-economic confrontation has risen from fourteenth to ninth. Second, economic risks such as inflation and economic downturn have fallen out of the two-year top 10, even though the report warns against complacency. Third, societal risks remain highly prominent, suggesting that social cohesion is becoming a central risk variable rather than merely a consequence of other crises.

    The report’s short-term outlook is therefore not just a list of threats; it is a picture of a world where trust is weakening. Misinformation undermines shared reality, polarization reduces the capacity for collective action, and geopolitical rivalry makes international cooperation harder just when it is most needed.

    3. How does the report describe the longer-term risk outlook to 2035?

    The 2035 outlook is even darker than the short-term outlook. The report finds that all 33 risks assessed in the GRPS are expected to increase in severity over the 10-year horizon compared with the two-year horizon. Environmental and technological risks become much more prominent over the longer term.

    The highest-ranked long-term risk is extreme weather events, followed by critical change to Earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, natural resource shortages and misinformation and disinformation. This means that four of the top five long-term risks are environmental.

    The report presents environmental risk as having moved from a distant long-term concern to an urgent, worsening reality. Extreme weather remains the top 10-year risk for the second year in a row, while biodiversity loss and Earth system change are framed as signs that the world may be approaching irreversible thresholds.

    Technological risks also rise sharply over the decade. Adverse outcomes of AI technologies ranks only low in the two-year outlook but climbs to sixth in the 10-year ranking. The report treats this as a warning against complacency: current risk perception may be underestimating how quickly AI, biotechnology and other frontier technologies could reshape social, political and security risks.

    The 2035 message is that the world faces a compounding risk landscape: climate stress, technological acceleration, demographic change and geostrategic fragmentation are not separate trends, but structural forces that interact.

    4. What role do technology, misinformation and polarization play in the report’s risk narrative?

    Technology is treated as both an accelerator and an amplifier of risk. The report does not argue that technology itself is the root cause of fragmentation, but it shows how digital platforms, generative AI, algorithmic systems and expanding surveillance capabilities can intensify existing social and political divisions.

    The most immediate concern is misinformation and disinformation. The report notes that generative AI makes it easier to produce false or misleading text, images, audio and video at scale. This makes it harder for citizens, companies and governments to distinguish reliable information from manipulated content.

    The report links this directly to societal polarization, which ranks fourth over the two-year horizon. Polarized societies are more vulnerable to manipulated narratives, and manipulated narratives can in turn deepen polarization. The risk is a feedback loop in which trust in media, institutions and public information continues to erode.

    The report also highlights algorithmic bias and censorship and surveillance. As public services, media systems and political communication become more data-driven, biased or opaque algorithms can produce unfair outcomes and further reduce trust. Meanwhile, the growing digital footprint of citizens gives governments, companies and threat actors greater capacity to monitor and influence behaviour.

    The report’s underlying assumption is that technological governance is lagging behind technological capability. It calls for stronger accountability, transparency, digital literacy and upskilling for those building and using automated systems.

    5. What does the report imply for global governance and risk preparedness?

    The report’s strongest implication is that fragmented governance is becoming a risk multiplier. Across conflict, trade, technology, pollution, biotech and demographic ageing, the report repeatedly returns to the same problem: many of the most severe risks require collective action, but the international environment is becoming less cooperative.

    For armed conflict, the report argues that weakened faith in multilateral institutions could push governments towards unilateral action and selective alliances. For geo-economic confrontation, it warns that escalating tariffs, sanctions and investment restrictions could fragment global trade and weaken cooperation on climate, health, technology and development. For pollution and biotech, it stresses the need for better regulation, monitoring and global norms.

    The report does not suggest that global treaties alone are sufficient. It also emphasizes regional organizations, multi-stakeholder engagement, domestic resilience, public education, corporate strategies, research and development, and better monitoring systems. But its broader conclusion is that durable risk mitigation depends on rebuilding forms of cooperation that can survive geopolitical rivalry.

    The final message is cautiously normative: the world is moving into a more divided and unstable period, but the report insists there is no viable alternative to dialogue, collaboration and multilateral solutions. Its purpose is therefore not simply to forecast risk, but to push leaders to act before today’s warning signals become irreversible crises.