DEADLY PHASE 2026-30.
DEADLY PHASE 2026-30
Polycrisis has arrived
Multiple threat factors and crises have now come together to build a Polycrisis of huge proportions. The world will live through this now for 2026-30, at least.
World enters a dangerous phase now
Multiple threat factors and crises have now come together to build a Polycrisis of huge proportions.
The world will live through this now for 2026-30, at least.
Mojtaba Khamanei’s dramatic statement
“We pledge to avenge the blood of the martyred leader and all the martyrs of these two wars.”
He describes those responsible as “criminal and disgraced killers,” states that revenge is the demand of the Iranian nation and says it will certainly occur.
He claims that Iran possesses a complete list of those responsible, “from the top to the bottom,” and declares that they will not be allowed to die peacefully in their beds.
America’s insistence on tearing it all down
The ongoing major wars are escalating, and the US remains committed to completely dismantling its own creation (the rules-based global world order 1945-2008).
Trump is horrified that neither Russia nor Iran can be tamed easily, using simplistic solutions that he so loves.
Oil, El Nino, Currency, Food security, Political stability
The oil market will be the first warning signal of a wider systemic crisis. The sharp rise in oil in a super El Nino year will be a huge inflation story soon, and a currency story thereafter, a food-security story eventually and a political-stability story at the end.
Iran is now moving from strategic patience to strategic confrontation. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamanei's warning to punish those who shed Irani blood is telling. Iran will move on from mere deterrence, proxy networks and calibrated escalation to a direct and expansive strategy. GCC states face stark choices.
The ‘Diplomacy of Violence’
Thomas Schelling's “diplomacy of violence” - the use of force not merely to destroy an opponent, but to shape its calculations - is in force now. Risk? Escalation will improve bargaining positions, but building a conflict that none can fully control.
The Israel–Iran conflict is set to become part of a larger great-power struggle. Israel’s strategic relationship with the United States and Europe, Iran’s links with Russia and China, and the involvement of multiple armed groups will have untold consequences.
Offensive Realism and some tough choices
John Mearsheimer’s offensive realism – States operating in an anarchic international system are constantly pushed to maximise power and security. 'Middle powers' and 'balancing states' will be forced to make choices.
The Gulf states and Turkey face the balance-of-power dilemma.
The KSA, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and other Gulf states depend heavily on Western security, but cannot afford permanent confrontation with Iran either.
Turkey - connected to NATO, economically linked to Europe, strategically engaged with Russia and politically influential across the Muslim world - faces tough choices.
What of Pakistan
Pakistan now may face one of the most difficult strategic tests in its modern history, as Saudi Arabia potentially enters a hot war.
As a nuclear-armed state, a major military power in the Muslim world and a country with deep ties to China, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and the United States, and sharing a long border with Iran, it will be pushed to make its choices clear.
(If conflict expands across Yemen, the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea, Pakistan may find neutrality increasingly difficult).
Maximum instability
Charles Kindleberger warned decades ago that when no major power is willing or able to stabilise the international economic system, crises can become deeper and more prolonged. A retreating hegemon (US) is creating precisely that problem.
The period 2027 to 2030 may be defined by hybrid wars rather than conventional wars. It won't be like the world wars of the twentieth century but consist of overlapping proxy wars, civil wars, cyber conflict, trade wars, sanctions, blockades, technological rivalry and struggles over energy, minerals and maritime routes.
We may be entering the unstable decades before the First World War: competing alliances, arms races, nationalism, and repeated regional crises. Multiple limited conflicts may gradually merge into a systemic confrontation.
The most destructive battlefield is going to be the global economy. War will reach most humans via higher fuel prices, expensive food, falling currencies, disrupted shipping, rising insurance premiums, unemployment and slower economic growth. Regional instability will reshape global economic behaviour.
Glossary and related terms
- Polycrisis
- Several distinct crises interacting in ways that make their combined effects larger and harder to manage.
- Rules-based global order
- An international system organised around institutions, agreements, accepted rules and recurring diplomatic practices.
- El Niño
- A recurring warming of the central and eastern tropical Pacific that can alter weather patterns across many regions.
- Strategic patience
- Deliberately delaying a major response while preserving options, building capacity or waiting for more favourable conditions.
- Deterrence
- Discouraging an action by convincing an opponent that its likely costs will outweigh its expected gains.
- Proxy network
- Partner groups or armed actors used to pursue influence and strategic objectives without relying only on direct state action.
- Calibrated escalation
- A controlled increase in pressure intended to signal resolve while trying to limit uncontrolled conflict expansion.
- GCC
- Gulf Cooperation Council.
- Diplomacy of violence
- The use or threatened use of force to influence an opponent’s choices, expectations and bargaining calculations.
- Offensive realism
- A theory that major powers operating without a higher world authority are pushed to seek greater power and security.
- Middle power
- A state with meaningful regional or international influence but without the full capabilities of a great power.
- Balancing state
- A state that seeks partners or capabilities to prevent another state or coalition from becoming overwhelmingly powerful.
- Hegemon
- A state with predominant power and influence within an international or regional system.
- Hybrid war
- Conflict combining military operations with economic pressure, cyber activity, information operations, proxies and other instruments.
- KSA
- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
- NATO
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Conceptual references
- Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence.
- John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
- Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939.
- Further reading on El Niño from national meteorological and climate agencies.
- Official reference material from the Gulf Cooperation Council and NATO.
Core session wording retained from the Session 66 presentation. Glossary and conceptual references are additional.
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