Bashar Halabi - Journalist specialized in Argus Agency
The 2026 World Economic Forum report has striking implications, stemming not only from what it warns of, but also from what it tacitly acknowledges about the nature of the ongoing transformation of the international system. The report puts geo-economic confrontation at the forefront of global risks in the short term, ahead of climate change, technology and debt accumulation, in a clear reflection of the shift in global priorities.
This conclusion assumes the importance of doubling the fact that the World Economic Forum is one of the most prominent pillars of the liberal-capitalist elite, which has long treated the current turmoil as a temporary deviation from the course of globalization. But the 2026 report goes beyond that, acknowledging that geo-economic conflict is no longer a symptom of the global order, but rather a logic that governs and reshapes it.
And the report highlights the depth of the crisis, with only 1% of experts expecting a return to calm and stability at the global level during the next two years or even during the next decade. This suggests that a crisis situation is no longer an exception, but has turned into a base on which to base public policies and economic choices, with direct implications for financial markets, capital flows and investment.
The report also shows that environmental risks have not actually diminished, but have been marginalized under the pressure of wars, sanctions, tariffs, and the disintegration of the global order structure. In contrast, concern about AI is growing, not because of technological development itself, but as a result of an acceleration in the concentration of power and control at a pace that outstrips the ability of legislative and governmental frameworks to keep pace with it.
The World Economic Forum’s 2026 report does not provide a conventional reading of “risks,” but rather a clear acknowledgment that the logic of competition is replacing cooperation as the rule governing international relations, at a time when the world’s ability to effectively manage overlapping and simultaneous crises is waning.
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