This is not a year in which President Donald Trump is being judged by the world. It is the year in which the world is forced to adjust to him.
After years of strategic drift, performative and selective multilateralism, and unchecked revisionism by adversaries who mistook restraint for weakness, the return of Trump has reintroduced a hard truth into global politics: power still matters, credibility must be enforced, and American leadership is not optional to global stability.
What is unfolding is not a moral reckoning with Trump, but a strategic reckoning by allies, competitors, and institutions alike – compelled by the reassertion of US leverage, clarity, and resolve.
The year 2025 was marked by turbulence and uncertainty. In 2026, the global geopolitical landscape will become even more complex, as states struggle to react, hedge, and adjust to the challenge of protecting national interests and sovereignty while choosing alignments that best serve those objectives, all as the sanctity of international law becomes increasingly opaque.
Against the backdrop of intensified rivalry and the widening gap between aspirational multipolar rhetoric and the material realities of power, alternative blocs and hedging strategies have proliferated. Yet the structure of the international system continues to rest on American military, economic, and technological primacy.
Trump’s return has altered the power equation and compelled states to recalibrate their responses. His rejuvenation of American economic and military power has reinforced the stabilising effects of his long-held mantra of peace through strength.
International law without enforcement power
International law remains a foundational pillar of the global system, but its enforcement is increasingly inconsistent. States invoke legal principles when aligned with national interests and disregard them when they are not. Persistent tensions, from the South China Sea to Ukraine, continue to illustrate this pattern.
Legal norms that were expected to deter aggression have failed to achieve full efficacy. Without credible enforcement mechanisms, they do not constrain revisionist behaviour. What has emerged instead is a realist structure in which all powers prioritise the defence of their own interests.
This exposes a central reality of international politics: law is effective only when backed by credible power and the ability to impose consequences with sufficient deterrence.
In the contemporary system, only the United States retains the full spectrum of this deterrence – global reach, military capability, and economic leverage – required to impose costs across regions. The persistence of the existing order, however imperfect, therefore remains inseparable from continued American dominance.
Hedging strategies and the limits of strategic ambiguity
Many middle and smaller powers continue to pursue hedging strategies, seeking to balance economic engagement with China while maintaining security ties with the United States. This approach is becoming increasingly untenable.
Rising economic coercion, grey-zone maritime tactics, cyber pressure, and regulatory retaliation by US adversaries have sharply increased the cost of ambiguity. In 2026, alignment is no longer a binary choice, but neither is it cost-free. States are being compelled to prioritise resilience over opportunism.
The structural weakness of alternative orders
Growing discourse around BRICS expansion, Global South solidarity, and a China-led order reflects dissatisfaction with Western dominance. However, efforts to construct a viable alternative system have delivered limited results.
BRICS remains internally fragmented, lacking institutional cohesion, collective security mechanisms, and a credible financial alternative to the dollar system.
China’s own economic challenges have become its Achilles heel. Slowing growth, demographic decline, capital controls, technology restrictions, investment outflows, and rising debt constrain its ability to anchor a new global order. Russia, under sustained sanctions, lacks the economic depth and global reach to function as more than a spoiler.
As a result, diversification away from Western systems has often increased vulnerability rather than autonomy, even as states scramble to adopt these alternatives as fallback options despite the systemic risks.
Deterrence and the US-led peace framework
The relative absence of direct great-power war since 1945 is not accidental. It is the product of a system grounded in effective deterrence and credible enforcement.
This framework rests on American deterrence, alliance networks, and forward military presence, which together set red lines and impose costs on those who violate the rules-based order.
In 2026, this logic remains intact but will come under increasing strain as rival powers challenge the legitimacy of US enforcement. While the United States retains unmatched hard power and economic weight, bloc consolidation efforts continue to contest the idea that American primacy is necessary for global stability.
Sanctions enforcement and the reassertion of control
Recent US actions against sanctions evasion, particularly involving Venezuela, have revived the credibility of red lines and enforcement.
Proxy trade networks, illicit shipping, and financial loopholes are no longer tolerated with impunity. The strategic impact extends beyond Caracas. For China and Russia, Venezuela had served as a testing ground for bypassing US financial controls and expanding influence through opaque trade.
Trump’s actions have upended decades of permissive tolerance. Venezuela has become a precedent rather than an exception, signalling that attempts to circumvent US power will invite direct pushback.
Even states seeking strategic autonomy are reassessing exposure to secondary sanctions. The message is clear in 2026: economic neutrality does not insulate actors from geopolitical consequences.
Alliance burden-sharing and strategic discipline
Trump’s insistence on burden-sharing has redefined alliance expectations. US allies are being compelled to increase defence spending and reduce reliance on a free security umbrella.
This has revived NATO and accelerated rearmament across Europe and the Indo-Pacific. Defence spending increases in Japan, Poland, and other partners are reshaping deterrence balances.
Rather than weakening alliances, this pressure has strengthened their credibility. Deterrence in 2026 increasingly rests on distributed capacity, complementing Washington’s dominant role while reducing the strain of multi-theatre commitments.
Geoeconomics and strategic sectors
Power competition in 2026 is increasingly defined by control of critical sectors – artificial intelligence, semiconductors, rare earths, and energy.
US policy has focused on restricting adversarial access to advanced technologies, reshoring production, and diversifying supply chains. These measures are not isolationist but strategic, aimed at denying rivals the technological and financial base needed to challenge the existing order.
Tariffs as an instrument of statecraft
Tariffs have emerged as a frontline coercive tool following diplomacy. Operating within formal trade frameworks, they nonetheless shape strategic outcomes.
In 2026, states are increasingly compelled to align policy decisions with US market access and security guarantees. Tariffs proved effective in 2025, contributing to conflict de-escalation and reinforcing American economic centrality.
Greenland, the Arctic, and strategic geography
The Arctic is emerging as a critical theatre for missile defence, maritime routes, and resource access. Greenland’s strategic value lies in early-warning systems, deterrence architecture, and future trade corridors.
Only the United States possesses the capacity to secure the region at scale. Despite political objections, European powers remain dependent on US capabilities to defend both the Arctic and their eastern flank.
The stakes for NATO and the Western system
Efforts by allies to develop fallback options reflect uncertainty but carry risks. Fragmentation weakens collective deterrence and creates openings for revisionist powers.
While states such as Canada, France, and South Korea explore renewed engagement with China as insurance against US retrenchment, strategic coherence remains essential.
By redeploying towards the Indo-Pacific and enforcing discipline in the Western Hemisphere, the US has constrained China without direct conflict by limiting revenue, technology access, and geopolitical space.
Stability through power, not illusion
The global order in 2026 is sustained not by idealism but by credible deterrence and enforceable economic leverage. No alternative system has demonstrated the capacity to replace the US-led framework.
Trump-era policies have reshaped incentives, imposed discipline, and reinforced the centrality of American power. In a system where international law is selectively applied and competition intensifies, stability rests not on consensus, but on the ability to deter, enforce, and sustain order.
In that sense, 2026 confirms a familiar but often resisted conclusion: the international system still turns on American power, whether others welcome it or not.
Collins Chong Yew Keat is a foreign affairs, security and strategy analyst, and a senior assistant registrar at Universiti Malaya. His key focus areas include foreign affairs, security and strategic studies, US-China rivalry, and global security dynamics, with an emphasis on geopolitical and security trends shaping the international order.
The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.
