From Anticipation to Assessment: Takeaways from the First Half of 2026 and What to Expect

In January, Prosegur Research described 2026 through the lens of the "3Ps" (political personalism, economic protectionism, and social polarization). Six months later, it is worth weighing that diagnosis against the facts and, above all, looking ahead: the second half of the year holds some of the most decisive milestones of the cycle, bringing with them a substantial portion of the risks we anticipated.

Our initial report warned of a transition "from chess to poker": an international system trading stable rules for a game of bluffs, informal spheres of influence, and "liquid power". The events of this semester have confirmed this almost without nuance. The United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3; on February 28, Israel and the US attacked Iranian nuclear facilities, resulting in the death of Supreme Leader Khamenei; meanwhile, Russia and China tightened their coordination through joint military exercises. The Munich Security Conference in February served as a barometer for a transatlantic rift that has only deepened. Our underlying message—that force, applied decisively and locally, yields results—has been dangerously validated.

On the geoeconomic front, the semester offered an example more forceful than any tariff: the closure of the Strait of Hormuz between late February and mid-June. It was initially reopened only through Pakistan's mediation and has remained in a volatile, ever-changing state since. The trade war continued its erratic course—the tariff on the EU linked to the Greenland dispute, the invocation of Section 122, or the Supreme Court ruling that struck down tariffs backed by the IEEPA—confirming trade as an instrument of power, albeit with an institutional counterweight that nuances the predicted "realignment scenario."

This is the logic of the "year of critical security": ports, power grids, data centres, submarine cables, and value chains become strategic targets, and the convergence of security and defense ceases to be an exception, becoming the standard operational framework. The challenge, as we concluded in January, is to demonstrate that risk management works under real pressure. Because ultimately, rather than just making changes to strategies, what 2026 demands are strategies for change.

Other key indicators also flashed warning signs. The wave of Generation Z protests—from Nepal, Madagascar, and Morocco to the Albanian "Flamingo Revolution" in June—confirmed the social fatigue and reputational erosion of certain institutions. In technology, the Pentagon designating a domestic AI company as a "supply chain risk," OpenAI’s shutdown of Sora, and the relaunch of the Artemis II mission illustrated the convergence of security and defense, alongside the technological race between global powers. On the climate front, extreme cold in Northern Europe, droughts in Brazil and Argentina, and early heatwaves in Western Europe cemented the shift from anomaly to pattern.
 

If the first half of the year confirmed the diagnosis, the second puts it to the test. The international agenda is concentrated around a handful of key events that will serve as a stress test for these described trends.

Washington's standoff with the world. The calendar opens with the NATO Summit in Ankara (July 7-8), framed by the Alliance as an execution summit: the spending commitments made in The Hague (the 5% GDP target) must translate into concrete capabilities, with Zelensky in attendance and an Alliance strained by the burden-sharing debate between the US and its European partners. The cycle closes in November with the midterm elections on the 3rd, which will renew the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate, acting as a de facto referendum on Donald Trump's mandate. The outcome will dictate the US administration's leeway to sustain (or harden) its foreign policy, trade stance, and support for Ukraine. Between these two dates, we will see whether "liquid power" leads to genuine cohesion or an open fracture.

An increasingly fractured multilateralism. The geoeconomic agenda features two diametrically opposed gatherings. On September 12 and 13, India hosts the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, the natural arena for the Global South to mount a unified response to the "America First" agenda, showcasing the interoperability of digital currencies and the BRICS Pay system as proof of an alternative financial architecture. Then, on December 14 and 15, Miami will host the G20 Summit—the first time the US has hosted it in nearly two decades, coinciding with its 250th anniversary. This summit is already overshadowed by South Africa's exclusion and an agenda deliberately narrowed to deregulation, energy, and technology. These are two forums with two hardly reconcilable visions of the economic order. Adding to this complex picture is the vulnerability of major energy bottlenecks: following the Hormuz precedent, focus shifts to the Strait of Malacca, the artery through which most of China's crude oil flows, and whose potential "trap" conditions any scenario in the Indo-Pacific.

Society, regulation, and climate. Social unrest finds immediate electoral expression in Latin America: on August 7, Abelardo de la Espriella takes office in Colombia. He narrowly defeated the left-wing candidate by campaigning on a tough-on-crime and anti-drug platform, backed explicitly by the US—a transition deeply connected to the Venezuelan situation. On the regulatory front, the Irish presidency of the Council of the EU, which began on July 1, aims to finalize the Cybersecurity Act and the digital euro by year-end, while also steering the multiannual budget, enlargement, and the next package of sanctions against Russia. In November, COP31 in Antalya (November 9-20), hosted by Turkey and with Australia leading the negotiations, will mark the first major checkpoint for climate commitments looking toward 2035, transitioning from an era of promises to one of implementation.

Taken as a whole, the second-half agenda—from Ankara to Bogotá, New Delhi to Antalya and Miami, with the November US elections acting as a pivot point—is the risk map we anticipated in January. For any organization, this translates into several vectors that demand close monitoring: strain on the electronic components supply chain, pressured by the AI race; energy market instability, driven not only by Hormuz or Malacca but also by the widespread use of drones against oil and gas facilities; latent risks surrounding Taiwan, depending on how the outcome of the conflict with Iran reshapes China's strategic calculations; and migratory flows that could be exacerbated by these very tensions.

This is the logic of the " Year of Critical Infrastructure Security ": ports, power grids, data centres, submarine cables, and value chains become strategic targets, and the convergence of security and defense ceases to be an exception, becoming the standard operational framework. The challenge, as we concluded in January, is to demonstrate that risk management works under real pressure. Because ultimately, rather than just making changes to strategies, what 2026 demands are strategies for change.