Politics & Policy

The United Nations 2026 Global Risk Report, based on a survey of 1,300 leaders across government, civil society, academia, and the private sector, identifies large-scale war as the most critical threat facing the international community. This represents a dramatic shift from previous cycles where environmental deterioration, digital misinformation, and biological threats dominated global risk perceptions. The report documents that large-scale war climbed 16 places in the rankings compared to 2024, marking the steepest increase for any category. The assessment highlights that geopolitical turmoil, armed conflict, and the erosion of international rule of law have supplanted public health concerns as the primary dangers. Notably, large-scale war is the only risk among the 28 evaluated to rank in the top six across all four measured parameters: importance, imminence, interconnectedness, and institutional unpreparedness. While climate change inaction remains rated as the single most important overall risk, pandemic-related dangers have fallen entirely out of the top 10 in every region worldwide. Regional breakdowns reveal specific anxieties, with weapons of mass destruction entering the top 10 in Central and Southern Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania. Artificial intelligence risks entered the top 10 in Europe, North America, and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, alongside concerns about financial instability and corporate power. Secretary-General António Guterres emphasized that political risks have moved to the center stage, noting that while the prospect of war is seen as more immediate, international institutions are widely perceived as losing their operational capacity to intervene effectively