Why 2026 Could Prove as Important as 1989

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Why 2026 Could Prove as Important as 1989

Matt Pottinger and Roy Eakin, The Free Press

Guest Matt Pottinger and Roy Eakin explain why 2026 may be a geopolitically seismic year:

If its first days are anything to go by, 2026 may end up the most pivotal year in geopolitics since 1989, a hinge point that began in a moment of geopolitical calm but ended with the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Within a few years the Soviet Union had fallen, the European Union had been born, and an era of hyper-globalized trade took off on the wings of NAFTA and the WTO (World Trade Organization). This year could be equally pivotal—only this time with a vaster range of possible outcomes for world order. It is possible to hear echoes of the late Cold War, and imagine regime change in Tehran, Caracas and Havana—which would strike a heavy blow to the ambitions of Beijing and Moscow. It is also possible Donald Trump will detonate NATO unity by coercively annexing Greenland, and that Beijing will wage war to subjugate Taiwan and seize its semiconductor plants, toppling a century of American-led Western technological dominance. The events of 1989 weren’t inevitable, of course, any more than we can know now where the turmoil at the beginning of 2026 will take us. But this is shaping up to be a year of enormous consequence, and it is worth looking at some of its possible outcomes—not in a spirit of prophecy, but preparedness.

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The Last Supper is Over

Shyam Sankar, First Breakfast Substack

Guest and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar breaks down the Pentagon’s new approach to ensuring American AI dominance:

The AI acceleration strategy is designed to enable real-world action, at speed and scale. This isn’t another blue-ribbon panel to study the problem to infinity and beyond. It’s not a beard-stroking convention. It’s an aggressive effort to bring cutting-edge AI technology (and technologists) from the commercial sector into the military fold where it can be put to good use.

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Three Forces Shaping Post-Revolutionary Iran

Can Kasapoglu, The National Interest

How an aging theocrat, a brutal IRGC, and a loss of legitimacy threaten to tear Iranian society apart:

In the end, Iran’s post-revolutionary future will be decided less by slogans than by forces that operate quietly and without mercy: biology, military, and demography. Regime changes may be sparked in the streets, but states are ultimately reshaped by who controls the guns when time runs out. Tehran now stands at that threshold. Last but not least, one should keep in mind: Iran is not a monolithic Persian entity. The return of the Shah’s rule or a symbolic monarch with a parliament may appeal to the streets of Tehran. Being caught between zealous Persian oppression and democratic Persian assimilation would not necessarily make non-Persians, such as the Baloch and the Azerbaijani Turks, happy. Once the music stops, these people might just recognize a moment of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, rather than the fall of the dictatorship.

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Two Drinks with ... the Last Great Military Strategist

Eli Lake, The Free Press

Inside the mind of Edward Luttwak, military historian, strategist, and advisor:

The opening days of 2026 have felt like a hinge point in history. American commandos just snatched Venezuela’s tyrant and his wife from their heavily fortified residence in Caracas. The Iranian regime teeters as more and more people flood the streets in revolt. President Donald Trump, a former reality-TV star, has changed the rules of American statecraft. To make sense of this moment, I trudged out to the suburban Maryland home of Edward Luttwak, one of the last of the grand strategists and renaissance men.