At the beginning of 2026, the world seems to be ablaze at points far apart, as if they were separate, local, disconnected crises. The war between Ukraine and Russia continues without a political solution on the horizon; in Iran , anti-regime protests are once again shaking a worn-out but still fierce power system; in Venezuela, the last few hours have seen the beginning of regime change under US auspices, with Maduro’s arrest; in Yemen, the Hadramawt area is the scene of aSaudi-backed attack, bringing the Yemeni conflict back to the centre of the Gulf’s strategic dynamics.

The European temptation is to read these events as separate chapters of a chaotic world: different dossiers, different diplomatic tables, different communiqués. It is a reassuring temptation. And it is, almost certainly, a mistake.

The thesis: not regional crises, but a war of friction

The thesis I propose is simple and uncomfortable: we are not facing four crises, but one global pressure system. A system in which state and para-state actors test, simultaneously, the resilience of major political architectures – including the West – through a strategy of widespread friction.

This is not a coordinated war in the classical sense. There is no single ‘control room’. But there is a convergence of incentives: to make the world more unstable, more expensive, slower to govern. In this context, the goal is not to win quickly, but to tire, to fragment, to normalise disorder.

The war in Ukraine is no longer just a territorial conflict: it is a machine that consumes resources, political attention, industrial capital and European social cohesion. The protests in Iran are not just a civil rights issue: they are a test case for a regime that knows it can repress in the knowledge that the international system is already overburdened. Venezuela is not just a Latin American problem: it is a laboratory of controlled instability on the fringes of the Western system. Finally, Yemen is not a ‘forgotten’ war: it is a structural friction point between energy security, regional rivalries and the credibility of the Gulf powers.

The thread linking the four events: the cost of time

The thread that binds these foci is neither ideological nor cultural. It is temporal. All four produce the same consequence: they increase the cost of time for advanced democracies.

Each crisis adds:

uncertainty over supply chains, pressure on energy and insurance markets, strategic distraction for already slow governments, attrition of public opinion.

Those who benefit from this mechanism are not necessarily those who ‘win’ on the ground, but those who manage to survive longer in a degraded environment. Friction becomes a rational strategy for actors who know they cannot beat the West head-on, but can make it more costly to govern.

The European mistake: treating friction as an emergency

Europe continues to react as if every crisis is temporary, exceptional, destined sooner or later to ‘blow over’. This approach is the child of a world that no longer exists.

In 2026, the European problem is not the absence of values, but theabsence of systemic capabilities appropriate to a world of permanent crises. Friction is not an accident: it is the new strategic normality.

Continuing to think in terms of emergency management-rather thanresilience architecture-means accepting to always play defensively, always late, always at the price set by others.

What a more assertive Europe should do

A more assertive Europe is not a more aggressive Europe. It is a Europe that stops confusing moderation with passivity.

Three attitudes are crucial.

• Treat security as infrastructure. Defence, energy, digital networks, securing logistics chains are not separate chapters. They are elements of a single stability infrastructure. Without continuous and coordinated investment, each local crisis becomes a multiplier of vulnerability.

• Accept that time is a strategic resource. Accelerating authorisations, procurement, joint decisions is not technocracy: it is power. In a world of friction, those who make decisions more slowly lose options before they lose battles.

• Talk less about values and more about consequences. Values matter. But without instruments they produce frustration, not deterrence. An assertive Europe must be able to say: if X happens, the cost will be Y. Predictability of consequences is the most undervalued form of deterrence.

2026 as a threshold

2026 is not the year in which ‘everything gets worse’. It is the year in which what was already underway becomes evident: the transition from a world of episodic crises to a world of continuous pressure.

The four outbreaks at the beginning of this year are not asking Europe to choose where to intervene. They ask Europe to choose what kind of actor it wants to be: a tired manager of emergencies or a lucid builder of capabilities.

Peace, for too long, has been treated as a promoted service. In 2026, it is clear to everyone that it is full-fee. The real question is who is willing to pay it – and how.

Read also:

‘Iran: protests and cracks in the regime, but the end is still open‘, Ashkan Rostami- The Europeanist

Modus credendi: theocracies and populisms that threaten the only true form of freedom, Umberto Cuomo- L’Europeista