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| Greenland is home to fewer than 60,000 people, and about 20,000 live in the capital, Nuuk. |
In the first week of 2026, three very different headlines landed virtually on top of each other: Washington publicly revived talk of acquiring Greenland, raising immediate questions inside the transatlantic alliance; the United States launched a major operation in Venezuela that sparked an unusually sharp debate about its legality under the UN Charter; and Kyiv's partners in Paris discussed “security guarantees” and postwar recovery at the same time that reconstruction estimates—now widely cited at around $524 billion—hang over every negotiation.
These episodes point to a broader shift in how a global order is being made and enforced. The institutions of multilateralism still exist—UN bodies meet, alliances convene, and treaties remain on paper—but the delivery mechanism is changing. More outcomes are being produced through crisis management, ad hoc coalitions and deal-structured packages that link security, resources and market access. In other words: less “rules first” and more “bargains under pressure.”
The fate of multilateralism is that institutions remain, but enforcement becomes selective
The Venezuela episode reveals stark tension. Early January reporting and legal commentary cast the U.S. operation as a large-scale strike-and-capture action whose legality was immediately disputed as analysts questioned its fit with core UN Charter limits on the use of force. Whatever one's view of Caracas or Washington, the signal about governance signal is familiar: When major powers act first and justify later, multilateral institutions often become venues for ex post argument rather than ex ante restraint.
This does not mean multilateralism vanishes; it just becomes more procedural—with shared language creating coalition theatre—while decisive choices are made elsewhere. Critics invoke Article 2(4) of the UN Charter and sovereignty norms. Supporters cite exceptional threats, enforcement imperatives, or necessity. The result is that legality is contested in public even as capabilities shape facts on the ground—opening space for selective enforcement.
That shift is felt most sharply by states that rely on universal rules to narrow the world's power gaps. For much of the Global South, UN principles are practical tools to constrain stronger actors. When high-profile precedents seem to erode them, smaller states hedge—condemning, abstaining or recalibrating ties based on risk. Multilateralism survives, but increasingly only as political insurance rather than guaranteed protection.
The fate of alliances
If Venezuela probes the outer limits of multilateral legality, Greenland tests the cohesion of alliances—and exposes Europe's red lines. U.S. officials have described bringing Greenland under U.S. control as an active policy discussion and have not ruled out coercive options. Europe's response has been unusually coordinated—clear insistence that Greenland's future is for Greenlanders, within the Kingdom of Denmark, to determine and that Arctic security is inseparable from that of Europe and the transatlantic community.
The governance lesson is therefore not only that alliances are strained but that they operate on two tracks at once. On one hand, they still police core norms—territorial integrity and credible non-coercion among allies. On the other, they increasingly resemble risk-sharing contracts, where the harder fights are distributional as to who carries Arctic burdens, who controls strategic geography, who gains preferential access to critical resources and who sets the red lines in domestic politics.
Greenland sits where Arctic security, strategic infrastructure and critical minerals converge—precisely the terrain where economic policy and national security blur. When allies differ on what is negotiable, such as sovereignty arrangements, basing rights or resource policy, trust becomes a working asset rather than a slogan, and doubts can spill into adjacent files from defense coordination to technology screening.
This does not imply a collapse of alliances. It points to a more transactional, issue-segmented model: durable on deterrence and intelligence, but more brittle on industrial policy, Arctic governance and questions loaded with territorial symbolism.
Cease-fires become deals
Ukraine shows how this pattern works in practice. Kyiv has indicated that a bilateral document on U.S. security guarantees is close to top-level finalization, as partners meeting in Paris discussed deterrence commitments alongside postwar recovery and economic development. The message is that future “peace packages” will be assembled as bundled offers—security assurances on one track, economic terms on another.
That bundling makes rebuilding inseparable from geopolitics. European leaders have signaled that European companies should win a large share of reconstruction contracts, while debates in the United States point to financing structures that steer work toward American contractors, thereby making recovery not only a strategic commitment but also a contest over industrial opportunity.
The broader shift is from a “peace process” to a portfolio deal. Security guarantees are no longer only about troops or treaties; they travel with capital, supply-chain choices and rule-setting. That model can mobilize resources quickly, but it also recasts multilateralism as institutions convene and legitimize but substance is negotiated by those actors that have the capacity to deliver.
This bundling is increasingly shaped, and replicated, by intensifying great-power competition, which securitizes more domains and causes the legal, economic and terms to align.
Rewriting the rules
In practice, guardrails that were once framed as exceptional—investment screening, export controls, conditional finance and the setting of standards—are becoming routine tools of statecraft. A recent U.S. order unwinding a chip-related transaction after a foreign-investment review illustrates how technology and supply chains are now governed through a security lens, with formal legal processes employed to operationalize strategic risk management. The spillover is predictable: More governments respond with tighter screening regimes, targeted subsidies and localization in sensitive sectors, which accelerates a shift toward guarded interdependence.
In a broader context, the United States and China project different governance styles. Washington often works through alliance coordination and capability-based coalitions, pairing security commitments with controls and preferred standards. Beijing more consistently foregrounds UN-centered multilateralism, calling for “true multilateralism” and a stronger UN role, alongside sovereignty and non-interference. It also ties legitimacy to development and inclusion, themes that resonate across parts of the Global South.
This is not a neat split between unilateralism and multilateralism. Both can be selective. But their legitimacy narratives and coalition mechanics differ, and those differences shape which precedents harden across crises—from what kinds of pressure become normalized to how finance and standards turn into strategic leverage.
Where this leaves us
Three neutral takeaways emerge from these early-2026 signals:
First, multilateral frameworks will endure, but increasingly as a stage rather than as a referee. Shared legal language and institutional process will continue to shape legitimacy debates, yet outcomes will often be driven by power, urgency and coalition math—especially when crises outrun formal procedures.
Second, alliances will become more modular and conditional. They will still deter and coordinate, but internal bargaining over burden-sharing, industrial gains and strategic geography will intensify. When sovereignty symbolism or resource control is in play, values may frame disputes without resolving them.
Third, the Global South's leverage will grow, but not necessarily into a unified bloc. Many states will hedge across security, energy, finance and technology sectors, using institutions as leverage while accepting transactional offers that reduce near-term exposure. The result is a more fluid order shaped by shifting coalitions rather than fixed camps.
For Washington and Beijing, the test is not to “win” multilateralism as rhetoric, but to show that their preferred tools can deliver stability without eroding the restraints that prevent miscalculation. Global governance is not disappearing; it is being rebuilt—faster, more contested and more deal-driven than ever under the pressure of crisis and rivalry.
