Editor’s Column | The Morning After the Illusion of Stability

The past few weeks have made one thing unmistakably clear: 2026 will not be the year global supply chains “settle down.” What we are seeing instead is the normalization of friction. Not a single shock, not a temporary disruption, but a system being continuously reshaped by geopolitical tension, climate constraints, labor realities, and uneven technology maturity - all at once.

Nowhere is this more visible than in ocean freight. The prolonged rerouting of vessels around the Cape of Good Hope is no longer treated as an exception plan. Persistent security uncertainty around the Red Sea has forced carriers, shippers, and insurers to reprice risk and rebaseline transit times. The cost impact is real, but the deeper issue is predictability. Reliability, once taken for granted on core East–West lanes, has become conditional.

At the same time, constraints at the Panama Canal continue to reverberate across transpacific and inter-American trade. Even when water levels temporarily recover, the lesson has been learned. Critical infrastructure can no longer be modeled as permanently available. Multi-route network design is no longer a resilience upgrade - it is table stakes.

Macroeconomically, the picture is equally fragmented. China’s export engine is slowing, while policy focus shifts toward strategic industries and domestic capacity control. The US and Europe continue to speak the language of reshoring and friend-shoring, but execution remains constrained by higher production costs, skilled labor shortages, and political cycles that reward short-term optics over long-term supply chain investment. The multilateral trade framework, once anchored by the World Trade Organization, is increasingly sidelined by bilateral agreements, national industrial policy, and regulatory fragmentation.

Technology, often positioned as the solution, is instead exposing uncomfortable truths. Supply chain visibility has never been higher, yet performance gaps persist. Data abundance has outpaced decision discipline. Many organizations can see disruptions earlier, but still lack the governance, automation, and cross-functional authority required to act decisively. Dashboards do not reroute freight. Alerts do not rebalance inventory. Execution does.

This is why the current moment is not about digital transformation narratives, but about operational maturity. Decision automation, policy-based exception handling, and system-to-system execution are moving from experimental pilots into core operating requirements. The question leaders must answer is no longer whether these capabilities are “ready,” but whether their organizations are.

The strategic choice for 2026 is becoming stark. Lean, cost-optimized networks built on assumptions of stability will continue to underperform. More redundant, more expensive, but more adaptable networks will increasingly win trust - from customers, regulators, and boards alike.

This is not a return to crisis mode. It is the acceptance of a new baseline. Those who plan for constant disruption will not just survive it. They will shape what competitive advantage looks like next.