I’ve read quite a few scenario-based stories recently - the most notable being Carlo Masala’s “If Russia Wins: A Scenario”, which looks at a possible scenario where, well, Russia wins the war in Ukraine.
Below, you’ll find a short version I’ve written for November 2026.
To be clear, this isn’t intended to be a prediction. Instead, it’s a story of a series of extreme outcomes coming to fruition at the same time.
It’s not meant to scare you, but to give you notice of one possible outcome of the escalatory steps we’re seeing in the world around us.
November 2026 - A Scenario
It’s November 4th, 2026. The mid-terms were meant to happen yesterday. Maybe they would’ve done in the old world.
2026 started off, as you’ll remember, with the US special military operation to capture Venezuelan President Maduro. A bonkers start to the year by any account, and headline-dominating in any year-end flashbacks for most normal years. But 2026 was by no means a normal year.
Two months later, we saw another special military operation in Iran, the US administration buoyed on by the success and relative ease with which they’d deposed Maduro and intimidated the Venezuelan leadership into acceding to their demands. Iran however, was not Venezuela, and the joint Israel-US attacks on Iran failed to replace the regime.
Instead, the Iranian republic hunkered down and unleashed strategic chaos across the Middle East, not least by closing the Strait of Hormuz. That brought the global economy to a standstill. It wasn’t instant - March was largely spent watching a delusional market convince itself everything was going to TACO itself back to reality.
It’s when the tankers stopped arriving in April that things really started tanking. Things seemed salvageable going into the Easter weekend. After all, Trump had given the Iranians until the day after Easter Monday to come to an agreement or he was going to bomb the shit out of them, so surely they were going to sort it out, right?
WRONG, DUMMY! The Iranians don’t negotiate. They don’t mind a long war; it’s very much in their interests. They fought Iraq for EIGHT YEARS before agreeing a deal. The only other time they’ve agreed to a deal was President Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal that Trump then ripped up. They only agree deals when the economic position is becoming existential and when doing so doesn’t destroy their revolutionary identity. Their economy was weak in April 2026, but the rising oil prices meant it wasn’t existential. There was no way it wasn’t going to look like ideological submission either, and so they were never going to sign a deal then.
And so, we saw Trump rain down hell, destroying much of the civilian infrastructure across the country. Bridges collapsed and power plants burned as leaders around the world gave Trump a stern talking to - because that’ll really show him. European leaders were particularly angry, and a joint E3 statement from the leaders of the UK, France, and Germany rebuked the President in stronger language than ever before. In response, Trump announced that the US would be withdrawing from NATO and that their defence infrastructure was no longer available for European use “unless they wanna PAY US for it.”
Of course, the Iranian response was even more drone attacks, destroying Gulf critical infrastructure such as desalination plants, and causing millions to die. They continued to apply pressure on the Strait, which triggered Trump to send in ground troops to seize critical islands like Kharg that control oil supply in the Strait. The US military took the sites, but were met by a barrage of missile attacks from the Iranian mainland, causing the loss of hundreds of American lives. The public outrage in the US was extraordinary and there were large-scale protests across major cities to demonstrate against the war. The aerial bombardment continued nonetheless, and became even harder to resist once the expensive, anti-missile defences began to run out. The destruction of more critical oil infrastructure on these islands triggered another oil price rally, taking it to $200/barrel.
The market crash of late April 2026 was even more brutal than the April 2025 market crash. Financial markets were in freefall across the world, finally pricing in what this meant for the global economy. Oil wasn’t going to start flowing through the Strait anytime soon, everything was going to get even more expensive once again, and the little growth we had been promised for 2026 was to be stifled away.
The pressure built up in liquid financial markets erupted into private markets, with the private credit bubble finally spilling over. The tide had well and truly gone out, and more than one Wall Street bank was found with its pants down. Later in the summer, we saw the collapse of two prominent global investment banks who’d over-leveraged in the private credit boom, with an aggregate market impact twice as bad as Lehman. Central banks pushed interest rates to record highs to stem the bleeding, and reintroduced quantitative easing to support the market.
They continued to crescendo downwards, nonetheless.
The 12th of June saw Russians come together across the Federation to celebrate Russia Day. The celebrations in Ivangorod that day were particularly memorable, with more fireworks than usual and an extraordinary display of Russian military might for a minor town way beyond the periphery of Moscow. Its importance became clear the morning after, however, as little green men crossed over the river and into the Estonian town of Narva in the early hours. There was a small resistance, that was quickly quelled by these men who were definitely, most certainly, not the Russian military. The Estonian locals, thinking the sound of shooting was simply more fireworks from the Russia Day celebrations, were largely caught by surprise, and by midday the Russian Federation had claimed Narva as Russian territory, and lay claim to the rest of the country.
The permanently stationed NATO Battlegroup in Estonia had been severely weakened since the US left the alliance. The UK-led Rapid Response Force raced over to Narva, but the Russians had already established a stronghold by the time they arrived. Estonia triggered Article 5, and an emergency meeting of the North Atlantic Council was held to agree a consensus. The main blocker to a unified NATO response was Hungarian President Viktor Orban, who’d won a supermajority in April’s widely disputed election amid claims of Russian interference. He’d made a point of attending the meeting himself and refused to allow a unified decision to be reached. Individual countries, like the UK, France, and Germany, agreed to help, but without NATO support, were limited in what they could do.
The Estonian military led the assault on Narva, with support from the few NATO countries that remained. The battle ground to a halt just outside the city, as Allied troops met the hastily dug trenches of the Ukraine-hardened Russian army. This was to become the frontline for yet another grinding war of attrition.
Back in the United States, protests continued to worsen over the rest of the summer, and so President Trump mobilised the National Guard. This largely fuelled the violence, as protestors fought back against what they saw as an unreasonably aggressive response and the administration’s disproportionate use of force. In Minneapolis, troops had opened fire on protesters, and violent firefights between protesters and the National Guard became frequent occurrences.
Come August, the US needed a good news story, and President Trump decided that Cuba would be that story, harking back to Operation Absolute Resolve that had seen him into the year. He’d already pushed Cuba to the brink of financial ruin at this point, with most of the country at a standstill following the US’s oil blockade. The people were desperate, and so it didn’t take long for another US special military operation (Operational Critical Lightening) to topple the Diaz-Canel communist government. But this wasn’t to be the long-awaited arrival of liberal democracy to Cuban shores, but the installation of yet another authoritarian regime, this time led by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, with the support of a US “peacekeeping” force. And for a few weeks, it seemed to be working - oil was flowing, and ordinary Cuban life was beginning to get moving again.
Unfortunately for them, communist militias were also using the time to mobilise. Backed by the Castro family and with widespread support in what remained of the Cuban government establishment, this short-lived revival was quickly put to a stop as critical infrastructure was destroyed and the US “peacekeeping” force was under constant attack. The militia didn’t have particularly advanced technology or weaponry, but they’d learnt from the lessons of Vietnam and were putting guerrilla warfare to effective use in the streets of Cuba. Much of the “peacekeeping” force was wiped out, and President Trump committed to a ground invasion to seek vengeance for the US lives lost. The militias have continued their assaults in spite of this, leading to the loss of countless American lives, and the Cuban War is quickly developing into another deeply unpopular foreign policy decision for the administration.
Back on the US mainland, protesters were increasingly organising and getting a hold of heavy weaponry to counter the National Guard. Allegedly, Russian intelligence operatives have been helping provide these supplies, and there are widespread claims that Russian and Iranian state interference is actively working to widen social division across the country through social media. In response, Trump has instead blamed pockets of the immigrant Cuban community in the United States, saying that they’ve been mobilised by the Cuban militia, with the support of communist China, to wreak havoc and orchestrate the protests fuelling violence and chaos on the streets of America.
That, he claimed, put the US in an active state of war on the homeland, and meant they had to mobilise to defend the country against this illegal alien invasion. In the process of doing so, he’d been forced to invoke the historical precedents from the UK during WW2 and Ukraine during their current conflict and suspend the mid-terms. After all, it was impossible to guarantee that they’d be free and fair elections, and so it was crucial that they were suspended rather than allowing the Chinese-Cuban alliance another opportunity to undermine US democracy.
That was two weeks ago.
Democrats and Republicans erupted alike, and figures like Gavin Newsom and AOC are now leading many of the protests across the US. They say that if the President won’t let them go to the polls, they’re left with no choice but to remove him forcefully. The violence on the streets is like nothing we’ve seen before.
The US is engulfed in domestic chaos that many commentators are likening to a Second Civil War.
The Middle East is still on fire, with the missile attacks continuing and more people dying every single day.
Europe is fighting a war of attrition on two fronts, in both Estonia and Ukraine. Countries across the continent are deeply divided.
And over in the Pacific, rumours are swirling that China is mobilising naval assets and troops for what could be an accelerated invasion of Taiwan, given that the US is distracted.
They’ll make some great films about this year someday. I just wonder if it’ll still be Hollywood that makes them.
RH