As the Middle East conflict disrupts global trade and financial markets, middle powers must unite to drive diplomatic solutions in an increasingly fractured, two-tier multipolar world order.
The US-Israel war on Iran, which began on 28 February 2026, has had consequences far beyond the Middle East. The breakdown of the June 2026 Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding and the collapse of the ceasefire have deepened regional instability and exposed the wider global costs of the conflict.
Those costs include human suffering and loss of life, damage to infrastructure, rising oil and gas prices, higher living costs and growing pressure on vulnerable societies. The war has also contributed to falling stock markets, inflationary pressure, higher borrowing costs for developed countries and heavier debt burdens for poorer countries.
The convergence of foreign and domestic policy is now the norm as the global impact becomes increasingly local. In the UK, 38% of Britons said that limiting the economic consequences of the war in Iran was a top foreign policy priority, second only to strengthening the UK’s national security.
When geopolitics, geoeconomics, geography and global power collide, as they have in this war, the result is cascading instability.
The central lesson is clear: when the Four Gs converge, the exit ramp is diplomacy, not war. The consequences echo King Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “When sorrows come, they come…