Issues

How to keep the lights on in the new geopolitical age of energy security

Geopolitics is all about resources. From imperial competition over coal and iron to Cold War rivalries shaped by oil fields and shipping lanes, power in international politics is inseparable from control over the material foundations of economic and military strength. The struggle over geography – resource-rich territories, trade routes, ports, pipelines and choke points – has long defined what states fear, what they protect and what they fight over. Energy isn’t just an economic input but also a strategic asset that underwrites national security and geopolitical influence.

For decades, it was a game of molecules. Energy security was measured in barrels of crude oil, cubic feet of natural gas and the physical steel of pipelines crisscrossing continents. If a tanker was delayed or a pipeline disrupted, strategic petroleum reserves and long-term supply contracts cushioned the blow. The pace of disruption was mostly gradual, the physics tangible and the threats visible on a map. Governments could count, store and redirect energy with a measure of confidence.

Fast-forward to today and we’re living through an invisible revolution. The world is pivoting from molecule security to electron security and the rules of the game have changed. Today our economic lifeline is not just a pipeline or a port but the electrical grid – a sprawling, synchronised machine that must balance supply and demand every millisecond. Unlike oil or gas, electricity cannot be stockpiled at scale without great cost. Nor can it tolerate delays. When electrons stop flowing, systems – and with them nations, cities, businesses and homes – fail and are instantly left powerless.

Living on grid
As transport, industry, data centres and even military platforms electrify, the grid – a mostly unseen and in parts rather old structure for conveying electricity – has become the new centre of gravity for national security. It’s a strategic shift as well as a technical one. Electric vehicles, heat pumps, automated factories and cloud computing all hinge on reliable power. A damaged transformer or severed undersea cable is no longer merely a local inconvenience; it can result in halted ports, stranded trains, disrupted financial markets and hospitals operating on emergency generators.

The grid underpins almost every critical function of modern societies, including communications, water treatment and emergency response. Where governments once worried about how many days of fuel they had in reserve, they must now ask a different question: how long can the system stay up when stressed by cyberattacks, extreme weather or geopolitical sabotage?

Real-time resilience
The shift from stocking up to dealing with outages marks a fundamental change in energy security. Hydrocarbon systems rewarded accumulation. If supply was interrupted, inventories could be drawn down while deals and diplomacy adjusted. Electricity systems operate on a different logic: supply and demand must be balanced and in real time. Frequency deviations of even a fraction can cause protective shutdowns, triggering domino effects across regions.

This reality forces policymakers to prioritise resilience over volume. Redundancy, rapid repair, spare capacity and cross-border interconnections matter far more than headline generation figures. Security is less about “owning” energy resources or how many barrels that you have in reserve and more about managing flows – not to mention recovering quickly if those flows are disrupted.

Pushed to the limit
The issue with the modern grid is that its very efficiency has bred vulnerability. To accommodate renewable energy, electric vehicles and variable demand, grids are now smarter. Sensors, automated substations, predictive software and remote controls now govern what was once managed manually. These digital layers allow grids to operate closer to their limits (a good thing for efficiency). However, they also expand the attack surface.

The convergence of information technology and operational technology means that cyber incidents have physical consequences. A ransomware attack that begins in a billing system or contractor network can pivot to operational systems. State-sponsored actors are no longer merely probing networks for weaknesses; they are now mapping responses and waiting for geopolitical triggers.

Even without malicious intent, complexity itself can be a risk. With millions of energy resources connected to the grid, a faulty software update or flawed algorithm could destabilise the frequency across wide areas. In the electricity era, failure doesn’t always come from an explosion or a missile. It could come from a sloppy line of code.

Plugging in
Different powers are responding to this new reality in distinct ways, reflecting their political systems, industrial bases and threat perceptions. Europe’s experience since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally reshaped its energy-security thinking. Forced to adapt quickly, EU member states diversified gas supplies, accelerated renewables and invested in interconnectors. The result has been a growing recognition that energy security is inseparable from infrastructure protection and collective action. The bloc’s resilience agenda reflects this lesson. By emphasising risk assessments, working across borders and public-private co-operation, it is attempting to move beyond crisis management toward structural preparedness.

Still, gaps remain. Europe needs faster investment in grids, better co-ordination on the procurement of critical components and a clearer division of labour between national authorities and Nato when dealing with hybrid threats. Resilience cannot be built country by country; it must be designed at the system level.

Meanwhile, the US has long framed energy security through the lens of abundance. The rhetoric of “energy dominance”, popularised under the current Trump administration, emphasises domestic production, exports and geopolitical leverage derived from hydrocarbons. That logic still shapes US politics, particularly through liquified natural gas exports and protectionist economic policies.

But abundance can’t secure an electricity-based system by itself. The country’s grid is ageing, fragmented and unevenly regulated. Extreme weather and cyber incidents have exposed vulnerabilities that production levels can’t fix. What the US needs is not just energy dominance but grid resilience too: faster permitting for transmission lines, strategic reserves of crucial equipment and mandatory cybersecurity standards for operators. In the electricity era, security comes not from exporting more fuel but from ensuring that the system at home can withstand shocks.

China’s priority is to reduce vulnerability to external pressure while sustaining economic growth. Huge investment in renewables, nuclear power and grid infrastructure has made it the world’s leading manufacturer of solar panels, batteries and many key components of electricity systems. This dominance brings strategic advantages. Control over supply chains can translate into political leverage, while domestic electrification reduces dependence on imported hydrocarbons. China is also seeking to diversify energy sources and routes, from renewables to nuclear to overseas investments.

For Western policymakers, this creates a dilemma. Co-operation with China is essential for climate goals but dependence on the country’s manufacturing for key grid components introduces fresh vulnerabilities. The challenge is to compete without decoupling entirely: diversify suppliers, invest in domestic and partner production and protect truly sensitive technologies without fragmenting the global energy transition.

Game changers
Across these approaches, certain assets have emerged as strategically decisive. High-voltage transformers, power electronics, control systems and software updates are now as critical as oil terminals once were. These are expensive, slow to produce and difficult to replace, making them attractive targets when it comes to conflict or coercion. Critical minerals are equally important. Lithium, cobalt, copper and rare earths are the building blocks of batteries, motors and transmission infrastructure. Control over their extraction, processing and manufacturing chains translates directly into strategic leverage. In this sense, supply chains have become the new choke points of energy security.

Resilience is no longer about preventing all disruptions. It is about surviving them. That means assuming that systems will fail and designing them to recover quickly. Physical hardening must be matched by cyber discipline. Stockpiling spare parts must go hand in hand with training a workforce capable of installing and operating them – under pressure if the situation called for it.

Human capital is an underappreciated vulnerability. Power engineers who understand both high-voltage physics and cybersecurity are in short supply. Training and retaining this workforce is a national-security imperative. At the same time, there’s a renewed appreciation for analogue safeguards such as manual controls and offline capabilities that can function if and when digital systems are compromised.

Stress tests
By the end of this decade, energy security will be judged less by who controls fuel reserves and more by who can sustain complex systems under stress. The most secure countries will be those that treat the grid as critical infrastructure in the fullest sense: physical, digital, human and geopolitical. The transition from molecules to electrons is the most consequential shift in energy security in a century. Cheeringly, it promises cleaner growth and greater efficiency. The downside is new fragilities. Whether it strengthens or undermines national power will depend on whether governments grasp a simple truth of the electricity era: energy security is about momentum and means keeping the electrons flowing – everywhere and at all times.

“Energy security is now national security.” General Tom Middendorp on the risks and rewards of Europe’s defence strategy

General Tom Middendorp was the chief of defence of the Dutch armed forces from 2012 to 2017. His earlier career in the Royal Netherlands Army included commands in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is now the chair of the International Military Council on Climate and Security, an association of military leaders and security experts that assesses and anticipates the security risks posed by climate change.

Are we too used to energy security?
Yes. We are a bit spoilt. We come from a golden age of abundance. We’re now realising that we have entered a new era of disruption and that creates completely new dynamics.

In terms of the security of our electricity grids, where do you see the threats?
There are military dependencies on energy and military supply lines are the first targets in any crisis. For the military, it’s important to create energy self-sufficiency. But from a wider resilience perspective, we see in Ukraine that energy grids are on the front line. So it’s not just a technical issue any more. It’s also about how opponents can disrupt societies. And there’s also our dependency on gas- and oil-supplying countries that can use it against us.

Are there any lessons from Ukraine for other European countries?
They’re creating more decentralised energy hubs that are more self-sufficient. If you have local energy supply and production, these are much harder to target than a centralised system.

Are our grids generally better secured than they were five or 10 years ago?
Yes, in certain respects, especially when it comes to cybersecurity, where there’s a good level of resilience. But we are underestimating new hybrid threats – such as Russian tankers dragging their anchors along the seabed and pulling out cables.

The EU still spends more than €1bn a month on Russian oil and gas. Is it extricating itself from its energy dependencies quickly enough?
It needs to be much faster than we’re doing it today. We have to shift to alternative suppliers that are less of a threat and reduce our dependency on that supply by creating more energy independence through the entire energy-transition process. That’s also something that we need to speed up to create more autonomy within Europe and make ourselves less vulnerable.

So there’s a strong overlap between energy security and national security?
Absolutely. The energy transition can make defence forces more autonomous – we now depend on very long supply lines, which are very vulnerable. And it would also reduce the risk to our infrastructure. Creating more self-sufficiency on the local or city level through the energy transition will create more resilience.

That’s a big project.
It’s huge. It’s the complete turnaround of our current system from an imported-fuel and top-down system to a bottom-up, decentralised system – and also a more hybrid one. We now have separate top-down energy systems for gas, oil and electricity. With a bottom-up, hybrid system, you can exchange with each other. You can produce energy as electricity but you can turn it through electrolysis into hydrogen too, so you can make it more hybrid on a local level.

Is there an opportunity here to spend the 1.5 per cent of GDP that’s being mandated for critical infrastructure for Nato members as part of the 5 per cent that they’re supposed to be spending on defence by 2035?
Well, it’s meant to be spent on national resilience. There’s a good case to make here if you realise that energy security is part of that national resilience. They are now developing the criteria to judge whether or not something can be part of that 1.5 per cent because many people want to compete in that area.

Would you like to see some of that 1.5 per cent directed towards cleaner energy?
Yes. Clean energy helps defence to become more autonomous in its operations. There is that dual-use element to it. Defence can be a platform for innovation and the more it can accelerate the energy transition in the operational realm, the more it can be used in civil society. The technology is almost fully driven by civil innovation but integrating these technologies can be a military contribution to developing this new system.

How much enthusiasm for that role do you detect among militaries?
It’s still limited, to be honest. People worry that it will cost more and slow us down, that it’s not as effective as fossil fuels. There’s a lot of prejudice. Until now, energy transition has been a concern from a climate perspective – a solution to lower our carbon footprint. We need to realise that it’s about more than that. It’s also about our security. By approaching it from those two angles, we can accelerate. If we don’t make that transition, we’ll remain dependent on all kinds of suppliers. Of course, the energy transition could create new dependencies – we could become more dependent on critical minerals and components from China. So we need to innovate too.

Are there any useful examples of that?
There’s a company called Solarge producing solar panels that aren’t made from glass and don’t damage quickly. In tests, the panels were shot at but kept functioning. They’re very lightweight and at the end of their life all of the materials can be reused for new panels. That’s the kind of European innovation that could help to make us more independent. In the current system, we are buying Chinese solar panels that can’t be reused: we’re creating billions of panels that we’re turning into waste, including the rare earth minerals inside them that we cannot use again.

Should Europe be wary of replacing a dependence on Russian fossil fuels with a dependence on Chinese rare earths and technology?
It’s important to shape the energy transition in a way that doesn’t create new dependencies. It’s good that Europe is now realising that it needs to become more independent in terms of knowledge development and innovation, because we have outsourced a lot of that – production to China, innovation to the US. We need to reinvent ourselves in those areas.

As Europe focuses on its own security, is the bigger picture being missed? There has been a lot of cutting back on climate measures overseas. Is that a false economy?
Yes, increasingly climate change has effects at the strategic, geopolitical level. The melting Arctic opens up a completely new arena around resources and trade routes – and new possibilities for Russia to position naval and nuclear forces in the north. That’s a game changer for Nato and that’s just one example. But climate change acts as a risk multiplier, especially in the fragile regions around us. Last year I travelled through Somalia, Iraq and Bangladesh, and I saw the enormous impact that the changing climate is already having. Somalia has had only two rain seasons in five years. It used to be a certainty that it would have a rain season every year but that’s gone now, which means that a society that depends upon agriculture and livestock has been completely disrupted. Millions of people have to move and they go to the cities, where they can’t find work and so start making desperate choices that create instability, migration flows, breeding grounds for extremism. A changing climate has many spin-off effects on security. Militaries have to take this seriously and not see it as a distant future topic for other departments to care about.

Is climate change already having an effect on military operations?
Yes. For instance, at the US Navy’s largest base – Norfolk, Virginia – they have to leave the harbour several times a year because of flooding or flood risks. So they are now putting resilience measures in place to ensure that they can maintain operational effectiveness.

Are there any militaries setting an example when it comes to adaptation in terms of procurement and equipment?
In the UK, they’re integrating climate requirements into the whole acquisition process – for everything they buy, they have to check the box on climate. I see it being integrated in procurement processes but also in vital infrastructure. US military bases are installing smart grids to become more energy independent and create more local autonomy. So it’s not just about climate but also operational effectiveness and reducing vulnerability.

Could governments encourage their militaries to act more as laboratories for addressing climate change and the energy transition?
Yes, but maybe not approach it just from the climate angle because that might scare people away, especially in the military. If you approach it from both sides – how to use the energy transition to make your units more autonomous and reduce your carbon footprint – then it becomes more interesting because you put operational effectiveness up front and that makes it appealing for militaries to put their money and effort into it. Countries should indeed include it in their policymaking because, though these technologies come from the civil sector, the military can help by integrating them in a very local, autonomous system that’s also mobile. That is an added value that the military can offer, providing a kind of free experimentation space for civilian innovators in this new, more bottom-up system, realising that it all has a dual-use value.

What are the downsides if that opportunity isn’t embraced?
This is all long-term, complicated and expensive, which tends to put governments off. It’s like Albert Einstein allegedly said: if you do what you did, you get what you got. And what we did was create enormous dependencies. If you keep doing that and just look the other way, you only make yourself more vulnerable. So my greatest concern is that we lack the urgency to move, that we don’t see the full picture, that we see the energy transition as just a climate thing, competing with security. It’s not a competition. It’s a win-win.

What we can learn from the UK’s shift away from coal-fired power

The three cooling towers of Didcot A power station in Oxfordshire, England, loomed up in the grey morning light on 18 August 2019, as they had for half a century. But having stood idle for over six years, this was to be their last morning. At 07.00 demolition charges were ignited and the towers folded gracefully in on themselves as they collapsed to the ground.

The watching crowd got an extra moment of excitement when a large piece of supposed “debris protection material” dislodged and struck a 30,000-volt overhead line outside of the exclusion area, triggering an explosion and a fire. The break in the network left 40,000 homes without electricity. Their power supply was restored a few hours later but the destruction of Didcot A, which in its heyday generated enough power to supply millions of homes, was irreversible.

It marked a death knell for coal-burning in the UK, which by 2019 had already fallen to 2 per cent of electricity generation. While seven coal power stations were still operating at the time, two more were decommissioned in 2019, one the following year, another stopped burning coal in 2021 and two more stopped generating in 2023. The last coal-burning power station operating in the UK, Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, was closed down in September 2024. Given that coal provided 39 per cent of the UK’s power supply as recently as 2012, that was a remarkable tipping point.

Despite natural-gas-burning replacing coal in the short term, by 2020 – soon after Didcot A was destroyed – renewables including wind, solar and biomass were supplying 43 per cent of UK electricity demand, more than coal had covered back in 2012. Today more than 40 per cent of UK power comes from renewables and wind has become the biggest contributor, providing more than a quarter of the UK’s electricity. This started with onshore wind but now offshore has taken over and is poised to triple its capacity over the next five years. The UK now has about 20 per cent of the world’s offshore wind-energy capacity and in 2023, it generated about 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity.

The success story of the UK (and, incidentally, Denmark) in tipping away from coal power and towards renewables is important for everyone across the globe. That’s because a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions still come from generating electricity. Positive tipping points away from coal-burning and towards renewables are urgently needed worldwide.

But this process of tipping towards renewables needs to go much faster. Current rates of growth suggest that solar and wind will together provide about a third of global power generation by 2030 but they need to exceed 40 per cent in order to be on track to keep global warming close to 1.5C. Coal power also needs to die, and fast – it has to fall from 36 per cent to about 4 per cent of power generation by 2030.

Overall, about 80 per cent of the world’s population lives in countries that are net fossil-fuel importers and have prosperity to gain in tipping towards renewable energy. As it is inherently more evenly distributed, the transformation will also help to redistribute wealth globally.

Energy can be stored in many forms – for example, in physical form as water pumped uphill or in chemical form as hydrogen or ammonia. But battery storage is the most promising option when it comes to rapidly scaling up. The growth required is enormous. Installed battery storage capacity worldwide was about 56GW by the end of 2023 but it needs to increase at least tenfold by 2030 or double that if we tip rapidly to solar power. Supply of grid-scale battery storage is growing exponentially, with a doubling time of less than two years, but needs to grow even faster to meet demand.

Happily, projections are being continually revised upwards, suggesting that growth will accelerate towards a doubling of battery storage capacity every year and a half. Such rapid expansion is made possible by – and depends upon – the tipping point to electric vehicles because they are projected to make up 90 per cent of the market for batteries in 2030. Passing the EV tipping point is driving down the price of lithium-ion batteries. Every doubling of total installed capacity has reduced their price by nearly 20 per cent and the cost of the energy service that they provide by 30 per cent. This could halve the price of batteries by 2030.

So what stands in the way of accelerating the renewable-energy revolution? Well, unsurprisingly, incumbents with strong vested interests in the fossil-fuel sector are resisting change and they are backed by powerful damping feedback that maintains the status quo. Fossil-fuel subsidies from governments worldwide totalled a record $7trn (€6trn) in 2022, more than a seventh of which was direct subsidies. That is a $2trn (€1.7trn) increase from 2020, and just over 7 per cent of the global GDP. For comparison, the world spends about 4 per cent of GDP on education. Ending fossil-fuel subsidies and shifting that public money towards renewable energy would accelerate change.

Why I’m hopeful about the future of Europe’s energy transition

Just 50 years ago, the world was a very different place. Nuclear energy was in its infancy, computers were a rarity and the power system was almost wholly dependent on oil and coal. If you consider how far we have come, can you imagine what the step change will be like in the next 50 years?

At Aurora Energy Research, we provide market analytics that help to channel private capital into the green-energy transition. I have seen encouraging signs that we’re on a very positive trajectory. Take, for example, the idea of sharing knowledge. We are seeing increasing collaboration among players who would normally be in competition. Policymakers, regulators, system operators and other agents who might usually be adversarial are working together towards one aim: how can we reach the energy transition affordably and without jeopardising our security of supply?

In certain market segments, such as batteries, competition to develop new technologies and ensure grid connections remains fierce. However, I think that this is a good thing and it’s among the reasons for the significant reduction in costs that we have seen for battery packs. Across the electricity sector, all actors are realising that achieving the common goal of decarbonisation requires close co-operation.

Of course, challenges persist. Europe’s grid network is a critical bottleneck. Network costs are rising and while renewable generation capacity is increasing, grid limitations restrict how many green electrons can flow. To deliver an affordable transition, investment in the network must rise significantly from the current €60bn a year to somewhere between €80bn and €120bn a year.

If we want to achieve our net-zero targets, electrification needs to increase rapidly, leading to a doubling of electricity demand over the next 25 years. This is due to the electrification of industry, electric mobility and hydrogen production. If that is to happen, we need major investment but that does not necessarily mean higher bills. As demand increases, the per-unit cost of each of those electrons will fall too. But we can only get there if we create a necessary backbone in the grid.

Overall, I am optimistic about reaching our goals in Europe. Living in democracies is messy – we have to accept that. We do not live in a planned economy where a top-down scheme is set for the next 10 years. Our liberal market economy means moving in cycles: we have to embrace that. If we take into account all of the positives that we have seen over the past decades, we should be far more confident about the energy transition than the current public discourse suggests. It is difficult to comprehend quite how electrified our world will be within the next half-century. And I truly believe that most of our electricity will be decarbonised. We will continue to see major cost reductions across batteries, solar, wind, EVs and other technologies. That fills me with excitement and positivity about the path ahead.

The question is whether governments are willing to make the political sacrifices needed to implement these changes. Those in Europe are on board and I think that they understand how to get there. But political will is a different issue.

Monocle preview: December/January 2025/2026 issue

Monocle’s December/January issue is out now. With handy insights from the past year and a view of what’s to come in 2026, our bumper winter edition is packed with reports, ideas and long reads to savour. We head to Beirut to hear about how the city is bouncing back, step behind the curtains at the Royal Danish Ballet, pick up presents in our festive gift guides and sit down for culinary treats at a few of Paris’s best bistros. Plus: dip into our Japan survey, which has plenty of lessons in mobility and retail for the year ahead.

Monocle’s December/January issue is here to offer you a steer on the new year

There’s a strange thing that happens at this point in the year: time seems to speed up. Summer – at least, in the northern hemisphere – passes at a languorous pace, then autumn pokes its russet-leafed nose in but, when November hits, the toboggan of time suddenly starts careening through the days with gusto, as you hold on for dear life. And then bang! It’s a new year.

Well, this December-January double dose of Monocle is designed to guide you through it all – from planning Christmas, securing gifts (may we suggest a subscription to our magazine?) and plotting your 2026 travels (Japan, here we come) to, hopefully sitting by a roaring fire, contemplating what the year ahead has in store (turn to our perspicacious Forecast pages to find out). But, for all of us, Monocle included, this is also a moment to take stock and ask: what did we achieve in 2025? Regular Monocle readers and subscribers to our daily newsletters might feel that they already know what we have been up to but I’ll flag a few highlights anyway.

In the past 12 months, we have opened a new bureau and café-cum-shop in Paris that has underlined our commitment to taking care of people. Our books team has delivered two new additions to our Handbook series (one on Greece and, just landing, another on Switzerland), as well as the wonderful Designers on Sofas book (fun, quirky, beautiful – what we all need more of in our lives). We also produced a great Companion paperback for the Venice Architecture Biennale. Our events team has bounced around the globe this year but the pinnacle was our Quality of Life Conference in Barcelona – the city shone and our readers once again proved why they are such amazing people. Also out on the road, the team from Monocle Radio turned up everywhere from Abu Dhabi to New York. We continued to invent with print, bringing out the premiere issue of our Design Directory. Plus, we launched a new digital experience, including a sparkling website.

In an industry focused on creativity and finding freshways to deliver stories, I am often asked, “What’s new at Monocle?” I usually need to ask people how long they’ve got before commencing my reply. But I am pleased to add that many are fully aware of Monocle’s ambition and successes – it’s why we have such supportive partners and why this magazine has such a healthy weight. While you catch your breath, let me gently suggest a few stories in the issue that deserve your attention.

In our Concierge pages, we head off for a tour of classic Paris bistros, savouring a feast of seasonal dishes (somehow leaving space for dessert). Our Expo takes you to an island where Swedish and Finnish statespeople meet to discuss their shared concerns; we eavesdrop on the latest get-together. In our design pages, we survey an archive that charts the history of outdoor brands, including the founding days of The North Face and Patagonia. We also look at why Beirutis are allowing themselves to feel more confident about the future.

So I hope that you enjoy this issue and the chute it offers through Christmas and into 2026. And thank you for all your support, ideas and feedback across this year. Here’s wishing you a happy Christmas and the very best 2026. As always, you can contact me at at@monocle.com or check the masthead if you would like to get in touch with any of our editors (we publish all of our addresses).

It’s high time to hoist new standards for flag-bearing as expressions of unity, not division

On 14 September 1814, in the dawn’s early light, US troops stationed at Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbour hoisted their nation’s flag. They did this every morning, as the bugler sounded reveille. At this particular sunrise, though, their routine chore had greater resonance.

For the previous 24 hours, Fort McHenry had been clobbered by the rockets and mortars of a Royal Navy fleet that had sailed up Chesapeake Bay. But it had stood and the flag was the US soldiers’ way of letting the British sailors know. Another witness, Maryland lawyer Francis Scott Key, was moved to verse. His poem and Fort McHenry’s flag would both become known as the star-spangled banner. Americans might therefore have reason to take their flag more seriously than most. And they do.

In October of this year, when the US president, Donald Trump, was due in the UK for a state visit, the 66 star-spangled banners that were to be unfurled on the Mall in London and at Windsor Castle were rejected by the US embassy, which was unhappy with the precise shade of red amid the white and blue. New flags were commissioned at a cost of £52,800 (€60,000).

It might seem like a strange time to make the case that there’s something to be learnt from the US’s affection for its flag. To be clear, we’re talking about the easygoing pride expressed in banners hung from small town porches, not the slobbering flag-fondling regularly perpetrated by the kind of ostentatious patriots more likely to make any decent citizen want to burn a flag than salute it. In 2025, the banner of one of the UK’s constituent nations – the red-on-white St George’s Cross of England – became the subject of a culture war version of Capture the Flag.

In towns across England, St George’s Crosses were hung and spray-painted by that variety of conservative nationalist who would rather conduct this sort of performance than do anything to materially improve their society. The UK’s centre-left government was compelled to contortions, as its senior ministers all but claimed that their home decor was exclusively comprised of the St George’s Cross and Union Flag and that they enjoyed nothing more than sitting down with the family to stare at either or both.

Neither of these is quite the way to go about it. In peacetime, at least, a flag should not be flown in any spirit of vengeance or triumph. Nor should a flag be worshipped or protected. And it should never be compulsory to wave one. A flag should be flown freely; an expression of happiness with and gratitude for the best of the country that it represents. Nevertheless, even the most secular societies contrive to impute something approaching sanctity to these patterned pieces of cloth.

In November 2021, there was moderate uproar when the French president, Emmanuel Macron, switched the blue of Le Tricolore to a somewhat darker shade. People who recalled that the lighter blue was the preference of Europhile former president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing – who changed it in the 1970s to match the EU flag – wondered if his successor was signalling a rift with Brussels or attempting subliminal outreach to nostalgists and nationalists. The response from Macron’s office was “nonsense”; the president stated that he merely preferred the navy blue and its connections to French history.

Flags are not set in stone (they wouldn’t flap, for one thing). Their designs change: the original star-spangled banner had only 15 silver stars on its blue canton. And the meaning that we impose upon them evolves and/or is in the eye of the beholder – or, indeed, burner.

Syria is the most recent country to run up a new standard, or at least to revive an old one. The fall of the Assad regime was marked by hauling down the red, white and black-striped Ba’athist banner with two green stars and replacing it with a variation on the green, white and black-striped flag with three red stars, which heralded Syria’s first flush of independence in the 1930s. It was an important moment, symbolising a fresh start and a return to principles. But, as with anything vexillological, it was essentially a cosmetic gesture. Any flag, like any nation, is an eternal work in progress.

Where to shop in Manhattan now: Five multi-brand retailers worth visiting

Manhattan practically invented Christmas shopping. In department stores such as Barneys, Bloomingdale’s and Bergdorf Goodman, festive window displays, Santa’s grottos and gift wrapping were perfected and exported worldwide. The release this year of They All Came to Barneys, a memoir by Gene Pressman, co-CEO of his family’s store during its 1980s heyday, has rekindled nostalgia for when New York retail led the world. Since then, many icons of yesteryear, including Barneys, have closed, while other storied names have lost some of their lustre. Yet there has recently been a multi-brand-store boom, with many global retailers entering the market. Here are our picks.

(For Monocle’s complete city guide to New York, tap here)

1.
Printemps
1 Wall Street

French retailer Printemps opened its first US outlet in Downtown in March. As well as niche designers such as Joseph Duclos and Taller Marmo, plus many hard-to-procure French cosmetic brands, it offers a reason to linger, with five F&B offerings including a champagne bar. The cultural programming is ambitious: Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture pieces have been on display, while an exhibition recently celebrated Balmain’s 80th anniversary.

2.
Luisaviaroma
1 Bond Street

The Florentine brand, founded in 1929, recently made its debut in the US, opening a 1,000 sq m shop (its first physical store outside Italy) in a historic NoHo building with an elaborate cast-iron façade. Across three floors, the luxury fashion retailer stocks brands such as Auralee and Valextra. It also offers personal styling, with a floor where clients can view exclusive collections.

3.
Steven Alan
511 West 20th Street

More than 30 years after opening his flagship SoHo store, US menswear designer Steven Alan has a new space in Chelsea. Alan was known for introducing European brands, such as Acne Studios and Kitsuné, to US shoppers and for his own-label wardrobe staples in classic silhouettes. The new space mixes his practical jackets and shirts with vintage sweaters, ceramics and homeware from Japan.

4.
La Garçonne
504 Greenwich Street

Since launching online in 2005, La Garçonne has expanded steadily, opening its new Manhattan men’s store this year in a warehouse space in Tribeca. Shoppers come for unisex workwear-style pieces – jackets from Lemaire Men and jumpers from Margaret Howell – and to enjoy the loft-like room with neat racks and shelves that showcase the retailer’s handsome inventory.

5.
Colbo
51 Orchard Street

Opened by designer Tal Silberstein in 2021, Colbo is both a concept store and gathering space. In a narrow glass-fronted space in the Lower East Side, it stocks items from lesser-known labels such as Kartik Research and Yoko Sakamoto, as well as vintage pieces. There’s a coffee station and a vibrant events calendar.

Read next: Monocle’s complete city guide to New York, complete with downloadable map

Monocle’s 2025 Soft Power Survey – who is quietly gaining or losing influence in a multipolar world

This spring, Monocle commissioned what turned out to be the final piece of writing by Joseph S Nye, the political scientist who coined the term “soft power” and died in May at the age of 88. Nye’s death came as his idea – to consider a country in terms of its culture, ideals and subtle influence, not just its economy and military – was under attack. But as he argued (and as Monocle has believed since our first survey on the subject in 2010), soft power’s influence is even more important in a multipolar world.

With that in mind, here are some countries that have notably risen or fallen in the soft-power stakes this year.

Mexico
Michelin has launched its first dedicated Mexico restaurant guide but the nation’s cuisine is only an appetiser. In 2024 it welcomed 45 million international tourists, making it the sixth most-visited country in the world. Claudia Sheinbaum, its first female president, helps to project an image of confidence and coolness. Most of those entering the ballot for tickets to next summer’s Fifa World Cup (jointly held in Mexico, the US and Canada) will surely be hoping to attend a match in this fun, football-mad country.

Italy
Italy will welcome the world in 2026 as Milan-Cortina hosts the Winter Olympic Games in February. The country has sometimes fallen short when it comes to everyday necessities (ensuring that everything runs smoothly) but can take heart from its ever-improving annual events, such as Salone del Mobile. Yields on Italian bonds are at about the same level as France’s and that confidence can be seen as visitors glide along freshly laid roads between Milan and the Alpine ski resorts. The Lombard capital is becoming a lure for the wealthy due to its tax breaks. In 2025 it became Europe’s “third-richest” city in terms of millionaires and billionaires.

France
The sight of a mechanical lift hoisting a gang of power-tool-wielding burglars up to the Louvre’s Gallery of Apollo in broad daylight marked the end of a difficult year for France. Successive prime ministers have failed to unite parliament over a workable budget and even reliable stalwarts such as LVMH and Kering have had difficult years. The country’s charms remain irresistible in fashion, art and culture but many will be hoping that 2025 was a blip rather than a taste of further chaos to come.

Canada
Was this finally the year that Canada stepped out from under the sizeable shadow of its southern neighbour? Donald Trump’s threats to annex the country sparked anger among Canadians and the gloves came off. The mobilisation of famous actors and sportspeople to deliver a riposte to US policy reminded the world of the country’s enviable comedic and sporting talent, while a homegrown campaign to buy locally made goods highlighted the quality of its domestic products.

Japan
When Sanae Takaichi welcomed Trump to Tokyo in October, Japan’s first female prime minister offered a masterclass in her country’s culture of hosting and gift giving. The US president was presented with six “Trump”-embossed golden golf balls, as well as a putter used by Shinzo Abe. Takaichi can be optimistic about the year ahead. After decades of deflation, the yen is gaining momentum, while retail sales are up and unemployment down. Shohei Ohtani is hitting home runs and the country’s unique attractions continue to drive a tourism boom that saw more than 36 million foreigners visit in 2024.

Puerto Rico
An honourable mention goes to the unincorporated US territory whose tiny size belies its huge cultural influence. After years of being a net exporter of people, immigration increased in 2024, with 15,000 more moving to Puerto Rico than leaving. Many are US citizens attracted by tax incentives, great weather and a fun-loving culture. Nobody embodies that culture more than Bad Bunny. In 2026 the rapper will be the first Latin male artist to perform solo at the Super Bowl.

Is Beirut back from the brink? Despite challenges for the Lebanese government, the city is getting its buzz back

“Did you see?” asks a friend when we arrive in Beirut. “There are now lanes on the airport highway and the traffic lights are working.” Driving into the Lebanese capital certainly feels different from when Monocle was last here. Back then, the road from the airport was flanked by billboards featuring stern-faced Hezbollah fighters. Today, in their place, cheerful banners declare a “new era for Lebanon”. Downtown, where the streets now echo to the sounds of construction rather than destruction, the ornate Ottoman façade of the Grand Serail, the Lebanese prime minister’s official residence, is one of many buildings shrouded in scaffolding.

“The population is looking for a new paradigm,” says Lebanon’s culture minister, Ghassan Salamé, surrounded by piles of books in his ministry office. “They are fed up with being told to be resilient, to smile.” Whatever it was that has finally moved the dial, there’s a sense that Beirut is beginning to show signs of a long-awaited recovery. This summer, the city’s beaches were packed but, more importantly, its pharmacies are fully stocked and electricity now sometimes stays on through the night. In April the country’s new finance minister signed a $250m (€215m) agreement with the World Bank to support renewable energy and grid resilience.

Lebanon could hardly have ended 2024 at a lower ebb. After months of heavy bombardment by Israel, the south of the country was flattened and swaths of Beirut’s suburbs lay in smoking ruin. Then, in early 2025, something unusual happened. After more than two years without a government, former army chief Joseph Aoun was appointed president. Though criticised for still being a serving commander, Aoun pushed through his choice of prime minister – Nawaf Salam, a veteran jurist and former president of the International Court of Justice – a few days after his election.

Things then began to move at great speed. Salam set about building a cabinet of politically unaffiliated ministers. Gone were the offspring of warlords and, in their place, the new prime minister appointed politicians with experience, talent and a seemingly genuine desire to improve the lot of their compatriots. Used to such governments taking months to form, Lebanese citizens at home and abroad were dumbfounded – in a good way. A 2025 Gallup poll recorded a 46-point increase (up to 62 per cent from 16) in public approval for the government, one of the largest such swings ever recorded in polling history.

Salamé is a returnee to government. The culture minister previously served in the same post between 2000 and 2003, during the heady post-civil-war days when Rafic Hariri’s reconstruction plans seemed to herald a brighter future. After two decades of serving high-level UN global missions, he’s back at the ministry’s helm. Looking ruefully around his office in the newly reopened Lebanese National Library, Salamé is fully aware of the colossal nature of the government’s challenge.

“Our problem is money; the public finances have gone bankrupt,” he says. “So, we’re being asked to do everything with no budget.” He and his colleagues face a breakneck climb on a fraying rope (the next general election is scheduled for May 2026) but he points out that what they have already achieved is extraordinary. “We have done more in six months than previous governments did in six years,” he says, his voice nearly breaking. “If people start to see real implementation, they’ll be more willing to trust us.”

The new government’s good fortune wasn’t down to blind luck. Last year the geopolitical landscape in the Levant shifted significantly. Israel’s attack on Lebanon destroyed key parts of the country but also eroded the military might of Hezbollah and the grip that it had held over the country’s politics for decades. Meanwhile, the fall of Bashar al-Assad in neighbouring Syria eliminated a land route for supplying Hezbollah with Iranian weaponry and a new government was installed next door. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returned home as a result, easing pressure on Lebanon’s politics, economy and healthcare system. For once, it felt as though geo political forces were working in Lebanon’s favour.

Still, it would be naive to be too optimistic. While Beirut is getting its buzz back, the south of the country remains heavily bomb-damaged, with parts of it still occupied by Israel. Hezbollah meanwhile, is resisting the new government’s calls to disarm, prompting fears of conflict to come. Still, after years in which the country’s judiciary has seemed inert, the government has confirmed more than 500 new judges since coming into office.

In another positive sign, a budget was produced on time, allowing two major financial reform laws to be passed, reopening negotiations for an IMF deal. Most importantly for public confidence, ministers have started discussing how much and how soon Lebanese depositors will see financial compensation for the 2019 banking crash, in which the savings of many middle-class families were wiped out. Salamé and his colleagues hope to have some answers by January. “We have lost a lot of young talent to other countries,” he says. “They are watching now to see what we do.”

Crisis after crisis forced Lebanon’s youth to leave in search of opportunity and security. In 2021 there was a 450 per cent surge in emigration. Encouragingly, they have slowly begun trickling back. When the August 2020 port explosion took place, 34-year-old endocrinologist Ralph el Khoury and his colleagues at central Beirut’s Hotel Dieu Hospital had already been working on reduced salaries for months.

That day they treated hundreds of wounded patients for free. Traumatised, El Khoury had reached his limit. “The explosion was the trigger for me,” he tells Monocle. “I felt that the state had really failed us. I was afraid of spending my life in a country that was failing.” Many of his closest friends had already left and El Khoury knew that a stint in France could be a big boost to his career. So he moved to Paris, where he spent five years working on his specialism while learning how to augment healthcare using digital technologies such as AI.

In the French capital, El Khoury formed a close-knit group with other Lebanese expats. They would spend long nights wondering whether they would ever return home. But early this year the mood began to change. “For the first time in a long while, we could actually identify with the people in the government,” he says.

By August he felt the pull home, wanting to put his new skills to use. “It’s a big risk,” he says. “But I want to be here to rebuild my country, not just watch other people do it.” In the past year, hospitals have begun to receive regular medicine and equipment supplies, while the government has started planning the restructuring of healthcare to make it more accessible.

Lebanese architect Carole Azzi has also taken the leap homeward. The 38-year-old left for France a decade ago, thinking that she would only be away a year or two. Now that she’s back in the country of her birth, she is keen to use her expertise in cultural preservation to help Lebanon rebuild. “We’re not even starting from zero,” she says. “We’re hoping to reach zero and then build from there.”

Azzi is now involved in government rebuilding projects and hopes to teach a fresh generation of Lebanese architecture students. She says that she sees a new toughness in her young compatriots. “They are better than we were at that age,” she says. “They have had to be very inventive because those who couldn’t leave had to reinvent themselves here.”

A distinctive characteristic of Beirut is the way that a hot neighbourhood can suddenly be ordained. In autumn 2025, there was a new cool kid in town: Saifi Village. With its salmon-pink façades, 24-hour electricity and Spanish moss tumbling from arched window frames, Saifi has long been considered an oasis in the centre of downtown. Once the preserve of yoga mums, it is now buzzing from dawn until dusk.

Pastel-hued restaurant Malibou sits on the corner of Mkhallissiye Street without a table to spare. “We’ve been busy since we opened in September 2024 but this summer we were packed every day,” says its manager, Hassan Abu Rashed. A quarter of all employment in Lebanon is in the hospitality sector. When purchasing power evaporated, so did the wages. In July the president signed off on a 56 per cent increase in the minimum wage across the private sector. Rashed’s pay packets are back to pre-2019 levels and customers are tipping generously.

Gulf Arabs have got the message that Beirut is again the place to be. The lifting of UAE travel warnings earlier this year was a huge boon for Lebanese tourism. Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport saw a million visitors in June and July – up 15 per cent on the previous year’s summer season – igniting hopes that the country’s tourism industry, which made up 19 per cent of its GDP before the 2019 crash, is back. The city was packed all summer, with crowds spilling out onto the streets, grasping cocktails and dancing to the strains of Fairuz and Umm Kulthum. It felt like old times.

While the city has quietened down since the peak season, the spirit of those buoyant months has endured. Plane-loads of Middle Eastern tourists are descending on Beirut every weekend in search of delicious food and good times. Even short-term stability begets long-term investment. A highway intended to circumvent the dreaded traffic jams that swell on the seaside motorway north of the city every rush hour is finally under way.

The government also hopes to open tender on an airport near Tripoli in early 2026. Intended to complement Rafic Hariri, which is the only operational commercial airport in Lebanon, it will be well placed for the country’s most popular beach resorts. MEA, the national carrier, is launching a low-cost arm to ferry visitors to and from both of them.

Rasha Halabi Assaf barely kept her Saifi Village-based boutique, Label Queen, going through the crisis. She has now opened two more businesses in the neighbourhood. Her café, Roff, serves high-end coffee to the cool crowd. Since starting it in January, Assaf says that it has practically marketed itself. “This year was a big change,” she says. “Brands are launching; hotels are opening. People are optimistic and investing again.” However, she says that the government needs to step in and support local entrepreneurs in the wake of the crisis.

Fellow business owners feel that the private sector is carrying the entire load of the economy, while facing heavy taxes for little return and high costs on imported goods. As a result, they are prioritising low-risk cash investment in retail and hospitality. “If anything happens, the losses are easier to absorb,” she says. “The banking system is there but we don’t trust it yet.”

In 2019, Lebanon’s youth took to the streets to demand change from its leaders. Now they’re coming back to make it themselves. Ghassan Haddad left the country 20 years ago after graduating from high school and worked as a consultant in Europe and the Gulf. When he was first asked to return to serve as chief of staff for the new tourism minister, Laura Lahoud, he was reluctant. But his family convinced him not to pass up the opportunity to be part of Lebanon’s next chapter. Lahoud says that her favourite part of her job is working with younger people such as Haddad. “They’re faster at everything, with a fresh outlook,” she says. “I learn a lot from them.”

Unfortunately, not everyone is so keen. Like many of his peers, Haddad is having to push hard to change mindsets that are still stuck in the past. Modern digital skills have yet to permeate the top of government (aides still write phone messages down on scraps of paper) and increasing efficiency will mean a complete overhaul. “People tell me, ‘That’s not how we do things here,’” says Haddad. “I say, ‘That’s exactly the point.’ The people want change but they don’t want reform.”

It takes a huge leap of faith to give up on the status quo in return for an unknown benefit at some point in the future. That’s what this government is asking of a public that has had little reason to trust its leaders in decades. It’s a sentiment that Haddad shares with many of his youthful colleagues. They often gather in the evening to share their ideas, after a long day spent working to bring their country’s infrastructure up to speed.

In the lobby of Bourj Hammoud’s Cinema Royal, young women drink beer as they wait for a free public screening of 1994 film Once Upon a Time in Beirut, put on by the culture ministry. “How was today?” one asks her friend. “Long, like every day at the moment,” she says. Then she smiles and adds, “But it’ll be worth it.”

This summer there were many such screenings and museum nights. For a few weeks, Beirut lived up to its mid-century moniker as the Paris of the Middle East. Lahoud’s next aim is to project middle-class Beirut’s success to other corners of the country. Her ministry has launched a tourism app intended to direct visitors to less frequented areas.

In common with many of her new colleagues, she never worked in politics before this and knows that it will take time to build trust. None of the current cabinet ministers plans to run in the next election, so they can focus on making meaningful, if difficult, decisions, she says. “We have tremendous natural wealth but our greatest wealth is our people,” she says, looking out from her balcony at the city below. “They find a way to continue.”

Lebanon’s political evolution
Behind today’s optimism is a complex recent history. In 1989, a power-sharing agreement between Lebanon’s 18 registered religious groups was intended to end the long civil war and prevent further sectarian violence. Instead, it encouraged gerrymandering, partisanship and cronyism. The same warlord families that had fought the conflict – which lasted from 1975 to 1990 – rigged the system in their favour and have spent the decades since running the country into the ground.

Government formation would typically take months, sometimes even years; indeed, in the past decade, Lebanon has spent longer without a functioning administration than with one. The country has endured much of recent history languishing under hamstrung caretaker governments. A 2024 survey by Arab Barometer found that 90 per cent of Lebanese people severely distrusted their government and its leaders.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah, a Shia militia that rose to prominence following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, has become a shadow state, with its own army, political party and bureaucracy based in its southern stronghold. Unlike other Lebanese militias, the group was allowed to keep its weapons after the civil war ended because of the threat still posed by Israel.

UN Resolution 1701, which ended the war with Israel in 2006, was intended to reverse that; under its terms Hezbollah would disarm and make way for the mixed-sect Lebanese Armed Forces, while Israel would withdraw behind the Blue Line, the two countries’ official border, and respect Lebanon’s sovereignty. Neither complied. This summer, the new government in Beirut discussed giving Hezbollah a deadline of the end of this year for it to disarm. The group’s compliance will have a huge bearing on whether or not the current wave of optimism in Lebanon continues into 2026.

Back to Beirut
A rundown of the key events in Lebanon’s complex history.

1.
Place des Martyrs, downtown Beirut in the 1960s. Before the civil war, the city was known as the Paris of the Middle East.

2.
The Lebanese Civil War, which lasted from 1975 to 1990, led to about 150,000 deaths and the emigration of a million people from Lebanon. The war devastated swaths of the capital.

3.
Crowds in the city celebrate the 1989 Taif Agreement that paved the way for peace. The agreement formalised power sharing between Lebanon’s 18 registered religious groups.

4.
Rafic Hariri served as Lebanon’s prime minister between 1992 and 1998 and then again between 2000 and 2004. In 2005 he was assassinated in Beirut by a suicide van bomb. Hariri’s death triggered further political upheaval.

5.
Riad Salameh was the governor of the Bank of Lebanon from 1993 to 2023. Initially feted for his monetary policy, after the country’s banking crisis in 2019 he was accused of siphoning off millions of depositors’ savings. In 2024 he was charged with money laundering, embezzlement and illicit enrichment.

6.
The 2020 Beirut port explosion was caused by the ignition of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that was being stored in a waterside warehouse. The explosion caused at least 218 deaths, thousands of casualties and billions of dollars’ worth of damage.

7.
The new Lebanese government poses outside the Baabda Presidential Palace in February 2025. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stand in the centre.