Perspective: If Your Business Depends on Predictability, Vulnerable States Are Your Allies

Not every part of the global economy wants the same thing from international order. Some actors can profit from conflict, volatility and fragmentation. Others cannot. That distinction matters more than many boardrooms, lenders and investment committees are willing to admit.

Recent reporting offers a stark illustration. In April 2026, Citigroup’s profit reportedly jumped as geopolitical tensions fueled market volatility and lifted trading revenue, while other major Wall Street banks also posted strong trading results from the same turbulence. Some energy and petrochemical producers are likely to profit significantly from Gulf war disruption. In the defense sector, unprecedented demand has meant that profit and revenue forecasts are extremely positive amid rising global conflicts. These are reminders that parts of the global economy can, at least in the short term, monetize disorder and may have limited incentives to resist it. 

But that is only one side of the picture. Other sectors depend heavily on predictability and are penalized when lawlessness spreads. Factories across the world faced soaring input costs and supply chain disruptions in March because the Iran war disrupted logistics networks, delayed deliveries and raised input price inflation. Airlines have warned of jet-fuel shortages and surging costs, retailers have had to rethink strategy amid tariff-driven uncertainty, and even medical-supply producers have raised prices because war has disrupted petrochemical inputs and shipping.

The effects of disorder are also showing up at the level of entire economies, not just individual sectors. Recent warnings from the World Bank and IMF suggest that geopolitical uncertainty and war-driven energy shocks are among the key factors slowing growth and increasing vulnerability across Latin America and the Caribbean. For tourism-dependent and energy-importing economies in particular, instability is being felt as slower growth, tighter debt conditions and greater exposure to external shocks. 

This is where vulnerable states matter more than they are usually understood to. Recently, the World Bank launched a new strategy for small states precisely because of their remoteness, limited economic diversity and vulnerability to economic shocks, including fuel-price spikes. Small and vulnerable states are not the only ones hurt by lawlessness, but they are often among the first to feel the damage and among the least able to shift its costs onto others. Unlike larger powers, they have less capacity to absorb volatility, reroute disruption, or turn instability into leverage. As a result, they often have a stronger and more consistent interest in predictable rules and a stable global environment.

This is the strategic point major economic actors should focus on. If your business depends on secure shipping routes, reliable contracts, manageable sovereign risk, stable financial flows and confidence in long-term investment, then your interests may be closer to those of vulnerable states than you think. These states are not simply humanitarian cases at the margins of the system. They are among the strongest institutional supporters of predictability in an international environment increasingly shaped by actors that can benefit from disruption, fragmentation and coercive power.

Vulnerable states can help constrain instability by making disorder easier to detect, harder to justify, more difficult to impose abruptly, and less likely to spread unchecked. Because they often feel the costs of disruption early, they can serve as warning points for wider economic stress. Because they sit inside multilateral processes that many private actors cannot directly shape, they can push for procedural friction, clearer safeguards and more disciplined management of spillover. And because they are among the actors least able to profit from lawlessness, they can lend broader legitimacy to coalitions seeking to defend predictability.

The problem is that they still have too little power in the international processes that influence the economic consequences of disorder. The actors most capable of producing instability still hold disproportionate influence over the institutions that manage trade, debt, sanctions, maritime security and crisis response, while the states most exposed to the fallout remain comparatively weak within them. That is not only unjust, it is also economically inefficient.

If predictability-dependent actors want a more stable international environment, the most practical role they can play is to build an explicit coalition with vulnerable states, using the access, resources and influence they already have to make vulnerable states harder to sideline.

First, they can use their existing access to influence governments and multilateral institutions. Insurers, sovereign lenders, logistics firms, infrastructure financiers and long-term investors already engage states, regulators and international financial institutions on issues that affect risk and market stability. They can use those channels to push for stronger consultation rights and greater procedural weight for highly exposed states in decisions on shipping disruption, sanctions, sovereign debt and external shock management.

Second, they can help build the capacity that gives vulnerable states real leverage. Small and vulnerable states are often constrained not only by power asymmetries, but by limited legal, technical and negotiating resources. Predictability-dependent actors can support pooled advisory capacity, technical research and negotiating support for small-state coalitions so that participation in global forums carries more substance and less symbolism.

Third, they can support practical financial and insurance buffers.  Development finance institutions, reinsurers and major capital providers can support liquidity facilities, trade-finance guarantees, insurance tools and emergency shock-response mechanisms that make vulnerable states less exposed to the destabilizing effects of geopolitical disruption.

Fourth, they can build narrow coalitions around specific shared risks. Joint advocacy works best when it is tied to concrete issues where both vulnerable states and predictability-dependent sectors clearly lose from disorder. That could include safer shipping lanes, clearer sanctions notice periods, more reliable exemptions for trade-critical sectors, stronger debt standstill mechanisms after external shocks, and more disciplined management of geopolitical spillover into energy, trade and finance.

The broader point is simple. The global economy is divided between those who can live with disorder, profit from it or weaponize it, and those who still need a world that remains broadly predictable. Vulnerable states belong, by structural necessity, in the latter camp. Major economic actors that also depend on predictability should stop treating them as peripheral humanitarian concerns and start recognizing them as strategic allies in constraining instability.