Dear {{ first_name | reader }},
I still read UN publications out of habit. I've worked emergencies for UN agencies before so the reading and interest has not stopped. Most of what crosses my desk from that world confirms what this profession already believes about itself. The 2026 Global Risk Report proved it.
The headline will be large-scale war, which jumped sixteen places in perceived imminence – the single largest shift the survey has ever recorded. That's real, and it will dominate the coverage.
But buried in the report's network analysis is a sentence that matters more to you: mis- and disinformation, the UN's own methodology finds, is the mechanism that channels technological risk into societal harm.
Five minutes with this data gives you the argument, and the numbers to back it.
Enjoy!
PS: I am running several online training workshops in the next coming weeks. Do check them out - hope to see you on one of them.
WAG THE DOG NEWSLETTER | ISSUE WEEK 14, 2026
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Mis- and disinformation functions as the network's connector risk. The UN's own network analysis names it as the mechanism that channels the impact of technological risks – AI, cybersecurity breakdown, power concentration – into societal harm, which places it structurally at the centre of the risk map rather than on its periphery.
Spotting a risk and stopping it are turning out to be two different skills for the multilateral system. Confidence in its ability to reduce a risk, once identified, fell for 23 of the 28 risks surveyed over the past two years, and 86 per cent of respondents call funding for risk reduction inadequate.
Only one risk ranks in the top six across every dimension the survey measures. Large-scale war is rated among the most important, the most imminent, the most interconnected, and the least prepared-for – a combination no risk held in 2024, and none but this one holds now.
Four drivers pull the world toward large-scale war by 2030, according to the UN's own backcasting exercise, and misinformation is one of them. The other three are natural resource shortages, economic fragmentation, and the weakening of multilateral institutions.
Nearly 3,000 mentions went to joint government action as the most effective response – against 461 for bilateral action and 327 for acting alone – while weak governance and coordination mechanisms were named as the single biggest barrier standing in the way of it.
