Winners in the Whirlwind: Ten Geo-economic Success Stories of 2025

Executive summary

Ten geo-economic booms from around the world reveal a simple but powerful lesson: in an age of geopolitical turbulence, volatility can be turned into advantage. Today’s so-called “polycrisis”—a convergence of war, energy shocks, fractured supply chains, and accelerating technological rivalry—has not affected all nations equally. While much of the world shifted into defense crouch, a few countries discovered that their existing strengths had become unexpectedly valuable, giving them the momentum to turn turbulence into growth.

Drawn from a review of more than thirty candidates, (but excluding the world’s two largest powers, the U.S. and China), these are the winners of a turbulent year. These nations’ momentum reflects not only where they sit on the map but how quickly they aligned political will, capital, and industrial capacity when the moment demanded it. In each case, the boom wasn’t granted—it was assembled.

Across these stories, certain patterns emerge. Each of these booms came from the same sources: energy, defense, AI, or advanced manufacturing. South Korea is riding a surge in demand for artillery and LNG transport tankers. Poland has vaulted from vulnerable frontier state to the workshop of Europe’s weapons rearmament boom. Morocco, drawing upon its location just across the Mediterranean and skilled labor force, is becoming central to Europe’s next-generation automotive supply chain. Again and again, structural strengths met decisive action—and occasionally, a bit of well-timed luck.

Together, these booms point to a broader truth: economic opportunity in geopolitics rarely emerges in calm waters. It reveals itself in the storm—and rewards those who adjust their sails quickly enough to meet it. These are the places that caught the wind.

• Boom 1: Moving What Matters: South Korea’s LNG and Defense Industrial Base Boom
• Boom 2: Land and Human Capital: Malaysia’s Data Center and OSAT Boom
• Boom 3: Critical and reliable: Australia’s minerals base
• Boom 4: Poland: Arsenal of democracy (and NATO)
• Boom 5: Drone Diplomacy: Türkiye’s Strategic Defense Export
• Boom 6: Norway’s pipeline power
• Boom 7: Brazil’s Bounty: Natural resource export powerhouse
• Boom 8: Qatar doubles down on LNG
• Boom 9: The UAE as the Global AI Race’s Desert Command Center
• Boom 10: Morocco as Europe’s Car Factory Next Door

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