Executive Summary
This policy brief analyses entrepreneurship under the constraints of armed conflict across five distinct operational theatres: Ukraine (Russia-Ukraine war since 2022), Russia (war economy at the end of its course), Gaza (post-October 2025 ceasefire), Lebanon (persistent structural crisis) and the Iran-Israel conflict (Twelve Day War, June 2025; Iran 2026 war started on February 28, 2026). Grounded in a theoretical framework on inclusive and responsible entrepreneurship, and drawing on recent primary sources (EBRD, OECD, World Bank, IMF, Bank of Israel, UNCTAD, Bank of Finland, The Moscow Times, Carnegie Endowment, International Crisis Group), the brief makes six operational recommendations differentiated according to conflict configurations. Three fundamental observations are necessary in 2026: (1) Ukraine maintains fragile entrepreneurial resilience despite a GDP still at 79% of its pre-war level; (2) Russia, an often overlooked belligerent, demonstrates how a war economy boosted by public spending reaches its structural limits in 2025–2026; (3) the Iran-Israel conflict has opened a new front of global economic destabilization (closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Brent > $100/barrel) with direct repercussions on Ukrainian, Lebanese and Gulf State entrepreneurs.
Dr. Georges Eloundou
Associate researcher
Society for Inclusive and Collaborative Entrepreneurship (S4ICE) gGmbH.
WP_Entrepreneurship in Times of Geopolitical Crisis (Complete)
Introduction: An Era of Simultaneous Conflict
The world of 2026 is distinguished by the simultaneity and interconnectedness of armed conflicts. For the first time since the Cold War, theatres of war are operating simultaneously on two major fronts – European and Middle Eastern – with spillover effects that are reconfiguring the conditions for the exercise of entrepreneurship on a global scale. The literature on entrepreneurship in times of crisis has been a rapidly expanding field of research since 2019 (Batjargal et al., 2023; Durst & Henschel, 2022). Armed conflicts, however, introduce a qualitative break with economic or health crises: they generate a triple simultaneous disorganisation (institutional, infrastructural and psychological) that calls into question the very foundations of formal economic activity.
As Durst, Yana Mbena & Viala (2025) point out in their seminal book published by Edward Elgar, entrepreneurship in the twenty-first century must necessarily extend far beyond the creation of market value: it must actively address inequalities, foster diversity, and promote social and environmental sustainability. This inclusive and responsible vision is particularly acute in contexts of armed conflict, where the company sometimes becomes the last vector of social cohesion. According to them, inclusive and responsible entrepreneurship is a lever of resilience for organisations and societies in turbulent times. This brief examines how radically different conflict configurations generate specific entrepreneurial forms, and what the implications are for public policy.
This policy brief mobilises the concepts developed within the S4ICE network to analyse two contrasting cases: the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the multifaceted crises in the Middle East. The objective is not to produce an exhaustive analysis, but to identify concrete levers for action for public decision-makers, international organisations, and investors. The original contribution is twofold: on the one hand, the integration of the Russian dimension, the main belligerent in the Russian-Ukrainian war, was paradoxically absent from the previous version; on the other hand, the analysis of the Iran-Israel conflict of 2025–2026 as a new vector of global economic destabilisation with documentable entrepreneurial effects.
