Global Supply Chain Resilience—Economic Vulnerabilities, Geopolitical Shifts, and the Quest for Stability

The beginning of the 2020s marked a fundamental paradigm shift in global logistics, moving from the efficiency-oriented Just-in-time (JIT) paradigm to resilience-focused Just-in-case (JIC) supply chain architectures. This study investigates how structural economic vulnerabilities, geographic concentration risks, and geopolitical realignments are reshaping global value chains (GVCs) from 2026 onwards. Using a standardized dataset and a four-stage purposive sample of 500 hyperscale multinational companies across five strategic industrial sectors, this study develops a Value-at-risk (VaRγ) framework to quantify the operational and financial trade-offs associated with this transition. The results indicate that adopting local outsourcing (friend-shoring) and short-term supply (n+1) strategies imposes a short-term resilience cost, reducing profitability (ΔEPS − Resilience Cost = −7.2%). Iterative network simulations identify a critical equilibrium threshold at an 8.4% increase in the cost of regionalization, above which unilateral regionalization becomes economically unsustainable unless supported by complementary digital technologies. The results further demonstrate that the integration of Supply Chain 4.0 technologies significantly enhances operational resilience. The implementation of Agentic AI and digital twins for automated forecasting reduces lead-time variance by 23% and mitigates the bullwhip effect (α) amplification effect by approximately 30%. Concomitantly, wholesale Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) enable atomic cross-border settlement, reducing settlement latency from days to seconds. By shortening the cash conversion cycle (CCC), these programmable payment infrastructures improve working capital (WC) efficiency by 12% and strengthen corporate liquidity. Overall, the findings illustrate the transition from laissez-faire hyperglobalization to a managed globalization model, in which corporate performance is increasingly assessed through risk-adjusted resilience metrics rather than just traditional short-term profitability indicators. The convergence of Agentic AI, digital twins, and programmable monetary infrastructures provides the network agility and financial flexibility needed to sustain resilient global value chains in a context of persistent geopolitical uncertainty.