The international order is fraying, generating uncertainty about who will intervene to resolve persistent conflicts, and who will fund humanitarian responses to human-made and natural disasters. Meanwhile, emerging crises and multiple hotspots pose new risks, even as the nature of transnational terrorism is evolving.
As conflicts and crises persist around the world, there is growing uncertainty about how—or if—they will be resolved. The international order is fraying, generating uncertainty about who will intervene and how humanitarian responses might be funded.
There are interminable conflicts, like the situations in Yemen, Afghanistan and South Sudan, which have produced years of violence, countless thousands of deaths and even more refugees. Then there are the emerging hotspots, including Mali and Burkina Faso, and any number of potential flashpoints, including in the South China Sea, which is dogged by territorial disputes. Even situations where there was some tenuous hope of reconciliation—such as the Central African Republic, where 14 armed groups recently signed a peace deal—are in danger of unraveling.
At the same time, the nature of terrorism is also changing. The Islamic State is in the midst of a tactical shift following the loss of its caliphate in western Iraq and Syria, and more recently the death of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The group appears to be transitioning to guerilla-style tactics and dispersed terrorist attacks, like the recent bombings in Sri Lanka. But it is not clear that Western powers have the appetite for mounting the kinds of counterinsurgency campaigns needed to meet these new challenges.
Troops ride in a vehicle near central Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, March 2, 2018 (AP photo by Ludivine Laniepce). The country's emerging conflict is outpacing the government's response.
In Syria, a broad range of players remain engaged, but that is one of the few examples where the international community has shown a willingness to intervene. And even there the commitment of some actors, namely the United States, is flagging. The traditional powers are also undermining the ability of the United Nations to respond to crises, further weakening the post-World War II international order. The resulting vacuum has introduced opportunities for regional organizations, including the African Union, to fill the gaps, both in terms of stemming conflict and responding to disasters. But it is not yet clear if they will.
Meanwhile, emergencies due to conflict and natural disasters are proliferating at a rate that is outstripping the available resources to mount a response. Persistent conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has hampered the response to the Ebola outbreak in the region, even as that response has sown distrust and fueled new violence. South Sudan’s conflict, motivated in part by access to resources, has produced persistent food shortages that tipped over into famine last year. Refugee numbers are swelling, even as climate change is set to generate new crises.
WPR has covered the world’s conflicts and crises in detail and continues to examine key questions about how they will evolve. How will the conflict in Syria be resolved, and can more humanitarian crises be averted while the fighting lasts? Who will intervene to prevent emerging conflicts? As the effects of climate change accelerate, will famines become more frequent? Below are some of the highlights of WPR’s coverage.
More than five years after Russia annexed Crimea, with the war in eastern Ukraine grinding on, is a détente between Moscow and Kyiv finally within reach? It might have been tempting to think so with the summit in early December in Paris between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was only a few months ago, after all, that Putin and Zelensky had their first phone call, which led to Russia and Ukraine swapping dozens of prisoners and agreeing to consider reopening talks over the political future of the breakaway Donbas region. Yet despite some progress in Paris, a détente is still far off.
Terrorism
The United States and other Western nations have demonstrated a diminished appetite for continuing to fight transnational terrorist networks, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State, in distant lands. But the threat of violent extremism may actually be spreading, as the ISIS-claimed terror attacks in Sri Lanka illustrated. Meanwhile, future efforts to counter insurgencies will have to adapt to emerging technologies, which are lowering the bar to entry, as well as the evolving, flattening structure of terrorist networks.
Persistent Conflict and Crises
Across the globe, there are a handful of years-long conflicts that show no signs of drawing to a close. In some situations, like Syria and Yemen, that is because the fighting on a local level is a proxy for battles between other countries. Places like South Sudan and the Central African Republic are torn by rivalries among key domestic actors amid global disinterest. And then there is Afghanistan, where the United States appears trapped in a forever war.
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