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Mapped: Where are the World’s Ongoing Conflicts Today?

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Mapping World's Ongoing Conflicts

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Where are the World’s Ongoing Conflicts Today?

We live in an era of relative peace compared to most of history, however, this does not mean that there are no conflicts in the world today.

This map using data from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) reveals where the world’s 27 ongoing conflicts are today, and what type of conflicts they are.

Note: conflicts are categorized by definitions laid out by the CFR.

Detailing the Conflicts

Many people alive today have never lived through a war on their country’s soil, especially those in the West. But conflict, wars, and violence are by no means things of the past.

According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), as of Q2’2021 alone:

  • Violence against civilians resulted in over 5,000 deaths worldwide
  • Battle related deaths numbered over 18,000
  • Explosion/remote violence led to more than 4,000 deaths
  • Riots resulted in over 600 fatalities

Most of the world’s conflicts are concentrated in Asia and Africa and the most common forms are territorial disputes and civil wars. While terrorism often strikes fear in people, only three of the world’s ongoing conflicts are linked to terrorism, according to the CFR.

Conflict NameTypeCountries Involved
Civil War in South SudanCivil War🇸🇸 South Sudan
War in YemenCivil War🇾🇪 Yemen
Civil War in LibyaCivil War🇱🇾 Libya
War in AfghanistanCivil War🇦🇫 Afghanistan
Civil War in SyriaCivil War🇸🇾 Syria
Instability in IraqCivil War🇮🇶 Iraq
Criminal Violence in MexicoCriminal🇲🇽 Mexico
Confrontation of U.S. & IranInterstates🇺🇸 United States
🇮🇷 Iran
Conflict of India & PakistanInterstates🇮🇳 India
🇵🇰 Pakistan
North Korea CrisisInterstates🇺🇸 United States
🇰🇵 North Korea
Violence in the DRCPolitical Instability🇨🇩 DRC
Instability in EgyptPolitical Instability🇪🇬 Egypt
Political Instability in LebanonPolitical Instability🇱🇧 Lebanon
Instability in VenezuelaPolitical Instability🇻🇪 Venezuela
Tigray War in EthiopiaPolitical Instability🇪🇹 Ethiopia
Boko Haram in NigeriaSectarian🇳🇬 Nigeria
Violence in Central African RepublicSectarian🇨🇫 Central African Republic
Rohingya Crisis in MyanmarSectarian🇲🇲 Myanmar
Nagorno-Karabakh ConflictTerritorial Disputes🇦🇲 Armenia
🇦🇿 Azerbaijan
Conflict in UkraineTerritorial Disputes🇺🇦 Ukraine
🇷🇺 Russia
Israeli-Palestine ConflictTerritorial Disputes🇮🇱 Israel
🇵🇸 Palestine
Turkey & Armed Kurdish GroupsTerritorial Disputes🇹🇷 Turkey
South China Sea DisputesTerritorial Disputes🇨🇳 China
🇻🇳 Vietnam
🇵🇭 Philippines
Tensions in East China SeaTerritorial Disputes🇨🇳 China
🇯🇵 Japan
Destabilization in MaliTerrorism🇲🇱 Mali
Al-Shabab in SomaliaTerrorism🇸🇴 Somalia
Islamist Militancy in PakistanTerrorism🇵🇰 Pakistan

As an example of a more typical conflict, Myanmar’s civil unrest began in February 2020 when the military overthrew the democratically elected government and arrested the country’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The civilian population has been protesting heavily but to no avail. According to a BBC report, more than 860 people have been killed and around 5,000 have been detained.

This is just one of the many examples of persistent violence today including recent events like Mexico’s midterm election violence, Ethiopia’s fighting in the country’s Tigray region, and the fighting between Israel and Palestine over the Sheikh Jarrah evictions.

Finally, though the United States military has now withdrawn from Afghanistan, and the Taliban has taken control of the country, the outlook for the country remains uncertain.

War and Peace

While there are conflicts today, deaths from violence and wars have and wars have decreased over time. For example, battle death rates in state-based conflicts have reduced significantly in a period from 1946 to 2016.

However, according to the UN, although battle related deaths have been decreasing, the number of conflicts occurring in the last few years has actually been on the rise (they have simply remained less deadly). Most conflicts have been waged by non-state actors, like organized criminal groups and political militias.

The UN found that the most common causes of conflict today are:

  • Regional tensions
  • Breakdowns in the rule of law
  • Co-opted or absent state institutions
  • Illicit economic gain
  • Scarcity of resources exacerbated by climate change

Traditional war between countries and war-related deaths may be becoming a thing of the past, but the threat of violence is still very real. Many countries know this as they continue to build up armies and spend significant amounts on military and defense.

The Future of Warfare

War and conflict are still extremely relevant in the 21st century and impact millions of people. However, traditional warfare may be changing its shape and may become less deadly as a result.

For instance, issues like climate change will create further exacerbations on conflicts, and new forms of technological and cyber warfare could threaten countries’ elections and manipulate populations.

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Misc

Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

How many democracies does the world have? This visual shows the change since 1945 and the top nations becoming more (and less) democratic.

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Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

The end of World War II in 1945 was a turning point for democracies around the world.

Before this critical turning point in geopolitics, democracies made up only a small number of the world’s countries, both legally and in practice. However, over the course of the next six decades, the number of democratic nations would more than quadruple.

Interestingly, studies have found that this trend has recently reversed as of the 2010s, with democracies and non-democracies now in a deadlock.

In this visualization, Staffan Landin uses data from V-DEM’s Electoral Democratic Index (EDI) to highlight the changing face of global politics over the past two decades and the nations that contributed the most to this change.

The Methodology

V-DEM’s EDI attempts to measure democratic development in a comprehensive way, through the contributions of 3,700 experts from countries around the world.

Instead of relying on each nation’s legally recognized system of government, the EDI analyzes the level of electoral democracy in countries on a range of indicators, including:

  • Free and fair elections
  • Rule of law
  • Alternative sources of information and association
  • Freedom of expression

Countries are assigned a score on a scale from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating a higher level of democracy. Each is also categorized into four types of functional government, from liberal and electoral democracies to electoral and closed autocracies.

Which Countries Have Declined the Most?

The EDI found that numerous countries around the world saw declines in democracy over the past two decades. Here are the 10 countries that saw the steepest decline in EDI score since 2010:

CountryDemocracy Index (2010)Democracy Index (2022)Points Lost
🇭🇺 Hungary0.800.46-34
🇵🇱 Poland0.890.59-30
🇷🇸 Serbia0.610.34-27
🇹🇷 Turkey0.550.28-27
🇮🇳 India0.710.44-27
🇲🇱 Mali0.510.25-26
🇹🇭 Thailand0.440.20-24
🇦🇫 Afghanistan0.380.16-22
🇧🇷 Brazil0.880.66-22
🇧🇯 Benin0.640.42-22

Central and Eastern Europe was home to three of the countries seeing the largest declines in democracy. Hungary, Poland, and Serbia lead the table, with Hungary and Serbia in particular dropping below scores of 0.5.

Some of the world’s largest countries by population also decreased significantly, including India and Brazil. Across most of the top 10, the “freedom of expression” indicator was hit particularly hard, with notable increases in media censorship to be found in Afghanistan and Brazil.

Countries Becoming More Democratic

Here are the 10 countries that saw the largest increase in EDI score since 2010:

CountryDemocracy Index (2010)Democracy Index (2022)Points Gained
🇦🇲 Armenia0.340.74+40
🇫🇯 Fiji0.140.40+26
🇬🇲 The Gambia0.250.50+25
🇸🇨 Seychelles0.450.67+22
🇲🇬 Madagascar0.280.48+20
🇹🇳 Tunisia0.400.56+16
🇱🇰 Sri Lanka0.420.57+15
🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau0.410.56+15
🇲🇩 Moldova0.590.74+15
🇳🇵 Nepal0.460.59+13

Armenia, Fiji, and Seychelles saw significant improvement in the autonomy of their electoral management bodies in the last 10 years. Partially as a result, both Armenia and Seychelles have seen their scores rise above 0.5.

The Gambia also saw great improvement across many election indicators, including the quality of voter registries, vote buying, and election violence. It was one of five African countries to make the top 10 most improved democracies.

With the total number of democracies and non-democracies almost tied over the past four years, it is hard to predict the political atmosphere in the future.

Want to know more about democracy in today’s world? Check out our global breakdown of each country’s democratic score in Mapped: The State of Global Democracy in 2022.
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