The Storms of War: Deadly Conflicts Proliferating
The world is a mess. Not all of it, but enough to keep a reasonably alert and informed person awake at night. If the state of the world doesn't concern you, you probably aren't paying attention.
Like brush fires, local and regional wars have a way of spreading, and the dead in a local or regional war are just as dead as those lost in a world war. Indeed, tens of thousands of men, women, and children are now routinely dying in war year after year. While most of us know little or nothing about all but a few of these conflicts, they are, nonetheless, brutal and deadly.
Among the deadliest wars so far in this still young century are the Second Congo War, the Syrian Civil War, the Darfur War in western Sudan, the war in Afghanistan following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the war against Boko Harem in Nigeria, the Yemeni Civil War, Russia's current war against Ukraine, and, of course, the current blood-letting between Israel and Hamas.
According to the Geneva Academy, the respected Swiss postgraduate institution concentrating on international law involving armed conflict, more than 110 armed conflicts are raging worldwide. Let that marinate for a moment or two.
Last year alone, 237,000 men, women, and children died in such organized violence, literally double the number of armed conflict deaths of the year before. The war death toll for 2023 hasn't been compiled yet, but the numbers will be gruesome. Some of these ongoing conflicts are very recent, such as the current iteration of Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza. Some have been raging for half a century, such as the civil war in Myanmar (Burma). All of them leave years of misery in their wake.
The Middle East, including North Africa, is, perhaps, the most blood-soaked region of the world, hosting more than 45 shooting wars. We read and hear a lot about Israel and Hamas duking it out in Gaza following Hamas's gruesome murder of Israelis in southern Israel on October 7. We hear much less about ongoing armed conflicts in Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Western Sahara. According to Dr. Chiara Redealli, a Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy, Syria is, actually, the most blood-soaked country in this remarkably bloody region.
There are scores of other active hot conflicts, most of which don't even make our daily newspapers, and relatively few of us can find the countries where they rage on a map. Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan aren't hosting many travelers eager to see the world. They are among the most dangerous places on the planet, places where hundreds, sometimes thousands, are counted as war dead in this region every day. Some countries, such as the Central African Republic, have had multiple raging wars. Last year, the war in Ethiopia's Tigray region accounted for over 100,000 battle-related deaths, according to Oslo's Peace Research Institute.
There are currently 21 separate armed conflicts raging in Asia, two of which are considered international wars (India-Pakistan and skirmishes between India and China). In some countries, such as Pakistan and the Philippines, there are multiple armed conflicts taking place simultaneously. Both countries are host to six separate regional in-country conflicts. In the Mindanao region of the Philippines, government forces are fighting various armed groups, including the Moro National Liberation Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, the Maute Group, and the Abu Sayyaf Group. In Pakistan, government forces are fighting Taliban-affiliated groups.
We think of the war in Ukraine as having been launched in February 2022, but that was just the most current iteration of Putin's assault on Ukrainian territory. The die was cast eight years earlier when Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine's pro-Putin president, fled to Russia following months of street demonstrations against his rule. Almost immediately after that, Russian troops grabbed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, which Putin illegally annexed, and shortly after that, he invaded the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. By 2021, more than 14,000 Ukrainians had died fighting Russia in eastern Ukraine.
While everyone is familiar with Putin's war in Ukraine, there are five other European nations or territories that Putin's armies have occupied, including Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, Moldova's Transdniestria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia (Georgia).
It is difficult to estimate the toll of Russia's war in Ukraine as both sides fudge their respective casualty numbers. U.S. estimates last August tallied approximately 300,000 Russian casualties, including as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 wounded. Ukrainian losses were estimated at 70,000 deaths and 100,000 to 120,000 wounded. Since those estimates were released, the toll of dead and wounded on both sides has, of course, climbed much higher.
Closer to home, there are six armed conflicts on our doorstep in Latin America—three in Mexico and three in Columbia. For the first time, the Geneva Academy has elevated Mexico's war against the drug cartels to an armed conflict because of the level of organization of the cartels and the intensity of the violence.
The twenty-first century is still young, but it has swiftly evolved into a violent, blood-soaked era and will probably worsen. China is eyeing Taiwan, North Korea is rushing to elbow its way into the nuclear club, and soon-to-be-nuclear Iran, which follows the Shia form of Islam, is eying all of Arabia, which embraces the Sunni form of Islam. The impending internecine religious conflict could make the 30-year holy war of the 17th century seem tame.
The outlook for the remaining three-quarters of the 21st century will not improve unless the world's nations wake up to the well-traveled but tragic path we are on.
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Please consider our Of Thee I Sing 1776 Premium option. While my weekly column is always free, for just $5/month, you’ll also receive my annual ebook, “Essays For Our Time,” and my new Podcasts.