2018: The Year In War

Via Wikimedia Commons.

In keeping with the start of a new year, here is 21st Century Asian Arms Race’s own The Year In War. Seen below are summaries detailing the violent struggles in the less than orderly parts of our world.

The value of this annual report is hindsight and insight for examining the role war plays in shaping societies. It’s better if the lessons imparted by recent experience don’t go to waste, even if some truly ominous signs have manifested: China, Russia, and the United States are now locked in a bitter struggle to decide who can reshape the idea of “global order,” brutal authoritarians or an exceptional superpower with unchecked tendencies?

Let’s have a moment for a little perspective. This decade, the 2010s, began with so much promise. Indeed, the only serious wars were those waged by the US in failed and failing states. But the Arab Spring happened and so did EuroMaidan. Worse, problems that originated in the middle of the 20th century managed to not resolve themselves, from Palestine to the Korean DMZ.

The world is so much different now. A conventional war has dragged on in Ukraine since 2014. Unchecked violence and weak governments are causing persistent humanitarian crises in Central Africa and Central America. The fresh wars of the Middle East have no clear resolution and look doomed to carry on until the 2020s. A grim outlook is understandable.

Contrary to the quarter century of peace (1991-2014) that has gone by, significant military build ups are taking place across Eurasia at a time when restrictions on both battlefield weapons and nuclear arsenals are crumbling. Until this year, we lived on a planet that can be described as a “troubled landscape” enduring an “anxious peace.” Not anymore.

The paranoid realists have won. The home we all share is a sad and dangerous one shadowed by death and doom.

Countries that experience armed conflict or are engaged in war and ongoing military operations are listed below. There’s a remarkable overlap with conflicts between 2018 and 2019, with few discernible changes. Summaries of these trouble spots can be read here.

Afghanistan

Central African Republic

Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras)

Chad

D.R. Congo

Egypt

India

Iran

Iraq

Israel

Libya

Mali

Mexico

Myanmar

Niger

Nigeria

Pakistan

Philippines

Russia

Somalia

Sudan

South Sudan

Syria

Turkey

Ukraine

Yemen