This is the first year that a transnational risk has made it onto our top conflicts list, as climate-related violence stretches from the Sahel to Nigeria and Central America. Still, with more frequent heat waves and extreme precipitation, many governments are harder-pressed to deal with food insecurity, water scarcity, migration, and competition for resources. It’s true that the causal chain is circuitous, with political responses to extreme weather patterns often playing a greater part than the patterns themselves. Next is climate change-hardly a novel phenomenon but an accelerating one with an increasingly discernible impact on conflict. Nor are the United States, Europe, or other donors likely to devote the requisite amount of high-level, continuous attention or resources on regional conflicts far away as they confront economic, social, and political havoc at home. The lines separating economic dissatisfaction from social unrest, and social unrest from outbreaks of violence, are thin.

In Sudan, Lebanon, and Venezuela, to mention but a few examples, one can expect the number of unemployed to grow, real incomes to collapse, governments to face mounting difficulties paying security forces, and the general population to increasingly rely on state support at a time when states are least equipped to provide it. Although income levels do not directly correlate with conflict, violence is more likely during periods of economic volatility.

The pandemic has precipitated a global economic crisis without precedent since World War II, with an additional 150 million people being driven below the extreme poverty line. Longer-term ramifications are a different matter. Although several low-income countries were hit badly, many were not diplomatic activity, international mediation, peacekeeping missions, and financial support to vulnerable populations suffered, but it’s questionable whether COVID-19 dramatically affected the trajectory of major wars, be they in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, or elsewhere.

When the pandemic first broke out, many-myself included-feared that it would have immediate, potentially devastating consequences in developing countries, especially those facing deadly conflict.

Current conflicts in the news