2. Global trends in armed conflict

In 2025 the global landscape of armed conflict retained the form it took in 2024, with large-scale and sustained violence across multiple regions. The number of locations of armed conflict fell slightly, from 50 states in 2024 to 49 in 2025. Most of the fighting in those states continued to be internal—involving forces of the government and non-state armed groups—rather than against another state. However, the number of interstate armed conflicts doubled from three in 2024 to six in 2025 and involved at least 13 states: Afghanistan–Pakistan; Cambodia–Thailand; India–Pakistan; Iran–Israel/United States; Russia/North Korea–Ukraine; and the Democratic Republic of the Congo–Rwanda. The war in Gaza fell into something of a grey zone as it can be classified as part of the broader Palestinian conflict between a state (Israel) and an actor aspiring to statehood.

The overall estimated number of conflict-related fatalities reduced slightly (by 4.2 per cent) from 249 000 in 2024 to 238 000 in 2025 but this was still higher than in any other year in the period 2018–25 (the period for which consistent data is available). There were five major armed conflicts in 2025 (i.e. involving over 10 000 conflict-related fatalities), one more than in 2024. The number 
of high-intensity conflicts (i.e. involving 1000–9999 conflict-related fatalities) reduced from 23 in 2024 to 20 in 2025.

Precision-strike weapons, artificial intelligence-assisted targeting, autonomous weapon systems, swarms of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) and cyber operations are now being routinely used in armed conflicts, raising many ethical and legal questions, especially about human oversight. Violations of international humanitarian law are increasing, with reports of child soldier recruitment, sexual violence, starvation tactics and attacks on health services showing a worrying rise in prohibited methods of warfare. Forced displacement also remains a large-scale humanitarian challenge. By mid 2025, around 117.3 million people were displaced, reflecting the human cost of the conflicts.

The global trends in armed conflict visible in 2025 suggest that the norm against territorial conquest is under severe strain, with annexations and occupations in Ukraine, the Middle East, the South China Sea and elsewhere testing the post-World War II principle that territory cannot be acquired by force. If left unchecked, the erosion of the prohibition on the use of force will return geopolitics to a raw contest of military power.