The Romans would later get their revenge when they attacked the quarreling Goths and Huns, bouncing the latter out of Central Europe. Facing invasion from formidable Mongol forces, central European princes temporarily placed their regional conflicts aside to defend their territory. Though the Mongols were slowly pushed eastward, they loomed large on the fringes of Europe until almost the 16th century.
A pivotal moment for Lithuania came after a decisive win at the Battle of Blue Waters. This victory stifled the expansion of the Golden Horde, and brought present-day Ukraine into its sphere of influence.
The end of the Holy Roman Empire highlights the extreme territorial fragmentation in Germany and neighboring regions, in an era referred to as Kleinstaaterei. Unification helped position Germany as a major power, and by the country had the largest economy in Europe.
The Ottoman Empire—a fixture in Eastern Europe for hundreds of years—was in its waning years by the beginning of the 20th century. The empire had ceded territory in two costly wars with Italy and Balkan states, and by the time the dust cleared on WWI, the borders of the newly minted nation of Turkey began at the furthest edge of continental Europe.
After the war, Germany again became fragmented into occupation zones—this time, overseen by the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. Germany would not be made whole again until , when a weakening Soviet Union loosened its grip on East Germany. In the decades following WWII, the political boundaries of the European map remained relatively stable—that is, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in When the dust settled, there were 15 breakaway republics , six of which were in Europe.
Bonus: If you liked the video above, be sure to watch this year-by-year account of who ruled territories across Europe. The index measures the social risk landscape of different cities across the globe, using three key pillars:. After calculating scores based on these three metrics, cities were then grouped into four categories to measure their level of social risk:. Of the top places, Istanbul and Izmir rank the highest when it comes to overall human rights risks, largely because of labor rights violations and the exploitation of migrant and refugee workers.
This is something manufacturers should take note of, especially those who outsource production to these Turkish cities. But violent conflicts in other areas have also contributed, as well as the massive flow of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh at the end of In alone, more than 41 million people were internally displaced.
Of these, almost 26 million were categorized as refugees, and another 3. The ongoing war in Syria has had the most damaging effect, with 6. Such is the severity of the civil war that a further 6. By the end of , Turkey had taken in 3. Aside from Syria, the other countries producing the most refugees at the end of were Afghanistan 2.
Other nations that host a large proportion of refugees include Pakistan 1. The available statistics on global conflicts are contradictory. The last 70 years have been the most peaceful in history.
The ratio of fatalities to population and the absolute number of fatalities from armed conflicts are also lowest in history. However, thousands die in armed conflicts every month. The number of conflicts is growing. Violence now accounts for more than ten percent of world GDP. Tens of millions of people have been forced to flee their homes. And global military spending today is close to Cold War levels.
Because potential losses of open war exceed potential gains, major powers have used smaller, regional conflicts to protect their interests and fight for resources and influence. This explains the massive increase of displaced persons around the world. Those conditions will probably get worse. All our charts on Civil Wars Battle-related deaths in state-based conflicts since Civil wars since James Fearon and David Laitin explain the peak in the s as the result of the accumulation of protracted conflicts: 2 The prevalence of internal war in the s is mainly the result of an accumulation of protracted conflicts since the s rather than a sudden change associated with a new, post-Cold War international system.
The prevalence and persistence of civil wars. Greed versus Grievance: the causes of civil war One of the most influential studies on civil war is that by Collier and Hoeffler. Their main findings are summarized below: Availability of finance : Primary commodity exports substantially increase the risk of conflict, and the authors interpret this as the effect of opportunities to extort.
Diasporas also increase the risk of conflict renewal, which is interpreted to be the result of diaspora financing. This type of financing was a particular feature of the Sri Lankan Civil War where the Tamil Tigers received significant funding from the diaspora population.
Opportunity cost of rebellion : Measures of opportunity cost such as male secondary education enrollment, per capita income and the growth rate all have significant conflict reduction effects. These variables collectively proxy the foregone earnings if individuals choose to rebel. Military advantage : Population dispersion increases the risk of conflict because it provides the rebels with military advantage.
Population size : A large population increases the risk of conflict. The reason for this effect is left open to interpretation and may reflect increased opportunities or grievances. Protesters have learned lessons, settling in for the long haul and, for the most part, avoiding violence that plays in the hands of those they contest. Political and military elites have learned, too, of course — resorting to various means to weather the storm.
In Algeria, meanwhile, leaders have merely played musical chairs. In too many other places, they have cracked down. Still, in almost all, the pervasive sense of economic injustice that brought people onto the streets remains.
If governments new or old cannot address that, the world should expect more cities ablaze this coming year. More people are being killed as a result of fighting in Afghanistan than in any other current conflict in the world. Yet there may be a window this coming year to set in motion a peace process aimed at ending the decades-long war.
Levels of bloodshed have soared over the past two years. Separate attacks by Taliban insurgents and Islamic State militants have rocked cities and towns across the country. Less visible is the bloodshed in the countryside. Washington and Kabul have stepped up air assaults and special-forces raids, with civilians often bearing the brunt of violence.
Suffering in rural areas is immense. Amid the uptick in violence, presidential elections took place in late September. Preliminary results, announced on 22 December, give incumbent President Ashraf Ghani a razor-thin margin over the 50 per cent needed to avoid a run-off. Whether the dispute will lead to a second round of voting is unclear, but either way it will likely consume Afghan leaders into Last year did, however, see some light in U.
For the first time since the war began, Washington has prioritised reaching a deal with the insurgents. After months of quiet talks, U. Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban leaders agreed on and initialed a draft text. Under the deal, the U. Hopes were dashed when Trump abruptly declared the talks dead in early September. He had invited Taliban leaders to Camp David, along with Ghani, and when the insurgents declined to come unless the agreement was signed first, Trump invoked a Taliban attack that killed a U.
In reality, the U. Continuing with the status quo offers only the prospect of endless war, while precipitously pulling U. Any deal should pave the way for talks among Afghans, which means tying the pace of the U.
That chance, however, is the product of a confluence of local, regional, and international factors and, if not seized now, may quickly fade. Yemen has become a critical fault line in the Middle East-wide rivalry between Iran on the one hand and the U. Yet a year after it briefly grabbed international headlines, the five-year-old conflict is at risk of slipping back out of international consciousness.
The loss of focus is the flip side of recent good news. A December deal known as the Stockholm Agreement, fostered a fragile ceasefire around the Red Sea port city of Hodeida between the internationally recognised government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the Huthi rebels who seized the capital, Sanaa, from him in September The agreement likely prevented a famine and effectively froze fighting between the two sides.
Since then, the more dynamic aspects of the conflict have been a battle within the anti-Huthi front pitting southern secessionists against the Hadi government, and a cross-border war that has seen the launch of Huthi missiles and retaliatory Saudi airstrikes.
First, fighting between loyalists of the Southern Transitional Council STC and the government in August pushed the anti-Huthi bloc to the point of collapse. In response, Riyadh had little choice but to broker a truce between them to sustain its war effort. Second, in September, a missile attack on major Saudi oil production facilities — claimed by the Huthis, but widely suspected to have been launched by Tehran — highlighted the risks of a war involving the U.
This helped push the Saudis and Huthis to engage in talks aimed at de-escalating their conflict and removing Yemen from the playing field of the regional Saudi-Iran power struggle; both sides have significantly reduced cross-border strikes.
If this leads to a UN-brokered political process in , an end may be in sight. But the opportunity could evaporate. Heightening U. The lull in violent conflict in the second half of , in other words, should not be mistaken for a new normal.
The opportunity for peace should be seized now. He has ended a decades-long standoff with neighbouring Eritrea, freed political prisoners, welcomed rebels back from exile, and appointed reformers to key institutions. He has won accolades at home and abroad — including the Nobel Peace Prize. But enormous challenges loom. Mass protests between and that brought Abiy to power were motivated primarily by political and socio-economic grievances. Ethnic strife across the country has surged, killing hundreds, displacing millions, and fuelling hostility among leaders of its most powerful regions.
Elections scheduled for May could be violent and divisive, as candidates outbid each other in ethnic appeals for votes. Detractors argue that an ethnically-based system harms national unity.
It is past time, they say, to move beyond the ethnic politics that has long defined and divided the nation.
Abiy has generally sought a middle ground. In a worst-case scenario, some warn the country could fracture as Yugoslavia did in the s, with disastrous consequences for an already troubled region. Precisely who is responsible is often murky. In addition to Ansarul Islam, jihadi groups based in Mali, including the local Islamic State and al-Qaeda franchises, now also operate in Burkina Faso.
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