Conflict has been on the rise across the globe in recent years, increasing instability and exposing the weaknesses of the international system. This trend continued in 2025, with intractable, long-running wars ongoing in many parts of the world; a new conflict emerging in the Western Hemisphere, as the United States conducts strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats near Latin America; and historic border disputes continuing to fuel fresh clashes between countries such as Cambodia and Thailand.
Meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine war is still raging, and there are many reasons to be skeptical that peace negotiations will produce a deal—particularly as Moscow continues to pummel Kyiv with devastating strikes and pushes for more Ukrainian territory.
Conflict has been on the rise across the globe in recent years, increasing instability and exposing the weaknesses of the international system. This trend continued in 2025, with intractable, long-running wars ongoing in many parts of the world; a new conflict emerging in the Western Hemisphere, as the United States conducts strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats near Latin America; and historic border disputes continuing to fuel fresh clashes between countries such as Cambodia and Thailand.
Meanwhile, the Russia-Ukraine war is still raging, and there are many reasons to be skeptical that peace negotiations will produce a deal—particularly as Moscow continues to pummel Kyiv with devastating strikes and pushes for more Ukrainian territory.
Although a cease-fire has been reached between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, it’s a fragile truce, and hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the time since. The humanitarian situation in the coastal enclave remains dire, and there is an array of significant obstacles to overcome to move the peace process to the next phase.
In Sudan, a brutal civil war has displaced millions of people and catalyzed what the United Nations has described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Aid workers have repeatedly been killed there, in one of many examples of the ways in which humanitarian work has become increasingly weaponized—a problem that’s been exacerbated by foreign aid cuts and the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Here are five key statistics on conflict around the world that help paint a picture of the scale of the problems that the international community faces as it heads into 2026.
An increase in the targeting of civilians overwhelmingly characterized conflict in 2025. This year, more than 56,000 incidents of violence directed at civilians were recorded, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project’s Conflict Index—marking the highest level of this type of violence in the past five years.
Nonstate armed groups and mobs were responsible for roughly two-thirds of all civilian-targeted violence, making up 59 percent of civilian fatalities. From allegations of genocide by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in Sudan to rampant gang violence in Ecuador, Haiti, and Mexico, civilians have become increasingly caught in the crossfire. Such violence was the primary reason for Ecuador jumping 36 spots to become the country with the sixth-highest number of reported conflict incidents this year.
State-led attacks also greatly contributed to civilian casualty numbers. In 2025, state forces were responsible for 35 percent of violent incidents against civilians, up from 20 percent in 2020. Russian, Israeli, and Burmese forces were particularly culpable for a large portion of civilian-targeted attacks. Around 831 million people (or 1 in 6 people in the world) were exposed to conflict this year.
Conflict continues to fuel displacement globally. As of June 2025, the most recent reporting period, there were more than 117 million displaced people worldwide, including 42.5 million refugees and 67.8 million internally displaced people, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
Widespread displacement has been a consistent and increasing problem in recent years. In 2024, for example, there were more than 123 million displaced people worldwide—an increase of nearly 6 million from the year prior.
World military expenditures rose to $2.7 trillion in 2024, according to a Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report—their highest year-on-year rise since at least 1988, near the end of the Cold War. That marks an increase of 37 percent over the past decade.
While these expenditures were made in 2024, the most recent year for which there is comprehensive data, the implication of their use was felt widely throughout 2025. 2024 was the second consecutive year that military expenditures increased across all five of the world’s regions (i.e., Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania, Europe, and the Middle East), indicating that countries are investing more in their own security amid fears of spillover violence. These concerns proved to be realistic in 2025, as the international community documented spillover fighting in the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas conflicts as well as in the Sudanese civil war.
The United States maintained its status as the No. 1 military spender, with expenditures hitting $997 billion (or 37 percent of the world’s total). In a distant second came China, spending $314 billion (or 12 percent of the world’s total), followed by Russia at $149 billion (or 5.5 percent of the world’s total). Germany rose from seventh place in 2023 to fourth place in 2024, displacing India to the fifth spot. And weapons-producing companies recorded a 5.9 percent increase in revenue from arms and services sales from 2023 to 2024, totaling $679 billion.
The United States has made it clear that it is done being Europe’s security blanket. As the Russia-Ukraine war slid into its fourth year, U.S. President Donald Trump demanded that NATO increase its minimum defense spending requirement from 2 percent to 5 percent of countries’ GDPs—lifting the burden of protection off Washington and forcing Europe to take greater responsibility for its own defense.
Trump’s appeal worked. At the end of 2024, eight of NATO’s 32 member states did not meet the 2 percent target. By the end of 2025, though, all 32 members were spending above 2 percent, meaning that the alliance is now projected to bring in at least an extra $156 billion in defense spending over the next five years. That’s not taking into account the seven countries hitting above 3 percent of their GDPs as of June 2025.
Although some NATO members (particularly Spain) were initially resistant to the 5 percent pledge, fears of the Russia-Ukraine war spreading to the rest of Europe appear to have prevailed, forcing the alliance to dedicate more funding to military capabilities and equipment readiness. And with 2025 seeing a slew of Russian drone and fighter jet incursions into NATO airspace, Europe appears more willing than ever to invest in its own defense.
NATO members must reach the 5 percent threshold within the next 10 years. As of now, no country is meeting that benchmark.
It’s an increasingly dangerous time to be a journalist in a conflict zone. In 2023, a reporter or media worker was killed or murdered in a conflict zone every four days, on average—and every three days in 2024, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. But the dangers of this work were especially pronounced for Palestinian reporters in Gaza, who faced a uniquely deadly set of circumstances.
Rights groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists believe Israel has deliberately targeted journalists in Gaza. The war in the coastal enclave ranks as the worst-ever conflict for reporters. It has killed more journalists than the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan combined, according to Costs of War.
According to the latest annual report from Reporters Without Borders (RSF), 67 journalists had been killed around the world in 2025, as of Dec. 1—and nearly half (43 percent) of those killed were in Gaza.
“This is where the hatred of journalists leads!” RSF Director-General Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement on the report.
