Intervening in the World’s Conflict Spots

  

Intervening in the World’s Conflict Spots

The international order is fraying, generating uncertainty about who will intervene to resolve persistent conflicts, and who will fund humanitarian responses to human-made and natural disasters. Meanwhile, emerging crises, proxy wars and multiple hot spots pose new risks, even as the nature of transnational terrorism is evolving. 

As conflicts and crises persist around the world, there is growing uncertainty about how—or if—they will be resolved. The international order is fraying, generating uncertainty about who will intervene and how these interventions might be funded.

There are interminable conflicts, like the situations in Syria, Yemen and the Sahel, which have produced years of violence, countless thousands of deaths and even more refugees. Then there are the emerging hot spots, including Sudan and Myanmar, and any number of potential flashpoints, like the China-India frontier and the Eastern Mediterranean. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has now brought high-intensity, interstate warfare to the heart of Europe for the first time since the end of World War II. And the latest outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas has once again reminded global leaders that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be ignored at great peril.

At the same time, the nature of terrorism is also changing. After a period of recalibration following the loss of its caliphate in western Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has once again become more active in the two countries, even as it shifts its attention to new theaters of operation, like the Sahel, Afghanistan and Southeast Asia. In so doing, the group and its affiliates are taking advantage of dwindling international interest in mounting the kinds of counterinsurgency campaigns needed to meet these new challenges. More recently, the killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul raised questions about the group’s relations with Afghanistan’s new Taliban government.

These developments come at a time when Western powers have shown a flagging interest in conflict intervention, more broadly, as evidenced by the general disinterest in the civil war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region for the two years it lasted. And after a decade-long effort to counter Islamist groups in West Africa’s Sahel region, France and its European partners are now making plans to wind down their involvement, which has failed to accomplish any of its stated goals.

U.N. peacekeeping operations, which might traditionally have played a role in mitigating these conflicts, are also suffering from flagging enthusiasm. Difficult, unwieldy missions in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan have curbed the global appetite for peacekeepers. Now the fallout from the West’s geopolitical standoff with Russia threatens to paralyze the Security Council, which could further jeopardize the U.N.’s peacekeeping capabilities. The resulting vacuum has opened up opportunities for regional organizations, including the African Union, to fill the gaps. But it is not yet clear if they will.

All of this is happening against a backdrop of proliferating humanitarian emergencies due to conflict and natural disasters. Persistent fighting in eastern Congo hampered the response to the Ebola outbreak in the region and continues to slow humanitarian efforts. Meanwhile, refugee numbers are swelling, even as climate change is generating new crises, while further stretching the scant resources available for addressing the existing ones.