Why Are There So Many Wars at the Moment?

Wars have dominated the news cycle in 2023, and reports are suggesting that this year has seen the most regional conflicts for decades. So why is this happening? What are the factors that are instigating these conflicts? And how might this change in 2024?

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00:00 Introduction
00:57 Context
01:33 Territorial Disputes
03:31 Authoritarianism
04:55 Organised Crime
06:03 Armed Non-State Groups
07:03 Climate Change
08:34 2024: What Next?
10:21 Brilliant

[infidelheretic]

Instability in one region breeds instability in others.

Opportunistic leaders try to exploit distracted enemies whilst another war is ongoing.

[dulio]

One thing that often gets overlooked is Leadership; We're at this wierd time where most of the antagonistic actors seem to have leaders that are aging out, have shaky domestic support or at the end of their tenure, so they're incentivized to get into conflicts to prolong their posting or make a bid to cement their legacy while the usual pillars of stability are either more concerned with domestic affairs, reluctant to engage in conflict or have ulterior interests. Case in point your three major powers (US, Russia and China) have leaders that are over the age of 70. Its a really wierd world where Japan's PM is younger than all of them.

[Malaika-ucsm]

I live in South Africa. But with a rise in crime I feel like I am in a war zone or something. The fact I'm in one of few countries in Africa without war doesn't make me proud at all.

[TheNinjaDC]

I feel economic issues are also a factor. The post pandemic economic slump is potentially the worst economic disruption since the great depression.

And desperate economic environments breed desperate political moves. The great depression lead to WW2 just as much as WW1 did.

[sspectre]

As a costarrican I’m usually excited when our country gets mentioned but it’s very much true about the rise of violence and organized crime here. The main of it is our newest president making some funding cuts including defunding a lot of border security, a couple of months ago a gang member killed a cop something that has happened very rarely here and is a very bad sign. The moment organized crime believes they can overpower the state is when things begin to escalate rapidly

[eisbergsyndrom]

I miss the good old days where we didn't live in a Hearts of Iron IV mod.

[dazrienhaizor]

As messed up as it sounds, this level of wars is the norm across history. We all just got used to the US being the only millitary power that mattered, but over the last 30 years China, Russia, Iran and other have stepped up, which also forces Europe to step up as we’ve seen with German rearmament

[jacobyboyer]

Come on yall, the transition out of a unipolar system and the last decade of America's retreat from its Hegemon status is clearly a factor in the rise in wars and stability. The rate of conflict tracks with other periods of polarity shift (the fall of the USSR in the 90s)

[seanross]

There's one huge factor that you didn't mention. There is a huge denial of history causing people to lash out in anger at the wrong side of conflict. The world is just generally more stupid than it has ever been. People refuse science, history, and facts on a staggering scale. Today popular opinion is treated as more valid than the reality of things.

[attemptedunkindness]

2026: Yeah so it turns out all of that was WW3, we just didn't want to panic you.

[jebuschrist]

i remember when 2016 was considered a bad year beacuse of some political stuff, ah i miss those innocent times

[Abotekapio]

Let’s hope that 2024 will be a more peaceful year

[manwiththeredface]

Why so many wars? Because history. We grew up in an unprecedentedly long peacetime. We didn't become wiser and learned how to cooperate with one another but became afraid of the Big Bad Nuke and started waging economic warfare and other underhanded tactics (spies etc.) instead. Third world nations don't have that fear so all gloves are off in their conflicts.

[Legendary]

Trust me this is not even the beginning. 2023 will be looked on as a good year compared to whats gonna happen a few decades from now. Rising wealth inequality, crashing birthrates, people getting married less, etc is all a sign of bad times ahead

[BucketKingu]

One thing that is quickly falling behind the curtains due to more 'dramatic' causes of war is resources. Resources we previously viewed as things everyone should have like water, for example, is quickly drying up, and we already have fights breaking out about it. It's only going to get worse.

[Kardia_of_Rhodes]

We're starting to reach a point where the generations that do remember global conflict are at an age where they simply don't care anymore, and the generations that don't have never truly experienced it.

[TitoMikiii]

If this were HOI4, I wonder how high the World Tension is 😓

[LTAD-xisw]

You do realise you’re basically giving future GCSE History students the answers don’t you 😂

[randomcoyote]

Democracy is hard. It requires an educated, well-informed population that is engaged in the issues. But people are lazy. They want to come up with some unicorn-and-rainbows perfect system that runs itself without the need to check in but once every 4 years or so.

[landonconner]

If this doesn’t boil over to WWIII, then can we call it “The Phantom World War”?