- - 032021 There were 56 active conflicts re conflicts active 56 were There 55 from up during the year, corded in 2019. in reported fatalities of The number 50,000 under to for dropped 2020 2012. the firstsince time the deadliest remains of 40%all about conflict, casu with in 2020. recorded alties in wars active eight were There six and in 2019 seven from up 2020, in 2018. conflicts in in 16 involved was IS for account conflicts These 2020. all of casualties. 13% CONFLICT TRENDS Brief Points • • • • • Håvard Strand University of Oslo & PRIO Hegre Håvard Uppsala University & PRIO - - -

ca. The Islamic State (IS) remains remains (IS) State ca. The Islamic involved was it problem; a global in conflicts 2020. in 16 ing conflicts are found across Afriacross found ing are conflicts ed by many of the same conflicts conflicts the same of many by ed A ago. 30 years present that were can conflicts be these of number the Soviet of the demise to traced endur of set another while Union, 2020 provided ample evidence that long-term is a resolution conflict dominat was the year as venture, 1946–2020 Trends in Armed Conflict, Conflict, Armed in Trends

Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Conflict Trends Project ISBN: 978-82-343-0205-3 (print) PO Box 9229 Grønland, NO-0134 Oslo, Norway www.prio.org/ConflictTrends 978-82-343-0206-0 (online) Visiting Address: Hausmanns gate 3 Minor conflict (25+) 140,000 Trends in 2020 War (1,000+) 50 120,000 On the whole, the global level of armed con- Number of conflicts 40 flicts in 2020 was similar to 2019, showing ap- 100,000 proximately the same number of conflicts, wars 80,000 30 and casualties. In Figure 1, we illustrate conflict trends from 1989 to 2020: while the number 60,000 20 Battle deaths of conflicts has risen over this time period, the 40,000 number of casualties is slightly down. 10 20,000 The data used in this policy brief were collected 0 0 by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), which records and classifies armed conflicts 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 around the world for the period 1945–2020. The Figure 1: Number of battle deaths and conflicts, 1989–2020. Source: UCDP database (ucdp.uu.se) UCDP distinguishes between wars and minor conflicts: wars are defined by battle-related The war in Somalia has been ongoing for more late 1980s and exploded in 1992. By 1994, a deaths (BRD) in excess of 1,000 per year, while than 30 years and has been classified as a war truce was signed, which effectively recognized minor conflicts account for BRD between 25 every year since 2005, recording, on average, ap- separatist control over the region, but this truce and 1,000 annually. proximately 2,000 casualties every year for the did not result in any international recognition. last five years. 2020 recorded 56 active conflicts, which is a Islamic State record-high for the period covered by the UCDP. An intense war has raged in Yemen since 2015 Eight of these active conflicts were wars, com- when the Ansarallah group attempted a govern- A key reason for the increasing number of con- pared to seven wars in 2019 and six in 2018. The ment take-over, unsettling the sitting president flicts is the Islamic State, or IS. The nature of increase in the number of wars is worrisome. Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The Yemeni govern- IS and their political claims are quite unique. Research shows that while minor conflicts have ment has been supported in this war by a Sau- While most insurgents are fighting to become little impact on societies, wars cause a number of di-led multinational alliance and the number of the government of a country (as in Yemen) or problems, often for a very long time. fatalities increased significantly between 2019 striving to achieve independence for a part of and 2020, from about 1,700 to more than 2,300. a country (as in Ethiopia), IS seeks to unite all Eight Wars into a new political entity that spans The war in Nigeria took a turn for the worse in and subsumes several countries under a new Of the eight wars recorded in 2020, two of these 2020. This is the second of two wars involving political form defined by adherence to Islam. saw a decline in fatalities from 2019, one was IS (which is also fighting in Syria). The conflict stable, three deteriorated, and we recorded two in Nigeria was dominated by the IS-allegiant As such, IS tends to fight not only governments previously inactive wars that restarted in 2020. Boko Haram, which achieved notoriety for its but also other rebel organizations, as we see in abduction of female school children in north- Syria. These conflict vectors add new layers of The war between the government of Afghani- ern Nigeria. 1,500 fatalities were recorded in complexity to all conflict resolution attempts stan and the Taliban was the most fatal conflict Nigeria in 2020, up 50% up from 2019 and al- and the mapping of conflicts. A number of loca- in 2020 for the second year in a row, with more most twice the figure from 2018. tions must be coded as parallel conflicts, since than 20,000 recorded fatalities. This number, IS and other rebel organizations fight for very however, was a significant decline from 29,000 Several of the most severe conflicts of the last different reasons. fatalities in 2019. At the same time, a parallel war 30 years have taken place in Ethiopia, many of between the government of Afghanistan and IS these involving neighboring Eritrea. In 2020, a Figure 2 separates the trends between IS and continues, but was not recorded as a war in 2020. secession conflict over the Tigray region (which more traditional organizations. The left panel borders Eritrea) was reignited and recorded ap- shows the fatalities involving IS (in blue) and The war in Syria over governance is among the proximately 1,300 BRDs. the orange shows all others. After the defeat of most severe civil wars in recent decades, with IS in Syria, we see a significant decline in the 3,500 casualties recorded in 2020. However, The war in Azerbaijan over the largely Arme- number of fatalities. this marks a continued and dramatic decline nian-speaking enclave Nagorno-Karabakh from the 65,000 recorded in 2014. As in Af- reignited in 2020. After Afghanistan, this was At the same time, the right panel shows the ghanistan, the Syrian government has a paral- the most severe war in 2020, with more than number of active conflicts involving IS. While lel conflict with IS, in which IS is attempting to 7,600 fatalities recorded. Historically, Nagorno- there has been an increase in the number of bring Syria into a new political entity. As in Af- Karabakh was considered part of Armenia but conflicts not involving IS as well, it is apparent ghanistan, this conflict did not cross the 1,000 transferred to Azerbaijan by the that the record level of active conflicts recorded BRD threshold in 2019, but did so in 2020. in 1920. The political conflict resurfaced in the in 2020 is largely due to the spread of IS.

CONFLICT TRENDS 03 2021 www.prio.org/ConflictTrends New Conflicts in 2020 Figure 3 shows battle-related deaths and num- a pivotal role in supporting the victorious Azer- ber of conflicts between 1993 and 2020. The baijan. Among new conflicts in 2020, an internal yellow line represents conflicts that were active armed conflict broke out in Tanzania for the between 1989-1992 (old), and the blue line rep- The armed conflict in Ukraine did not reach first time. The only previous conflict involving resents new conflicts since 1993. the war threshold in 2020 but is also linked to Tanzania was an interstate conflict with Ugan- the breakup of the Soviet Union and Russian da in 1978, which led to the eventual demise With two exceptions, the old conflicts are more efforts to keep former Soviet republics within of Idi Amin. However, in 2020, a local branch severe than the new conflicts. Of the new con- its political sphere of influence. Similarly, the of IS was formed and began waging conflict in flicts, the deadliest were those that broke out in non-violent following the rigged elec- Tanzania that resulted in more than 25 BRDs. the wake of the Arab Spring (chiefly in Syria). tions in Belarus must be noted in this context. The spikes in 1999 and 2000 can be attributed Conflicts also sprung up in Algeria, Cameroon, to the violence between Ethiopia and Eritrea, The Horn of Africa is home to numerous ethnic Chad, DR Congo and Sudan, but none of these which is considered “new” because Eritrea is groups with competing claims for statehood. recorded more than 100 BRDs. Yemen and a new country with strong ties to the Eritrean For most of the , imperial Ethiopia Ethiopia also saw smaller conflicts reignite in war of secession from Ethiopia that ended in dominated the area. The old regime was toppled the wake of the larger ongoing wars. the early . by a communist rebellion in 1975, and followed by subsequent violent demands for indepen- Skirmishes between and India resulted Remarkably, to date in 2021, more people have dence from a large number of these groups. The in 25 casualties in 2020. Obviously, armed con- been killed in the persistent wars that were ac- only group to successfully succeed were the Er- flict involving two nuclear powers is alarming, tive 30 years ago than all of the new conflicts itreans, who gained independence in 1993. but these conflicts, to date, seem to be isolated erupting after 1991. These persistent conflicts and small. are the main drivers of conflict fatalities, and Somalia contains a similar mix of groups and many of them can be traced to the end of the ambitions with a shared claim for the Ogaden Inactive Conflicts in 2020 and the massive geopolitical changes region on the border with Ethiopia. The conflict that took place after the Soviet Union’s dissolu- between Somalia and Ethiopia was in part a Eleven conflicts that were active in 2019 did not tion. proxy war between East and West during the cross the 25 BRD threshold in 2020. None of Cold War. But as the Cold War ended, so did these were classified as wars in 2019. The most For example, the war in Afghanistan can be the political regimes in both countries. intense was the conflict between Uganda and traced back to a coup in 1973, but Soviet in- the Alliance of Democratic Forces, with about volvement in the 1980s transformed the conflict Somalia entered a period of political chaos and 100 killed in 2019. into a war. In the wake of the Soviet withdraw- remains the textbook example of a failed state. al, a number of groups emerged that remain Two regions of Somalia are de facto indepen- Another location is Myanmar, which has been relevant today, including the Taliban. dent countries – Puntland and Somaliland – a hot spot for a very long time with conflicts whereas the southern part of Somalia remains that lasted several generations. Myanmar has The war in Azerbaijan is similarly linked to the mired in conflict. had a pattern of many concurrent conflicts in demise of the Soviet Union. The conflict began different regions, in addition to a conflict over when Armenia and Azerbaijan technically were Conflict trend reports from 20 years ago high- government. This country only saw one active part of the same country, and the 1994 ceasefire lighted the predominance of African conflicts, conflict in 2020, over the Arakan region. Events was brokered by . In 2020, Turkey played and we see a similar picture has re-emerged in in 2021 may reignite the conflict over govern- ment. 50 IS was involved in active conflicts in Libya, 75,000

40 Number of conflicts Cameroon and Pakistan in 2019, but none of these crossed the 25 BRD threshold in 2020. 30 Similarly, violence between the US and Al Qa- 50,000 eda did not qualify as conflicts in 2020, likely 20 due to the negotiations about the US withdraw- al from Afghanistan. Battle deaths 25,000 IS 10 Others Recurring Conflicts 0 0

Recurring armed violence in 2020 was charac- 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 terized by incidents that have deep and endur- Figure 2: Number of battle deaths and conflicts with and without IS, 1989–2020. Source: UCDP da- ing roots in previous violent events. tabase (ucdp.uu.se) www.prio.org/ConflictTrends CONFLICT TRENDS 03 2021 (AQIM). The roots of this conflict can be traced 80,000 40 Active around 1990 back to the fractious influence of French colo- Not active around 1990 nialism – which we also find to be the case in

60,000 Number of conflicts the Ambazonian region of Cameroon. 30 Future Trends 40,000 20 The current trends in armed conflicts under-

Battle deaths score the long-term view necessary to plan and 20,000 10 execute effective conflict resolution. We know this because many intractable conflicts of today 0 0 have roots at least 30 years old. We draw two les- sons: 1) past armed conflicts remain high risk 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 2008 2011 2014 2017 2020 for a very long period of time, and 2) we must Figure 3: Number of battle deaths and conflicts by origin, 1989–2020. Source: UCDP database (ucdp. address the record number of small conflicts cur- uu.se) rently active as we know, based on our experience from the 1990s, that several of these could esca- recent years. Many current African conflicts are time as the number of new conflicts sky-rocketed, late into long-term organized armed violence. new, and many involve IS, but there are also a the decline in the number of old conflicts ended. range of low-level conflicts that can trace their Based on predictions from the ViEWS conflict roots back to the early 1990s. Latent Conflicts early-warning system, we can say something about which of the many current minor con- Some very prolific African conflicts from the Several multi-ethnic countries were dissolved or flicts that are most likely to join the group of 1990s remain inactive, in particular in West experienced large-scale conflicts in the 1990s, protracted conflicts. The ViEWS system uses Africa. Armed violence in Sierra Leone and but remain peaceful in 2020. For example, Indo- advanced machine-learning algorithms applied Liberia were among the best-known conflicts of nesia had several armed conflicts in its periphery to data on geographic and demographic features, the period, while several other countries in the in the 1990s, such as Aceh, West Papua and East political institutions, economic conditions, and region experienced violence less covered by in- Timor. East Timor would go on to gain indepen- past conflict history to produce forecasts that ternational media. Nigeria’s regional power has dence, while Aceh earned a level of autonomy. have proven to be accurate and precise. been a key stabilizing influence. The conflict in West Papua remains unresolved but has not seen recent significant violence. The most remarkable thing to note from the pre- Throughout the mid-1990s and 2000s, we see diction map for a time almost three years into the very few new conflicts, a trend that changes The post-Soviet era breakup of future is that the high-risk areas are very similar abruptly in 2011. The decline in global conflict resulted in a series of wars, in particular the to the current conflict map. The conflicts in Al- levels in this period overall was largely due to Bosnian civil war. While some ex-Yugoslav geria, Sudan, South Sudan, Eastern DRC, and the low number of new conflicts. Since 2011, republics have gained EU membership, Bosnia- Somalia reach back decades in time. Conflicts that trend has changed, and a clear majority of remains a tense region and the in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, North Nigeria, and current conflicts started after 1992. core political conflict has not been resolved. northern Mozambique have emerged since the 1990s, but have already established themselves as The peaceful period that ended a decade ago was An aborted transition to democracy in Algeria new, persistent hotspots of violence. Without any driven by the fact that many conflicts ended, prior led to a severe civil war in the 1990s, and this measures to address these situations, a predic- to 2011, due to strong international pressure and conflict remains active through a branch of tion map for 2030, the target year of the SDGs, an effective UN Security Council. At the same Al Qaeda known as Al Qaeda in the Maghreb will look depressingly similar.

THE AUTHORS THE PROJECT PRIO Håvard Strand is Associate Professor at the The Conflict Trends project aims to answer The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) is a University of Oslo and Senior Researcher at questions relating to the causes, conse- non-profit peace research institute (estab- PRIO. quences, and trends in conflict. The project lished in 1959) whose overarching purpose contributes to new conflict analyses within is to conduct research on the conditions for areas of public interest, and works to produce peaceful relations between states, groups and Håvard Hegre is Professor at Uppsala Univer- thorough and high-quality analysis for the people. The institute is independent, interna- sity and Research Professor at PRIO. Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. tional and interdisciplinary, and explores is- sues related to all facets of peace and conflict.

CONFLICT TRENDS 03 2021 www.prio.org/ConflictTrends