The state of conflict in 2025, according to experts at Davos – including strife the world has (too often) overlooked
New militia recruits in Myanmar; frequently unreported crises were regular topics of discussion at Davos 2025.
Image: REUTERS/Stringer
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Geopolitics
- The World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting 2025 in Davos provided a chance to survey the state of global conflict, including hot spots often overlooked by the Western news cycle.
- The current moment of geopolitical fragmentation could elevate levels of strife, leaders and experts said.
- They pressed for greater dialogue between the Global South and the Global North, and pointed to the recent cease-fire deal in Gaza as a hopeful sign.
“The headline for us this year is: Unpredictable.”
When Comfort Ero’s organization compiled its annual Conflicts to Watch for 2024, the list ranged from the very prominent (Gaza) to the often overlooked (Sudan). 2025 has somehow added even more uncertainty to an already volatile situation, said Ero, the president and CEO of International Crisis Group, during a panel discussion at Davos 2025.
Who would’ve imagined, she suggested, that active conversations about the subversion of international law might come to include Greenland or Panama?
One other location that did not make Conflicts to Watch last year: Libya.
That deeply divided country’s prime minister was sitting immediately to Ero’s right on the same panel, however. “We need stability,” Abdulhamid Al Dabiba said, while pleading for greater foreign investment. “Stabilizing the economy is the way to stabilize the political situation.”
There was a sense in Davos that a palpable shift in international politics means the many conflicts mostly taking place outside of the Western news cycle now have more potential to resonate across borders. In addition to Libya, often-overlooked clashes in Myanmar, the Sahel, and Sudan were discussed. They all merit closer attention, according to experts. It was, after all, an incident in a relatively remote corner of an ageing empire that ignited a world-shaping war in 1914 – which lasted four long years.
“This is the 1918, 1944 or 1989 moment for our generation,” said Finland’s President Alexander Stubb during a Davos panel.
There are some positive signs, according to Stubb. A new administration in the US with a clear impetus to help resolve conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, for one thing.
“I’m actually quite hopeful,” Stubb said.
He pinned the departure point for our current period of change to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in early 2022. “The bottom line is that the shift started at that stage,” Stubb said.
A plea to make use of this ‘liminal moment’
The invasion of Ukraine is sometimes described as a reaction to the resolution of the Cold War – a conflict that nominally ended in 1989, but was a recurring theme of discussions in Davos 36 years later.
Given that we’re embarking on similarly dramatic change to the geopolitical order, it's important that we manage this liminal moment responsibly “and talk to each other,” Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said during a Davos panel. “Because part of what we're facing today is the fallout of, I would say, the mismanagement of the liminal moment that came at the end of the Cold War.”
Instead of dialogue, theories seemingly confirmed by the Cold War’s outcome led to a situation where nations felt emboldened to try and remake others in their own image, Tuggar said; the invasion of Iraq followed, as did the beginning of the trouble in Libya.
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One particular glimmer of hope often pointed to at Davos was the Gaza cease-fire agreement recently reached after many months of effort.
“Everybody has an interest in that cease-fire holding,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Al Safadi said during a Davos panel. But, he added, the related challenges are “enormous.”
“You're talking about hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza who lost literally everything,” he said. Their many needs will have to be addressed.
To help avoid similar flareups, Nigeria's Tuggar pleaded for greater communication between developed and developing economies. “We need to collaborate more between the Global North and the Global South,” he said. “Make it more inclusive.”
Too-often-overlooked hot spots include Myanmar, where a civil war entering its fifth year has claimed thousands of lives and created millions of refugees. Its ruling regime has reportedly lost control of significant portions of the country, including long stretches of border.
“I'm very pleased that the World Economic Forum has seen fit to include references to Myanmar in its conference this year,” Julie Bishop, a UN Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, said during a Davos panel. “The violence and fighting must stop,” she said. “Only ASEAN, and the United Nations, and well-meaning neighbors will be able to influence that outcome.”
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In Sudan, more than 15,000 people have been killed and more than 8 million have been displaced as the result of an ongoing civil war.
“Huge geopolitical divides have created a situation in which there is total impunity, as the superpowers are not able to coordinate their action in relation to global peace and security,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said during his Davos address. “And we are seeing this in Sudan.”
Still, when it came to recent developments in Syria, a number of leaders and experts at Davos sounded a note of cautious optimism. The country is now seeking to rebuild after the fall of a regime that International Crisis Group has described as “despised.”
“We need this to work,” Qatar’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said during a Davos panel.
The change in Syria marks "a new chapter," he said; greater inclusiveness, and the formation of a representative government, is “what we all want to see happening.”
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