Why global cooperation is more important than ever in a world at war

The “age of turbulence” is giving way to a world at war. The statistics are grim: there were close to 60 armed conflicts raging in 2023, the highest number ever recorded. Civilian fatalities surged by more than 30% percent between 2023 and 2024, mostly due to escalating armed conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe.

In the past year, at least 200,000 people were killed and over 120 million are currently forcibly displaced – more than half of them within their own borders. Today, roughly 2 billion people – one quarter of humanity – live in conflict-affected countries. Meanwhile, global military spending has skyrocketed, reaching an all-time high of more than $2.4 trillion in 2023.

Given the rising incidence of war and the escalating threat of nuclear weapons use, it is no surprise that conflict ranks as the greatest danger facing the world in the 2025 Global Risks Report. Conflict between and within states was singled out as the most important of 33 risks for 2025 in the annual survey of more than 900 government, business and civil society leaders, up from eighth the year before. The World Economic Forum-led poll also found that many people living in and close to war zones – from Israel to Poland – rated the risk higher than those who did not. Taken together, the global outlook for peace is bleak.

Not all armed conflicts are equal: wars come in many shapes and sizes. As the Global Risks Report makes clear, there are international conflicts between states, hybrid conflicts involving regional powers and their proxies, internal conflicts within a single country and coups and insurrections that contribute to state collapse.

Not only are conflicts growing more frequent and intense, they are increasingly internationalized, intractable and difficult to end. What makes 2025 particularly dangerous is that all these categories of armed conflict are occurring simultaneously, are interconnected and are subject to disconcertingly few international guard rails to keep them from escalating.

The wars between Ukraine and Russia and between Israel and its neighbours have both generated mass casualties. They could easily spread and both pose a nuclear threat. Simmering tensions over disputed territories between nuclear-armed countries in south and east Asia could also escalate. Meanwhile, civil wars in countries including Myanmar and Sudan are generating horrendous humanitarian costs with regional reverberations. Elsewhere, criminal conflicts waged by drug trafficking networks, gangs, and militia wreak havoc in countries including Brazil, Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico and South Africa, in some cases generating more deaths than wars.

The threat of a global war is being taken seriously in Europe. To some Ukranians facing drones sourced from Iran, soldiers from North Korea and missiles with components from China, it has already arrived. Several experts believe that a transnational hybrid war has already broken out between NATO allies and countries such as Russia, Iran, North Korea and China.

The Ukraine-Russia war has military, economic, cyber, infrastructure and space-based dimensions. Questions are being raised about whether these could trigger NATO’s mutual defence clause. There is growing evidence of cyber and physical attacks against critical infrastructure, the spread of disinformation and misinformation and sabotage campaigns across the West, targeting munitions factories and undersea cables.

Several intelligence specialists believe a widening conflict in Europe is a distinct possibility in the next few years. Governments including Germany, Norway, Switzerland and those across the Baltics are taking steps to become “war-capable”, including upgrading bunkers and stockpiling emergency provisions. Both Finland and Sweden, who recently joined NATO, are actively preparing their citizens for war. Several European countries expanded compulsory military service. France, Germany and even the UK are mulling a return to conscription.

Rising anxiety over war is connected to a wider geopolitical recession. Global institutions are no longer aligned with the international balance of power. This recession is an outcome of multiple structural shifts, including the long-term rise of China and the Global South, as well as the relative decline of European and Japanese economic powers.

The geopolitical recession amplified by deepening tensions between the US and China over trade, technology and Taiwan; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; sharpening conflict in the Middle East; and shocks such as the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. As the 2025 Global Risks Report makes clear, there are also fears that the incoming US administration could intensify the geopolitical recession in 2025.

President Trump recently floated the idea of expanding the US sphere of influence by annexing Panama, Greenland and Canada, posing an unexpected threat to the rule of law and sovereign norms. In seeking to secure continental hegemony, the US could precipitate anti-American backlash and trigger similar efforts by China, Russia and regional powers in their own neighborhoods.

Another of the symptoms of the geopolitical recession is the unravelling of global institutions designed to safeguard international peace and security. Consider the UN Security Council, which has been paralysed for years. Countries from the Global South claim it does not adequately represent their interests. The reluctance of the Security Council’s five permanent members to expand it is eroding its ability to prevent, manage and end global conflicts. While talk of security reform has resurfaced, critics fear it will not go nearly far enough.

The impacts of this dysfunction are far-reaching. For one, it undermines support for peacekeeping missions: deployed peacekeepers declined from 100,000 in 2016 to 69,000 by 2024. It also has ramifications for everything from conflict prevention and peacebuilding to humanitarian assistance, development and even climate action. These latter priorities are losing support owing to nationalist and populist governments sceptical of the dividends of global cooperation.

As nations grow more adversarial and insular, support to the world’s trouble spots will diminish. As the newly released 2025 Global Barometer shows, there are already signs of disengagement from international institutions from a suite of far-right governments that fret about sovereignty and authorities from lower and middle income countries who decry a lack of representation.

One outcome of fraying support for such institutions is that instead of seeking to resolve conflicts through negotiation, ceasefires, peace agreements, and peace-keeping, they end instead through battlefield and winner-take-all victories at high human cost. While regional organizations such as the G20 or African Union must play a constructive role, many have narrow mandates, limited influence, and meagre resources.

Widening armed conflicts in one part of the world are likely to destabilize domestic politics elsewhere. Consider refugees and internally displaced people, more than three quarters of whom reside in lower-income settings with few legal protections and limited safety nets. The small share of refugees seeking asylum in wealthier countries often fuels support for far-right populists. Making matters worse, weariness with war is also degrading commitment to humanitarian norms and development aid. Declining assistance can undermine measures to address the determinants of conflict and violence to begin with.

Mitigating the risks of war depends on a renewed commitment to preventive diplomacy and conflict prevention. This includes diplomatic action, early warning, mediation, ceasefires, truces, peace agreements and the enforcement of treaties and the rule of law with states and non-state actors. A reformed UN Security Council is critical, but so is renewed investment in institutions and organizations that actively promote architectures of peace, from human rights and women’s empowerment to food security and sustainable development.

Mitigating the risks of armed conflict requires multistakeholder engagement. It is not just warring state and non-state parties that need to come to the negotiating table, but also civil societies and the business community. There are ample examples of seemingly intractable conflicts that were ended not just with the support of skilled mediators and well-crafted peace agreements, but also robust investment by the private sector in creating decent jobs and a thriving economy.

What is more, reducing the risk of conflict can also be improved by strengthening global cooperation and multilateral and bilateral trade between countries to underline the virtues of interdependence and reduce the incentive to fight. Investment in resilience is key to thriving and surviving in a world at war.