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10 Conflicts to Watch in 2026
FP’s look ahead
2025 was a bloody year. 2026 promises little better.
Over the last year, fighting raged on in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and the Sahel, as did gang turf battles in Haiti. The war in Gaza wound down, but only after Israel, having resumed its assault in March, razed much of what was left of the strip. Israel and Iran traded blows, with the United States eventually joining in. Thailand and Cambodia clashed along their disputed border. So, too, did Afghanistan and Pakistan. An exchange of fire between India and Pakistan was their worst in decades. Through rebel proxies, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has, in effect, annexed the North and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
2025 was a bloody year. 2026 promises little better.
Over the last year, fighting raged on in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, and the Sahel, as did gang turf battles in Haiti. The war in Gaza wound down, but only after Israel, having resumed its assault in March, razed much of what was left of the strip. Israel and Iran traded blows, with the United States eventually joining in. Thailand and Cambodia clashed along their disputed border. So, too, did Afghanistan and Pakistan. An exchange of fire between India and Pakistan was their worst in decades. Through rebel proxies, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has, in effect, annexed the North and South Kivu provinces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.
That violence wracked this past year and, as this list shows, will do the same next year, hardly comes as a surprise. Already for a while, conflict has been spiking worldwide. Major wars have erupted with terrible frequency.
Less predictable has been U.S. President Donald Trump, whose first year back in the White House has turned world politics and international crisis management on their heads. Trump returned to power pledging to bring peace to a world ablaze. He has put himself center stage in many wars and trouble spots. He has brought fresh attention to peacemaking, after years in which diplomatic efforts to end conflicts had been flailing.
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But Trump has not calmed the global turmoil he decried on the campaign trail. In some cases, he has made it worse. His deals, often built on other countries’ diplomacy, have brought some respite to some battlefields but no lasting peace anywhere. Worse still, alongside the Iran strikes, his administration has deployed a flotilla of warships to the southern Caribbean, blown up small boats allegedly running drugs, and threatened to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Whether Trump truly aspires to spheres-of-influence politics beyond the Western Hemisphere is unclear, but mixed signals court disaster in Europe and the Asia-Pacific. His lawlessness, revisionism, and cavalier use of force risk normalizing the idea that war is an OK way for powerful states to get what they want.
Let’s start with peacemaking. Here, Trump’s unorthodoxy can be an asset. It is hard to imagine another American leader meeting Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, while he was still a U.S.-designated terrorist, or moving quickly thereafter to offer Syria vital sanctions relief. The president’s envoys, who often are friends or kin with a direct line to him, can act fast and take risks.
The flip side of unorthodoxy, though, is inexperience. A window to constrain Iran’s nuclear program through diplomacy narrowed, even before Israel’s strikes, seemingly because the administration had not worked out red lines in advance. In principle, shuttle talks between Russia and Ukraine—American officials floating ideas with one side, amending them in discussions with the other, then trying to bridge the gaps—are not a bad way to find out whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will tolerate a deal that safeguards Ukraine’s sovereignty. But diplomacy has been so stained by confusion, politically motivated leaks, and suspicion in Kyiv and European capitals about Trump’s intentions that if his readiness to engage Putin did open an opportunity, negotiators may well squander it.
Trump’s hunger for quick deals, in turn, may be jarring, but it is not always the wrong approach. Agreements in Gaza, in the Great Lakes, and between Cambodia and Thailand, for instance, should be seen for what they are: cease-fire or framework deals that leave core disputes unresolved and often relegate the hard work to others. They are not peace accords—not yet at least.
But world leaders have been struggling to find lasting settlements to wars worldwide for some years. Useful diplomacy, often led by Gulf Arab states, Turkey, or other non-Western powers, has helped forge local cease-fires, get aid in, get hostages out, and manage spillover risks. Where fighting has ended, though, it has mostly ground into unstable lulls or calmed only when one side prevails. The type of comprehensive peace agreement that quietened a string of conflicts in the 1990s and early 2000s has mostly been elusive since. In a moment of global flux, few belligerents will make lasting compromises with rivals when geopolitical winds might change and an opportunity to finish them off arise.
In that sense, maybe the only way out of some wars is to leave details for later, get whatever truce is feasible, and then try to expand on it. The approach won’t work everywhere. Warring parties may want a clearer sense of the future before they stop fighting, particularly if they have the military edge. But on many of today’s battlefields, peacemaking, if it happens, will be incremental, the endgame undefined and hashed out along the way.
The danger is that short-term fixes fall apart or get stuck. The ugly cease-fire in Gaza—Palestinians crowded in horrendous conditions under continued Hamas rule in less than half the strip while Israel, in control of the rest, blocks reconstruction and keeps striking the enclave—is defensible only as a way station to something better. Similarly, a deal that leaves Rwandan proxies in control of the Kivus can’t be the end point.
Trump’s dealmaking aims to bring American power to bear—whether, in Gaza, leveraging Israel’s dependency on Washington or, elsewhere, mostly threatening tariffs or dangling business opportunities. But top officials likely overstate belligerents’ readiness to subordinate what they see as core security interests to profit. More importantly, Trump thus far has not used his full leverage with Israel nor elsewhere shown the patience, even if he has the clout, to turn quick fixes into durable peace. Nor has his administration worked out a way to help others—Qatar or Malaysia, for example, whose diplomats helped tee up the Congo-Rwanda and Cambodia-Thailand deals, respectively—pick up the slack. Trump could turn to the United Nations or other multilateral bodies to follow up, or he could coordinate more closely with European and other capitals to nudge along warring parties. But the administration largely abhors such cooperation and has slashed funding to U.N. agencies and peacekeepers.
As Trump returns to office, the question is whether change will come at the negotiating table or on the battlefield.
Trump’s bargaining must be set against the dearth of peace deals that preceded his return to power as well as the lack of progress in places where he has not engaged. European leaders, for example, focused on the existential peril they see on their doorstep, have less bandwidth for peacemaking elsewhere. Chinese leader Xi Jinping, despite Beijing’s growing might and apparent aspiration to a global mediation role, appears to have mostly left Gulf powers and Turkey to calm the Afghanistan-Pakistan dispute while propping up the junta next door in Myanmar. Still, if Washington claims cease-fires as accomplishments, they must at least stop fighting and, ideally, trigger renewed diplomacy to get something more durable in place.
The spheres-of-influence politics Trump appears to be edging toward poses still graver dangers. In the Western Hemisphere, he has tasked an envoy with wresting control of Greenland from Denmark and overtly interferes in Latin American politics. What are almost certainly unlawful strikes on small boats allegedly running drugs may set the stage for destabilizing attacks elsewhere. It remains to be seen whether Trump’s massive military buildup off Venezuela aims to oust Maduro or coerce him into handing over a portion of the country’s oil reserves. Regardless, the message is clear: Washington will throw its weight around in what it sees as its backyard, a doctrine that at least partly rests on threats and acts of violence.
In Europe, Trump’s treatment of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and disdain for the continent’s elites have often been painful to watch—as, indeed, have European leaders’ own struggles to reckon with a crumbling security order. Trump has not yet compelled Kyiv and European capitals into a deal that leaves Ukraine exposed and sets the stage for further Russian adventurism. But Europe faces its most perilous moment in decades. European capitals and institutions must prepare fast to defend the continent themselves. They may have to do so while Washington meddles on behalf of far-right politicians who reject the very defense-spending hikes that Trump has succeeded in needling out of European leaders.
In Asia, Trump has damaged but not jettisoned alliances. Nor has he revised U.S. policy on Taiwan. It is hard to imagine he would cede to China Taiwan’s high-end chip industry or primacy in a region that generates half of global trade.
Still, the mood has changed. Allies, hit hard by Trump’s tariffs, fear what he might offer for a trade deal with Beijing, which is now empowered after besting the U.S. in a tariff spat. They worry about Trump’s downgrading of the region’s importance compared to the Western Hemisphere and the signal that sends. It is not hard to imagine Xi seeing in Trump’s push to restore Washington’s regional preeminence an invitation for Beijing to do the same in the Asia-Pacific. In South Korea, louder voices are calling for Seoul to acquire its own nuclear deterrent. Even Japanese officials, who traditionally see such weapons as beyond the pale, whisper about the possibility of doing the same.
It makes sense for Washington to nudge its European and Asian allies to step up and engage adversaries to mitigate risks. But putting treaty commitments in question is a recipe for miscalculation. By probing a growing swath of Europe with drones and sabotage, Putin already runs the risk of triggering an escalation involving multiple nuclear powers. Xi is likely to bide his time while things are shifting China’s way. But it would not take much to ignite a full-blown crisis around Taiwan, where Beijing is conducting increasingly aggressive drills; or in the South China Sea, where friction with the Philippines has already escalated into clashes at sea.
Moreover, spheres-of-influence politics is fundamentally indifferent to law and collective efforts to manage crises. Most of the world rolled its eyes when former President Joe Biden talked of defending a rules-based order while abetting Israel’s obliteration of Gaza. But Trump’s express revisionism is more dangerous than his predecessor’s familiar hypocrisy. For all the double standards, the core tenets of the post-World War II legal order need U.S. buy-in. With Trump threatening territorial conquest in Greenland and Panama, treating small states as expendable, and further eroding the principle that wars must only be fought in self-defense, it is unclear how much can survive.
Thankfully, most capitals still seem vested in the promise of a global order that condemns seizing chunks of neighbors’ territory; sponsoring proxies; or killing, starving, and expelling civilians en masse. But the past few years have revealed plenty of leaders who, if they see the chance, will resort to force and act on expansionist ambition, and who may see in Washington’s lawlessness a green light for adventurism.
The world was careening into a dangerous new era well before Trump’s return to power. Thus far, his second term has done less to slow things down than to put a foot on the gas pedal.
JUMP TO CONFLICT
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, right, speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington on Dec. 2, 2025.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In late 2025, the United States commenced its biggest military buildup in the southern Caribbean in decades, apparently as part of designs to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power. In December, the U.S. Coast Guard began seizing tankers exporting sanctioned Venezuelan crude in what U.S. President Donald Trump called a blockade. If Maduro, who has weathered economic pressure for years, does not bend, an attempt at ousting him by force may yet be in the offing.
During his first term, Trump turned the screws on Maduro, imposing severe sanctions, recognizing an opposition leader as president, and backing a bungled coup. On returning to office, the U.S. president first took a different tack, by dispatching envoy Ric Grenell to Caracas to seek a deal. Those efforts freed several U.S. hostages and persuaded Maduro to take back deported Venezuelans, while Trump allowed U.S. oil major Chevron to keep pumping crude in the country despite sanctions.
A more hawkish camp, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who is also serving as acting national security advisor—put paid to that approach. By April, the administration had stepped up punitive measures. This time, it framed its policy not as an effort to restore Venezuelan democracy, which presumably appeals little to Trump’s America First base, but as a fight to curb drug trafficking. In reality, while some top Venezuelan officials profit from cocaine transiting the country, none of the fentanyl ravaging U.S. communities comes from Venezuela.
The latter months of 2025 saw Trump and other officials ratchet up rhetoric, labeling Maduro a “narco-terrorist” and vowing to bring him to justice. The large U.S. naval task force deployed to the southern Caribbean also started blowing up small boats off Venezuela’s coast that it alleged were trafficking narcotics. Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, who has long argued for foreign military pressure to unseat Maduro and apparently knows Rubio well, appears to be influential in shaping U.S. policy.
So, what now? The Venezuelan military’s upper echelons, which have close ties to Maduro’s government, seem unlikely to turn on him. A full-fledged U.S. invasion is probably not in the cards, either. Influential figures close to Trump vocally oppose the idea. In any case, few U.S. ground forces are in the Caribbean. But Trump seems unlikely to step back without something he can paint as a win. He might launch attacks on military installations or clandestine airstrips. He looks certain to interdict more oil tankers. Ordering a decapitation strike on Maduro himself would be a more dramatic step, though a loyalist or at least someone bent on preserving existing power structures would likely take Maduro’s place. Or the regime might collapse into factional infighting.
A negotiated outcome is perhaps not impossible. In seeking an off-ramp, Maduro reportedly offered the United States a major stake in Venezuelan oil companies this year. Some analysts suggest Trump might accept a big chunk of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, rather than Maduro’s departure, as a way of claiming mission accomplished. Alternatively, perhaps Maduro would relinquish power if given either guarantees that he would be shielded from prosecution in the United States and the International Criminal Court or exile somewhere he sees as safe—Russia most likely but perhaps Turkey or the Persian Gulf. But even if this happened, a peaceful transition would require at least interim power sharing between the opposition and the parts of the current regime that run the central state, the judicial and security systems, and the vast majority of local authorities.
Either an oil deal with Maduro himself or a transition entailing power sharing would be a tough sell for Machado, as well as hard-line allies such as Rubio who hope that regime change in Venezuela will pave the way for something similar in Cuba. Trump himself would have to impose the compromise.
Advocates of overthrowing the whole system argue that the risks are overstated. Failed regime changes in the Middle East hold no lessons, they say, given that Venezuela is not riven by sectarian divides and has a democratic history to fall back on. Certainly, many Venezuelans and the country’s neighbors are frustrated by years of failed diplomacy to end the country’s political crisis. Most would like to see the back of Maduro. A decade-long humanitarian disaster, which has turned roughly a quarter of Venezuela’s population into refugees, is set to worsen as hyperinflation looms again.
But military action to remove Maduro is more likely to go wrong than not. Some state forces could rebel, but parts of the military’s top brass would likely resist regime change. Few would trust amnesty from Washington or Machado. Armed groups active in much of the country would exploit any power vacuum to entrench or extend their territorial control. These include well-drilled colectivos with a foothold in poor urban neighborhoods as well as the “citizen militias” that Maduro has recently mobilized. Criminal gangs are present in cities and the countryside. The National Liberation Army, a Colombian rebel group that has several thousand hardened fighters across Venezuela, has repeatedly committed to turn its fire on any foreign forces that arrive. In short, military regime change is more likely to trigger chaos; further refugee flows; and a protracted, if low-intensity, conflict than a smooth transition to something better.
People walk past a damaged hospital in Khartoum, Sudan, on April 28, 2025.AFP via Getty Images
Gruesome footage from Darfur, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) went on a killing spree after seizing the town of El Fasher in late October, should spur greater efforts to end a war that remains largely ignored. Thus far, though, U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge in November to personally help end the war has yielded nothing.
Sudan’s latest civil war erupted in April 2023, triggered by a struggle within the junta that took power after dictator Omar al-Bashir fell four years earlier. It pits the Sudanese army, together with an array of Islamist militias and former rebels, against the RSF, which is allied with other ex-insurgents and backed by foreign mercenaries. In the Bashir regime’s waning days, the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan “Hemeti” Dagalo, grew into a paramilitary force that could rival the army, enriched by trafficking gold and battling the Houthis in Yemen.
Today’s fighting, which started in the capital of Khartoum and soon engulfed other parts of the country, has created the world’s worst humanitarian calamity. Millions of people have been displaced, and millions more need lifesaving aid. The United Nations has reported pockets of famine throughout the country, especially in........
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