Wars have traditionally redefined the international order. The year 2025, as it ends, is marked by one of the longest wars in Europe's heartland in Ukraine, also a proxy conflict between the US/Europe, and Russia/China on the other side. The advent of nuclear weapons discourages great powers from a direct military confrontation; hence they fight through proxies. Middle East still suffers from uneasy peace under Israeli recalcitrance, genocide and unmatched cruelty in Gaza. That conflict, also reaching Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, is hardly settled. In June, the flames of Gaza reached Iran too.

In South Asia, the Indo-Pakistan rivalry is a simmering nuclear tinderbox, one event away from military confrontation. Pakistan is also fighting its own war on terrorism and separatism. In Southeast Asia, pacifist and Buddhist Thailand and Cambodia are in conflict. Haiti, Mexico and most of the Latin America suffer from gang violence.

In Africa, Darfur in Sudan reels under militia brutality. Libya is stabilising in uncertain ways. Congo still battles insurgency and criminal groups. Ethiopia confronts political instability and internal conflict. Sahel Region (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) suffers violence from Islamist extremist groups and rebel factions.

Unlike the traditional conflicts, today's wars are more complex, involving proxy elements; and are characterised by shifting alliances, internal fractures connecting armed militant groups; and have high societal impact and civilian casualties. There are more armed conflicts today than there were 15 years ago. And these wars, more than any other factor responsible, are mostly initiated and sustained by meddlesome great powers. Conflicts result into shifting alliances, hedging strategies by middle........

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