New Wars 2.0

Fragmented and internationalised actor landscape

Since the 1990s, and even more so since the 2010s, two important developments have been observed in conflict dynamics: increas­ing fragmentation of armed actors and growing external involvement in internal conflicts.

In 2024, the UCDP listed 49 conflict actors as using one-sided violence: 14 gov­ern­ments and 35 non-state actors. This was the second-highest figure since 1989, matched only by 2022. Only actors that kill at least 25 civilians within a year are counted in the figures for one-sided vio­lence. In general, the trend has been clearly upward since the 2000s and the figure has remained consistently above forty since 2019. In 2024 there were also over 450 armed groups of humanitarian concern worldwide, most of them in Africa (44 per cent) and the Middle East (20 per cent). So at least 210 million people live in areas with limited statehood that are completely controlled by armed groups or where con­trol is contested. This situation affects civil­ians both directly and indirectly, for exam­ple by restricting access to humanitarian aid, as in the areas controlled by IS in Syria and Iraq in the 2010s. Furthermore, non-state armed actors often resort to asymmetric warfare – compensating for their mili­tarily inferiority to their state opponents – with severe impacts on the civilian popu­lation.

The growing numbers of armed groups also create their own uncertainty, for exam­ple in identifying where front lines lie and attributing responsibility for acts of vio­lence. In Yemen, for example, the front line between the Houthis and the government forces is dynamic and difficult to pin down. Territorial control has also been highly frag­mented in the Syrian war and the recent wars in Libya. The large numbers of actors involved in certain violent conflicts make it even more difficult to protect civilians, by complicating communication and nego­tiations among parties to the conflict, with their respective supporters, and with exter­nal actors such as humanitarian organisations.

In addition to the sheer numbers of vio­lent actors, the blurred line between state and non-state actors is also relevant. The concept of ‘new wars’ was based on the observation that a complex milieu of state and non-state actors – including private military companies, warlords and paramilitaries – had replaced the dominance of regular armed forces. This grey area now also characterises internationalised con­flicts. Their number and complexity have increased significantly since the early 2010s, especially since the Syrian war. UCDP data shows that the number of inter­nationalised intrastate conflicts has risen sharply since 2013 at the latest – referring to conflicts in which at least one of the par­ties is supported militarily by combat troops from a third state. This development is worrying for civilian populations, as such conflicts tend to last longer and have higher fatality rates.

Middle and regional powers are also inter­vening in violent conflicts with a rela­tively ‘light’ military footprint – whether through political, financial and military support for local allies, the provision of mercenaries or the activities of private or hybrid military companies. Deployments such as those of the Russian ‘Africa Corps’ (formerly the Wagner Group) in Libya, Mali, Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Syria also serve in part to conceal the involvement of outside states. This not only obscures responsibility for the fighting; the intervention also changes the financing and arming of the conflict parties.

Conflict economies and weaponry

In general terms, external state support for conflict parties declined significantly in the course of the 1990s. Non-state armed groups in particular turned to kidnapping, looting and the exploitation of and trade in natural resources such as diamonds, timber, and oil – sometimes in exchange for weapons. At times they simply taxed business activities. The diversion of humani­tarian aid became another source of in­come, one that harmed the civilian popu­lation in multiple ways. Many analyses initially emphasised the predatory aspect of these conflict economies. Later studies stressed that illegal activities also generated political and social capital for the armed groups in certain cases, especially when the population benefited. Yet, economic motives also tend to become an end in themselves for conflict parties, making it more difficult to resolve the conflict. Today, the main question is how increases in dif­ferent kinds of third country involvement will affect financing and armament of con­flict parties. This is not simply the return to ideological polarisation in the sense of a Cold War–style systemic conflict.

However, it is clear that geopolitical interests are linked to tangible economic motives. These are often negotiated trans­actionally, with little priority placed on pro­tecting the civilian population. The final report of the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research project notes that the interconnection of geoeconomic and geopolitical rivalry is making violent conflicts more protracted today. These are not proxy wars driven by two larger opposing blocs, but they do mirror the pragmatic and transactional alliances and policies that have characterised the interventions of numerous external powers.

This is also evident in the arming and equipping of parties to armed conflicts. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), global military spending rose to US$2,718 billion in 2024, after the sharpest annual increase since the Cold War. SIPRI identifies 64 coun­tries as major arms exporters during the period 2020–2024. Today, conflict actors simply have more choice when it comes to potential supporters and suppliers. Although the United States remained the most important arms exporter in 2020–2024, followed by France, Russia, China, and Germany, new suppliers such as Turkey have gained in importance.

The list of major recipients includes several (sporadically) active conflict parties. In addition to Western arms deliveries to Ukraine and Israel, Iranian shipments to Russia and the Houthi rebels in Yemen are mentioned. The main recipients also in­clude several countries that are indirectly or covertly involved in violent conflicts, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose arms deliveries are partly carried out via ostensibly humanitarian channels. In Sudan, the UAE is supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in this way. Similarly, Emirati arms deliveries contributed to the escalation and continuation of the conflicts in Yemen and Libya. This is how weapons from other countries, including Germany, came to be used in Yemen. Certain arms transfers are not listed, such as Iran’s deliv­eries to some of its closest allies in the so-called Axis of Resistance in the Middle East as well as to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

A review of reported violations of UN arms embargoes since 2015 – including prominent cases such as Libya, Somalia and the CAR – confirms that third countries have repeatedly intervened with more or less covert arms deliveries, while the inter­national community’s enforcement meas­ures have remained inadequate.

At the same time, the technology has changed. While the 1990s and 2000s saw weaponry supplied or smuggled into con­flict zones from countries of the former Warsaw Pact, combat drones now play an important role in many armed conflicts. Armed drones have attracted considerable attention in the war in Ukraine, for exam­ple with the Ukrainian ‘Spiderweb’ attack on targets in the Russian hinterland in June 2025. Russia, meanwhile, has been using Iranian drones against critical infrastructure and the civilian population in Ukraine. In Tigray, the Ethiopian government used Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones in addition to Iranian and Chinese drones. Turkish drones have also claimed many civilian lives in the Sahel. In Sudan, the SAF is fighting the RSF with Iranian Mohajer-6 drones. The RSF, in turn, uses quadcopters obtained from Russia’s ‘Africa Corps’ and from the UAE. The latter has also supplied quadcopters to Ethiopia and Yemen.

Drones expand operational capability, in particular for non-state actors, and remain difficult to regulate. However, it cannot be said that combat drones significantly shift the military balance of power, at least for conflicts in African countries. Rather, their range makes the front lines less clear.

It would seem plausible that the use of armed drones – compared to traditional weapon systems – lowers the threshold for the use of force. In any case, the use of drones has led to an increase in civilian casualties in certain conflicts, such as in Ukraine. Since they allow areas further away from the front line to be reached and more targets to be attacked, they increase the threat to the civilian population and make it less predictable, which also has negative psychological effects.

While it is difficult to quantify the im­pact of developments in conflict economies and the arming of conflict parties, there are strong indications that they have increased the pressure on the civilian population.

Warfare and forms of violence

In current violent conflicts, different types of warfare and thus forms of violence against civilians overlap. These include the use of explosive weapons in populated areas (EWIPA).

According to the Explosive Violence Monitor Project, there were 34,791 recorded civilian casualties of explosive weapons in 2023 (73 per cent of the total). This was the highest level since this data was first col­lected in 2010. The use of explosive weap­ons in urban warfare poses a particular threat to civilians, both directly and through the destruction of civilian infrastructure. In 2023, 90 per cent of those killed and injured in such attacks were civilians, com­pared to only 13 per cent elsewhere.

As the data shows, air strikes have resulted in significantly more civilian cas­ualties in recent years, with the number increasing more than elevenfold since 2014. Responsibility for civilian casualties caused by explosive violence in 2024 was attributed principally to Israel (55 per cent), Russia (19 per cent), Myanmar (5 per cent) and the warring parties in Sudan (3 per cent). The extensive bombing of the Gaza Strip by Israel dramatically illustrates how devas­tating EWIPA can be for the civilian popu­lation. The Israeli military has also used bunker-busters in the densely populated Gaza Strip and in Beirut.

International legal doubts over the pro­portionality of EWIPA have also been cast aside elsewhere. In the 2010s and 2020s, the massive destruction of cities has not been uncommon – from Aleppo and Mosul to Mariupol and Khartoum. The full effects of artificial intelligence cannot be foreseen at this point. But target acquisition programmes such as Lavender and The Gospel, which Israel has deployed in the Gaza war, are raising urgent ethical and legal ques­tions concerning the protection of civilians. It remains unclear how international humanitarian law can be meaningfully applied to such systems.

The use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) has increased dramatically since the 2000s, especially in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where they became the main weapon of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and later IS and its offshoots. Their use has now ex­panded, for example to Nigeria where they are deployed by splinter groups of Boko Haram and to Somalia where al-Shabaab employs them. The use of IEDs frequently affects civilians, as such devices are meant to spread fear and terror. The risk of falling victim to these and other types of terrorist attacks is significantly higher in conflict zones. The Global Terrorism Index 2024 shows that all ten countries most affected by terrorist attacks are simultaneously ex­periencing ongoing armed conflict, as recorded by the UCDP. While the death tolls in Afghanistan and Somalia have recently been declining, Israel and Palestine as well as the Sahel region are facing a worsening security situation.

Sometimes violence is used deliberately against specific sections of a civilian popu­lation. Although there is no detailed annual record of mass killings of civilians, the Early Warning Project for 2023 reports the num­ber of massacres rising to 21, the highest figure in the past twenty years. Mass kill­ings refer to incidents when more than one thousand civilians within a country die over a year or less through deliberate actions by an armed group, because of their membership in a particular group. Such attacks often result in large numbers of casualties within a short period of time, as in the case of the RSF attack on a displaced persons camp in Ardamata in November 2023, which killed more than 1,300 people.

The number of recorded cases of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in armed conflicts has also risen significantly. Between 2021 and 2024, the number of people in conflict or fragile contexts who required sup­port services due to SGBV more than doubled – from 3.5 to 7.2 million. The number of unreported cases can safely be assumed to be enormous.

Blockading of supply routes also has a massive impact on populations in war zones. Particularly serious recent cases include Israel sealing off the Gaza Strip, the blocking of aid deliveries in Sudan and the blockade of Tigray by the Ethiopian govern­ment. Beyond food, these may also affect water, medical supplies and fuel. Deliberately cutting off supplies is considered a war crime, but documentation and inves­tigation are often made difficult by restrict­ing or denying access for journalists. This is often accompanied by a lack of safe havens, including disregard of designated protection zones and safe passage for humanitarian aid workers, who are increasingly under attack themselves.

There has been a significant shift since the 1990s and early 2000s concerning dis­information and hate speech. While such tactics have long been part of warfare, their algorithmic amplification by platforms such as X, Facebook, TikTok, and Telegram today enables much more rapid dissemination of hostile narratives and agitation. Social media are increasingly used to legiti­mise violence, cover up war crimes, and discredit ‘unwelcome’ actors. The latter increas­ingly affects UN peace operations.