If it seems to you that the world entered this year quite bombastically, you are right. Before most of the Western world had time to take down the New Year's decorations, US President Donald Trump ordered an airstrike on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President Maduro, and announced that Greenland was next. At the same time, he is threatening to intervene against Iran in support of the protesters, and at home he is facing a rebellion after an immigration agent killed a woman on the street almost out of the blue.
Although the events of the first ten days of January appear to be intense, they are actually just a continuation of a trend that has been going on for some time. In the last five years, the number of armed conflicts in the world is constantly increasing, and more and more people, mostly civilians, are exposed to some form of war violence. Several conflicts stand out as the most important globally.
photo: ap photoLAND OF WAR AND KILLING: Sudan
SUDAN
Let's start with a war that is far away from us and about which probably the least amount of information comes to Serbia. Since 2019, Sudan has been led by a sort of transitional government, with a state army general and a general from the Rapid Support Force (RSF) paramilitary serving as the executive branch. About two years later, during a coup d'état, two generals ousted the civilian government and took over the administration of the country in a kind of co-presidency. The conflict began in April 2023 when the RSF rebelled against the state army and continued to unfold without much world attention. That was the case until October of last year, when attention was again paid to Sudan. The Rapid Support Force, which receives weapons from the United Arab Emirates, captured the town of El Fasher and began mercilessly killing the non-Arab population in this ethnically mixed area. The scale of the crime was such that lifeless bodies and blood spilled on the sand were visible on satellite images from space. The RSF is also the unit that killed the most civilians last year. Apart from the shocking scenes, this war produced the most refugees so far - almost 12 million people had to leave their homes. Some were internally displaced, while many sought safety abroad. The conflicts are still going on, and the effects of the violence and the humanitarian disaster they are leaving behind will be felt by the world.
photo: ap photoGAZA ON THE EDGE OF SURVIVAL: Refugees and running out of living resources
ISRAEL AND NEIGHBORS
In 2025, Gaza was the most dangerous place to live. There is almost no resident who was not exposed to the war in some way. Thousands of people (conservative estimate) died last year in Israeli attacks, mostly civilians. Many more were injured, and the population was reduced to only a quarter of the territory. We had the opportunity to watch this agony for two years, until a truce was signed last October. However, there is no peace in Gaza or in the other territories in this part of the Middle East, as there was no peace for decades before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Israel continued to bombard Gaza, where, since the signing of the ceasefire, more than 400 people, including about a hundred children, have been killed. Parallel to the invasion of Gaza, violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers, often backed by the military, in the West Bank is also on the rise. Israel sporadically bombards southern Lebanon as well, and last year Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on Syria, Yemen, Iran and Qatar. The bloodiest period of these conflicts has passed for now, but there is no stability in sight.
UKRAINE
Now let's return to Europe and the war closest to us. The conflict in Ukraine was the deadliest in absolute numbers last year. It will soon be four years since the beginning of what Russian President Vladimir Putin, probably expecting to last several days, called a "special military operation". The front lines haven't moved much over the past year. Russian forces managed to capture about 200 new settlements, slightly less than in the previous two years combined, however, almost none of them are strategically important. Despite this, Russia shows no signs of slowing down – on the contrary, the number of airstrikes has increased over the past year. Currently, Russia is mostly targeting civilian infrastructure in order to use the winter to emasculate the local population, which is often without electricity or heating, in the hope that it will pressure the authorities to surrender. Ukraine retaliates with attacks on Russian infrastructure, but the effect their attacks have on civilians cannot be measured. Pressure on Ukraine could soon come from European countries as well due to a new wave of refugees leaving the country to avoid freezing.
Listening to European officials, one might get the impression that Russia is about to expand its invasion of the European Union. Given the (un)success in Ukraine, this is unlikely. What is more likely, and what Russia is already doing, is undermining European security in other ways - by smuggling oil on civilian ships to circumvent sanctions, cutting Internet cables in the Baltic Sea, flying drones over airports and power plants, and violating airspace with military aircraft that is hard to believe is accidental. None of this, of course, can threaten the inhabitants in the way that war can, but it shows that Europe met most of these attacks unprepared. Serbia still officially keeps aloof - it does not impose sanctions on Russia, but it sells weapons to Ukraine. The question is how long it will last before one of the parties has had enough.
VENEZUELA
"Peace. Peace on Earth," answered President Trump when reporters asked him what New Year's resolutions he had made. A week later he gave the order to attack Venezuela. This is not the first time that America has invaded another country, and Trump himself ordered the bombing of Nigeria just ten days earlier to prevent a genocide against Christians for which there is no evidence that it is taking place. A few days after Venezuela, he also ordered an attack on Syria. However, what sets Venezuela apart is the lack of "marketing" that we are used to when it comes to American interventions. There was no talk of "spreading democracy" or saving endangered Christians. Although the rhetoric was initially fueled by claims that drug cartels were poisoning Americans, Trump now says very openly that the intention was to take control of Venezuelan oil. The action ended quickly, and the message resounded loudly - unfit dictators who do not bend to Trump's will could find themselves in jail in Brooklyn overnight.
IRAN
That message was certainly heard by the Iranian state leadership, but as a much larger military power than Venezuela, it did not pay much attention. The bazaar sellers' strike at the end of December quickly grew into nationwide demonstrations. The Iranian government, as before, did not hesitate to suppress them by force. We cannot yet know the exact number of victims because internet access is very limited. We know that there are thousands of dead because Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei confirmed it, although he also included members of the armed forces.
Trump warned the Iranian leadership that he would intervene if the violence against the protesters continued, but the intervention has not (yet) happened. The problem is that Iran does not have a strong opposition, and it is uncertain whether American intervention would bring freedom or create a new flash point of conflict. History has shown that the latter is more likely to happen. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah in 1979, is being offered, but the question is how much support he has inside Iran and whether this would open up space for other Islamist organizations to operate.
GRENLAND
Greenland rarely appears in the world news column. This small territory, although geographically conveniently located for the Americas, actually requires large expenditures from its colonizers. Geographical isolation and harsh winters make growing food extremely difficult. He was last in the news following the scandal surrounding the disproportionately frequent removal of children from Inuit families by the Danish authorities. There is also a movement for independence, but it is neither overly active nor popular. That changed in early January when the US administration announced it would take over Greenland. Trump expressed his desire to take over Greenland for the first time during his first term, and again at the beginning of last year. Now, probably encouraged by the success of the action in Venezuela, he has gained a new zeal. However, Greenland is not Venezuela. Although autonomous, it is part of Denmark and therefore part of NATO. An attack on Greenland would mean the end of this pact, which could open up several disputes among the members. For example, Turkey could discuss with Greece its longstanding disagreement over Cyprus (all three countries are now members of NATO, meaning they have a non-aggression pact). An attack on one member would no longer mean an attack on all, so if Putin decided to expand his invasion to another country, he would no longer have to fear the response of the entire alliance.
Is Trump willing to risk the collapse of the current security order? Probably not, but we can't say that for sure since he acts like he's not overly interested in international law. What Trump must be concerned about is how to secure the support of his conservative base to bomb and potentially kill white Europeans. Aleksandar Vučić stated that Serbia will not interfere if America attacks Greenland, so Trump can breathe a sigh of relief from that side.
It is much more likely that the takeover of Greenland, if it happens, will be done by softer means. There is still an American military base in Greenland, and the fact that these soldiers have not yet been withdrawn also supports the fact that America is not planning an attack. Europe's reaction was actually very lukewarm considering the theoretical danger. France, Germany and Sweden together sent about thirty soldiers to Greenland, an act that was obviously primarily symbolic. Several countries have openly said they will not send troops. Trump has announced tough tariffs for the European Union from February 1, to which member countries are announcing a response. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that Trump's threat of tariffs was "wrong" and that "the decision about the future of Greenland belongs exclusively to the people of Greenland and Denmark." Eventually, through these pressures, Denmark could agree to hand over military control over Greenland, and keep social benefits, thus avoiding a direct conflict. However, this would open the door to further Trump expansion, so we will see how Europe is prepared to resist in the coming weeks.
HAVE WE FORGOTTEN SOMEONE??
The listed armed conflicts are singled out because they have the greatest impact on geopolitical events. Many smaller wars are simmering, burning and have the potential to escalate at any moment, especially if the fragile world stability is further undermined. Do you remember that India and Pakistan, countries that have nuclear weapons, briefly went to war in May? That conflict was quickly forgotten, but Pakistan actually went through its most violent year in the previous decade – along with the war with India, a renewed border conflict with Afghanistan, and internal turmoil. There may be no evidence of genocide against Christians in Nigeria, but that does not diminish the fact that war is raging and both Christians and Muslims are dying in it. Several more wars are taking place in Africa - in the countries of the Sahel, more than 10.000 people lost their lives last year. In Myanmar, rebels have been at war with the military junta since the 2021 coup, also with huge human losses. In Syria, despite the recent change of government, the clashes between the state army, the Islamic State and the Kurdish forces continue. We should not forget that America, independent of the intervention in Venezuela, is constantly targeting ships in the Caribbean Sea, under the auspices of the fight against drug smuggling. The Balkans, fortunately, do not actually look like they are preparing for war.
