Raleigh Report - December 2025

“Things happen” — United States President Donald Trump 

A sense of uneasiness has gripped the world. Since ACLED began producing both a global Conflict Index and Watchlist, it has reported largely dire news, including that conflict rates have doubled since 2019. But in 2025, conflict did not rise: It stabilized at its recent highest point in 2024.  

Cold comfort? Yes, my particular specialty. A “new normal” in conflict does not suggest a slowdown but a resting point. What does the new normal look like?

From mid-November 2024 to mid-November 2025, we recorded more than 205,400 violent events, resulting in around 244,700 fatalities, and exposing 17% of the world’s population, or one in six people, to conflict. More than 173,900  protests and riots occurred, representing close to a 5% increase. ACLED collected over 1,000 events per day in 2025.  

The trends of 2025 should prepare us for 2026. Let’s remember the headlines from this year (for conflict, I will ignore the parts about trade wars, economic stagnation, countries claiming to overtake Greenland and Canada, the pope dying, etc.). The Gaza war grinded on until a sequenced peace agreement on 9 October, largely because Israel bombed Qatar in September, and not because over 68,470 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and Israel’s global reputation is in tatters. Conflict in the West Bank by settlers doubled during this time. In June, the US supported Israel in surprise attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, assassinated several key regime and military leaders, and massively damaged Iran’s air defenses. Sudan lurched from mass attacks, largely depending on whether the Rapid Support Forces were regularly supplied by the United Arab Emirates (allegedly). At the end of the year, the US is engaging in “peace talks” with Russia (only) about Ukraine. This was still a higher point than when the US president and vice president berated the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office in March because he was insufficiently supplicant. There was a Red Sea crisis, as Yemen was bombed several times by the US, which then turned its attention to Venezuela. India and Pakistan eyed each other up again before returning to deal with a number of “domestic terrorism” events. There were also countless violent events happening in places we don’t always talk about. For example,  in January, the presidential palace in Chad was overrun, and 19 fighters were killed. The president of Somalia survived an attack on his convoy by al-Shabaab, which also increased their battles with the Islamic State. The (very) new Syrian government oversaw the almost impossible task of rebuilding the structures of government and a state. Meanwhile, reprisal killings are rife. Ecuador continued to be the most murderous place in South America (which is really saying something), with child and youth homicides seeing a particularly sharp increase.  

There are multiple changes happening simultaneously because all conflict agents want to maximize this moment of opportunity. I want to underline this part: This is a moment of opportunity for conflict, and many will take it up. In 2025, 906 non-state armed groups became operational, and 1,674 ceased activity. Further, some of these changes — like state-led violence — are designed to change the map of power globally. These will take time — perhaps even a generation — but it is the overall direction of travel. 

The best way to understand the year and the near future is to observe it through the lens of state violence and protest. They occupy different ends of the ACLED spectrum, but these forms of conflict have undergone some spectacular changes that reinforce global political patterns. More to the point, what we see developing is not insurgencies or revolutions, but institutionalized murder, (poor) technological solutions for political problems, violence cartels, and popular/unpopular demonstrations. 

State violence is at its highest levels since we began recording it, but there are both clear divergences in the monopoly that states have in conflict within their territories and the range of threats states respond to and create. State violence looks completely different than that of 10 or even five years ago. Ten years ago, regimes often failed to monopolize violence. Conflict raged in Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. IS had a territory of significant size between Iraq and Syria (OG ISIS!). Elections were held in Myanmar, Burkina Faso, and Haiti. 

We have regions where states have almost constant engagement with conflict groups within their territories (or near abroad). This means that government forces of some kind are involved in the majority of conflict events that occur. Throughout 2025, 99% of conflict events involved the government in Europe; in the Caucasus and Central Asia (including Afghanistan) and in East and Southeast Asia, this was 85%; in the Middle East, 74%; and in Eastern Africa, 58%. Although facing drastically different forms and magnitudes of threats, in all of these regional cases, the state is, more or less, “in control” and using its role in violence to reassert the primacy of its central power. 

In other regions, states are not engaged in the majority of events, and they neither control the flow nor the sources of conflict across their countries. In 2025, these regions are Northern Africa (including Sudan) with 50% in 2025; South Asia with 45%; West Africa with 42%; Central Africa with 30%; Oceania with 18%; the Caribbean with 40% (an improvement from 2024); South America with 25%; Central America with 13%; and North America, including Mexico, with 16%. 

Large, intractable conflicts occur in both categories. Many armed groups can be found in both types of states, but the “low state involvement” group does not have control over how many or what form of groups operate within their territory. That looks very inviting for armed jihadists, curious cartels, political elites looking for power, external interests, etc. The regimes are under great stress and threat, and non-state groups are able to work around them, building political and economic alternatives to the country that will then become engulfed. 

What does this look like in practice? Violence levels in Mexico are very high, deadly, fragmented, and diffuse, and the Mexican government can do little about it. Violence levels in Mali are high, deadly, fragmented, and diffuse, and the local al-Qaeda affiliate is starving the urban areas of fuel and materials. However, lest you think that the other category of “high state involvement” is peaceful, consider that violence levels in Gaza are high, deadly, fragmented, and diffuse, and the Israeli government has killed tens of thousands in its pursuit of Hamas. Violence levels in Ukraine are high, very deadly, and seemingly relentless, all through state violence. Violence levels in Myanmar are high, deadly, extremely fragmented, and diffuse as the government battles with hundreds of distinct groups, who display no ability to coordinate to achieve a loosely shared political goal of removing the junta.

When states are highly involved in violence, it takes on a particular signature: Conflict is characterized by bombings, urban violence, high fatalities, disappearances, and a swarm of activity. Most notable in 2024 and 2025 is the striking increase in material: Bombing continues to grow as the tool of choice, but airstrikes have never solved a conflict. When states are less involved in violence, they protect only those that they can (typically, urban areas or, more specifically, neighborhoods — see Brazil). State fighting creates high fatalities but less security — exactly the opposite of what a government should produce for its citizens. 

Why has the rise in state violence been so stark? Defense spending has risen, and international oversight has declined. Neither causes violence, but both encourage its use. It is important to note here that I assume that the state wants to use violence: It is “costly,” but less so than you might think. Simply put, in all but the wealthiest, often Western, and highly democratic countries, regimes are willing to contain populations and competitors using high rates of violence. Further, regimes require a growing level of violence to secure their power and survive. The violence is in response to the competition and threats they deem serious. What is a valid threat is where the public understanding of regimes and the internal logic of regimes drastically diverge.

A significant underlying feature of increased state violence is a markedly changed geopolitical arena. Many powers (traditional, new, middle) are seeking to gain traction and control over each other and develop a new map of power: That is what is behind the drastic increase in defense spending. It isn’t to combat jihadists (whose activity has fallen, but is increasingly concentrated); it isn’t to take on old insurgents or new militias; it is to secure regime authority in a time of shifting geopolitics. This is not “war of the worlds”; at present, these contests are in line with fierce internal competition, which often leads to high rates of conflict in shallow democracies and competitive autocracies. Internal competition can take many forms, from elite sponsorship of gangs to brutal election crackdowns and urban terrorism. What is developing in the countries already prone to violence is that there are no allies, no loyalties, no defined endings, only interests. Survival requires violence.  

Something to watch for, though: In previous years, I spoke a lot about the proliferation of non-state armed groups. These groups arose because the political structure of regimes no longer required a “winner take all” conflict approach: In typical civil wars, the intention was to replace an exclusive regime. With greater elite inclusion and representation, conflict changed form to become about the competition within power structures, and therefore a proliferation of militias and gangs acting to mount a violent political shakedown. This may again change, as the costs of roiling violence and the ability to deal with multiple violent groups with uncertain trajectories have clearly taxed regimes and elites (i.e., it was a good idea until everyone started doing it, and now it is too much). What happens when the patronage of conflict stops? What political arrangement would incentivize elites to stop generating conflict? All I know now is that the answer isn’t democracy, and the result is not going to decrease violence but change its dominant form again. 

Protests and riots

It was another bullish year for civil commotion. We recorded 155,566 protests and 18,378 riots (including 12,305 episodes of mob violence). The pattern of protests and riots is tricky. One, there were still a tremendous number of pro-Palestine protests, overwhelmingly peaceful but occasionally marred by extremists with anti-semitic views. Two, the US and India still lead the charge, but, three, protest clusters are spreading but remain difficult to parse out. We have seen surges of protest but often in countries with already robust movements (e.g., Mexico, Turkey, Nepal). Again, consider 10 years ago: The fuel crisis gave rise to a fatal protest movement in Nepal, and Ethiopia was in the grip of a major protest movement that brought down a 28-year-government. 

There were many young people at these protests, perhaps encouraged by the belief that their voice is important. Their vote is increasingly less so, and in cases where nothing shifts in regimes (including those led by geriatric leaders), these events will become more frequent. Increases in public discontent portend badly for a government — it has the tendency of making them seem both ineffective and harmful (a strange combination). 

Notes and notions

Things I would personally love to see less of in 2026: 

Conflict AI: The spectre of AI and its role in conflict is driving a lot of defense spending, but far less actual violence. There is a tremendous amount of hype about AI’s role in “defense” technology, and, thus far, it promises slightly improved targeting from an autonomous weapons system with little to no human intelligence, accountability, or control. This extremely expensive and poorly conceptualized misanthropy shows all the signs of crashing and burning, along with masses of defense money. Perhaps more importantly for our purposes, AI warfare will not do anything to conflict rates and forms, but it will drive up the cost for certain players. Maybe people could actually think about the hyped impact and the actual impact of AI for more than two minutes and perhaps conclude that both are awful. For more, see Kissinger’s take.

I have very, very little time for “takes” like this on the “post-colonial” moment in Africa, with some demographic fear-mongering thrown in for good measure. To claim that the French leaving Mali was a positive development for the country is to only understand African countries by whether their massive political mistakes accord with your own grievance-heavy ideology. Since the French left, Jihadi violence in Mali immediately increased by 50% and has only grown since. Further, after leaving, the average monthly civilian death toll was 333 people compared to 44 before French troops left; now, on average, at least 77 civilian Malians are murdered per month. Finally, the current “post-colonial” government is being slowly boiled like a frog by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Let’s congratulate the junta on their bold political move that was very “of the moment” but ultimately disastrous. 

In fact, as we are on the subject,  there is a little annual tradition in Britain where a very posh and overly tanned gentleman puts out a list of things he finds “common,” and then sells tea towels with that printed list. Not being British, I don’t think commonness is a crime,  but I am a connoisseur of things that are grating. In 2025, this incomplete list is: 

• Saying “that is a great question.”*
• Boarding passes on your phone.
• Universities.
• QR codes (especially for menus).
• The Epstein saga.
• New hairstyles.
• Sauce in jars.
• Jazz.
• The color grey.
• “Fancy” gin and tonics.
• Nobel prizes.*
• Black Friday (in and out of the US).
• “Struggling.”
• Being “passionate,”  being “humbled,” or being “honored.”

Those with * also appeared on the common list! I know you have your own list, and there is no need to be ashamed of it. 

Over the past months, I have been reading a series of religiously themed books, and each one has been excellent. It started innocently enough while browsing one of those little libraries that look like large birdhouses, which had been cleverly placed close to parents watching children’s football. I picked up “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” by Reza Aslan, and it was captivating! I then moved on to “No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam” by the same author. It was equally stirring and well-paced, and I recommend both very much. I have been savouring Graeme Wood’s classic “The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State.” The earlier chapters showcase how the rhetoric and push toward the extremism of IS was crafted by a centuries-long lineage of total gobshites who offered violent but eloquent justifications for slavery, murder for apostasy, and fatal cruelty beyond measure for everyone else. 

ACLED webinars

Virtual launch: Conflict Index and Watchlist

How will conflict change in 2026? Join us today, 11 December, at 14:00 GMT | 9:00 EST for the virtual launch of our annual Conflict Index and Watchlist for a data-driven look at global conflict trends. The ACLED Conflict Index examines 2025’s conflict data on every country and territory in the world, using four key indicators — deadliness, danger to civilians, geographic diffusion, and the number of active armed groups. The 2026 Watchlist then turns to the year ahead, highlighting 10 crisis areas where conditions are likely to shift, for better or for worse. It’s not too late — register now to secure your spot.

ACLED in the media

• ACLED data were used to inform several high-level publications this past month. The Wall Street Journal made use of ACLED data in this video about al-Qaeda’s operations in Mali.
• The Financial Times used it in this article about Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles.
• CNN used ACLED to inform its reporting on ISIS in Mozambique.
• The Economist ran this article on Colombia’s armed groups, drawing on ACLED data, and quoted Héni Nsaibia for his insights on the fuel blockade in Mali.
• You can read about our data on deadly border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan in this BBC article. The BBC also used an ACLED visualization depicting the number of people who have been killed in armed attacks across Nigeria.
• The New York Times used ACLED data to report on civilian deaths resulting from clashes between the M23 and the Congolese military.
• Turning to ACLED’s work on the shadow war between Ukraine and Russia, The Telegraph interviewed Nichita Gurcov for an article on Russia and Ukraine’s deadly shadow war of assassinations. Nichita’s work on the topic was also picked up by The Kyiv Independent.