Methodology
The Wachenheim Center for Peace and Security’s (WCPS) Global Conflict Tracker is an interactive tool that documents ongoing armed conflicts around the world. Each conflict entry includes background information, latest news developments, conflict status assessments, and resources for further research, all updated regularly by WCPS analysts in consultation with Council on Foreign Relations experts.
Conflict Selection
The conflicts featured in the Global Conflict Tracker were originally identified through WCPS’s Preventive Priorities Survey (PPS), an annual assessment in which government officials, foreign policy experts, and academics evaluate ongoing and potential conflicts based on their likelihood of escalation and their potential impact on U.S. and international interests. While the PPS continues to inform our baseline, the GCT’s coverage has evolved to reflect a broader set of selection criteria centered on the nature and severity of each conflict.
Conflicts are included in the GCT when they meet one or more of the following criteria:
- Level of violence: Active armed conflict resulting in casualties among combatants and/or civilians. WCPS applies this criterion holistically, considering both the scale and the sustained nature of violence rather than fixed numerical thresholds.
- Humanitarian impact: Significant displacement of civilian populations, large-scale civilian casualties, or acute humanitarian crises attributable to the conflict.
- Escalation risk: Credible potential for the conflict to intensify, spread across borders, or draw in additional state or non-state actors in ways that could affect regional or global stability.
WCPS periodically reviews the Tracker’s included conflicts. Conflicts may be added when they meet these thresholds or archived when sustained reductions in violence and displacement indicate a transition to post-conflict stabilization. The absence of a conflict does not imply that it is inactive or unimportant.
Conflict Assessment and Updates
WCPS assesses the status of each conflict by monitoring developments and reviewing watch lists, conflict analyses, and government and intergovernmental reports. Status determinations are made in consultation with relevant experts at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Each conflict entry includes a “Last Reviewed” date indicating when the entry was most recently assessed. Updates follow one of two schedules:
- Routine review: All conflicts are reviewed at a minimum on a quarterly basis to reflect changes in conflict status, humanitarian conditions, and key developments.
- Event-driven review: High-activity conflicts are updated on an ongoing basis as significant developments warrant, including major military operations, ceasefire agreements, leadership changes, or significant shifts in humanitarian conditions.
Conflict status designations reflect WCPS’s assessment of each conflict’s current intensity and trajectory. These designations are analytical judgments rather than legal determinations, and they are subject to revision as conditions evolve.
Conflict Status
The conflict has experienced a meaningful deterioration in one or more of the following: intensity of armed violence, territorial control by hostile actors, civilian casualties or displacement, humanitarian access, or prospects for a negotiated resolution. Worsening designations reflect a sustained or significant shift in trajectory, not isolated incidents.
The conflict continues at a broadly consistent level of violence and humanitarian impact, with no significant shift, positive or negative, in its trajectory. This designation does not imply stability; it indicates that conditions remain entrenched. Conflicts can remain in this status for extended periods while still posing acute dangers to civilians and regional security.
The conflict has experienced a meaningful reduction in armed violence, an expansion of humanitarian access, progress toward a negotiated settlement, or other developments that credibly reduce the risk of further escalation. Improving designations reflect a sustained shift in trajectory; they do not indicate that the conflict has ended or that a return to violence has been ruled out.
A situation that has not yet crossed the threshold into sustained armed conflict, but in which the conditions for conflict are actively present. This includes cases where geopolitical tensions, military posturing, political coercion, or contested sovereignty have reached a level of severity that places armed conflict within credible near-term range. Developing situations are monitored as potential conflicts rather than active ones; they may be characterized by coercive diplomacy, sanctions regimes, low-level incidents, or unresolved flashpoints that have not yet produced organized, sustained violence meeting WCPS’s armed conflict threshold.
Impact on the United States
High
The conflict directly implicates U.S. treaty obligations, involves active U.S. military engagement or deployment, or poses a credible near-term threat to the U.S. homeland or critical U.S. infrastructure. Also applies when the conflict carries significant potential to destabilize a region of core strategic importance to the United States, or trigger escalation involving a major U.S. adversary or partner.
Moderate
The conflict affects U.S. strategic, economic, or humanitarian interests without rising to the level of direct military involvement. This includes conflicts in regions of secondary strategic importance to the United States, situations affecting U.S. allies or partners that have not triggered treaty obligations, conflicts with meaningful potential to generate refugee flows or transnational instability, or situations that could escalate to a higher impact level absent effective intervention.
Low
A conflict that, despite potentially leading to severe or widespread humanitarian consequences, occurs in countries of limited strategic importance to the United States.