The year 2025 saw high levels of deadly violence around the world, as conflicts grew less restrained, with civilians increasingly victims of attacks by governments and non-state actors alike, according to monitoring data. Amid the tumult, peacemaking remains difficult and in many regions, conflicts that simmered for years are spreading.
Multiple, grueling wars unfolding simultaneously is the “new normal” for global conflict, according to Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, or ACLED, a monitoring group based in the United States. And this more violent environment is changing the nature of war, according to ACLED: Armed groups and governments using violence are “less restrained that at any other time in recent decades.” The level of conflict remained steady at a high level after years of increasing.
Conflict-related violence last year killed more than 240,000 people worldwide. Europe experienced the greatest increase in violence, driven by Russia’s ongoing invasion on Ukraine, and in the Middle East high levels of violence persisted despite several shaky ceasefires coming into force, ACLED data shows.
Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan saw some of the deadliest conflicts in 2025. In Myanmar, a civil war continued to grind on. Flashes of conflict elsewhere also contributed to the sustained pattern of global violence, including wars between Israel and Iran in June and India and Pakistan in May. Thailand and Cambodia also clashed, with violence between the two countries resurging late in the year.
A key factor driving high levels of global conflict is the decision by the United States to step back from its posture as enforcer of the rules-based international order, argues Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a political risk firm. “There is more of a vacuum,” Bremmer said, since the Trump administration has unilaterally withdrawn from some international bodies while slashing support for others.
“Without that, there are lots of bad actors, rouge states, non-state actors that feel they have more impunity to do whatever they want in an environment like this,” he said.
The rise in global conflict levels stretches back further than Trump’s second term. For years, the rise of non-state actors like militants or terrorist groups drove conflict, from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. And global power shifts disbursed conflict worldwide as great power competition increasingly played out though proxies, according to analysts and monitors.
In his second term, Trump has sought to build his legacy as a peacemaker, pursuing the Nobel Peace Prize. He says he has ended a growing list of conflicts. But in some of them, his role remains contested or violence has returned.
Less restraint
The war in Ukraine was the deadliest conflict of 2025, according to ACLED, with more than 78,000 people killed. Violence escalated as Russian forces pushed to capture more territory along Ukraine’s eastern front line and stepped up drone strikes on Ukrainian cities.
Russia launched swarms of hundreds of drones that became more difficult to intercept. The attacks struck residential blocks, government buildings and the energy grid, plunging many parts of the country into darkness during the cold winter months.
In some instances, the Russian attacks appeared to spike as peace talks picked up momentum. But the tiny territorial advances that Russia managed to secure in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region came at astronomical costs. Russia’s slow grind in 2025 cost it more than 200,000 troops killed and wounded, to capture less than an additional 1 percent of Ukrainian territory.
Fragile ceasefires
In the Middle East, which remained a high-conflict region, critical ceasefires went into effect in 2025 but often failed to bring violence levels back down all the way. Israel has conducted regular strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza since agreeing to a ceasefire there in October, including a strike last month that targeted a top commander in the group.
The ceasefire between Israel and Iran that ended the 12-day war in June appears to have largely held, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly eager to launch further strikes on Iranian territory, claiming the country is rebuilding its ballistic missile program. Trump warned Iran this week he would support such strikes if it attempts to rebuild.
In Lebanon, the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remained in effect for all of 2025, but Israel continued to launch attacks on Lebanese territory, including multiple strikes on the capital Beirut.
Many in Lebanon fear that after months of low-level violence, a return to all-out war could be inevitable. And the climate of uncertainty appears to be complicating efforts by Lebanon’s army to disarm Hezbollah, as the Lebanese militant group has refused to broadly surrender its weapons, saying that the country is still at war.
“Even when wars appear to end, violence often resurges, trapping civilians in relentless cycles of insecurity,” ACLED observed in the group’s year-end report on global trends.
Militants, gangs and civilians
Civilians increasingly bear the brunt of violent conflicts, according to ACLED.
The conflict in the Palestinian territories was the most dangerous for civilians worldwide, per ACLED data, which found that violence in the West Bank and Gaza has impacted the lives of nearly all the people living there. A Washington Post visual analysis here tracked how years of war in Gaza upended lives, livelihoods and learning.
In Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces are believed to have killed more civilians in 2025 than any other non-state actor.
Some of the most egregious allegations of civilian deaths emerged after RSF fighters pushed into the Sudanese town of El Fashir in October. Witnesses interviewed by The Washington Post told of mass killings, widespread rape and torture. In one instance, hundreds of unaccompanied children arrived in a neighboring town after escaping El Fashir, with some saying they saw their parents killed before they fled.
In the Caribbean, Haiti saw a significant increase in violence against civilians, according to ACLED, with over 4,500 Haitians killed as a result of political violence. One factor cited by the conflict monitor was the increased use of drones in Haiti, weapons that could make an already deadly conflict more dangerous for civilians.
While the introduction of weaponized drones posed a potential path to turn the tide against violent gangs that threaten to take over the Haitian capital, a Washington Post investigation found that women and children have been among the casualties of drone attacks in Haiti. In September, a child’s birthday party was hit by a drone, killing eight children. The gang leader that was the strike’s target managed to escape.
ACLED projects that Latin America and the Caribbean are set to continue to see high levels of violence into 2026. As the United States ramps up pressure in the region, including through strikes on alleged drug boats and a military buildup in the Caribbean, governments are expected to crack down internally, setting up standoffs with organized crime.
Maham Javaid contributed to this report.
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