Abstract: The global conflict landscape in January 2026 appears more complicated than it was a year earlier. The two conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine were seen as flashpoints in January 2025; in January 2026, there are a few more flashpoints – Venezuela, Greenland, Taiwan and perhaps the Chagos Islands. Despite mediation efforts, conflicts persisted in Africa and in Southeast Asia (between Thailand and Cambodia), and in some cases, even deteriorated. In South Asia, there were military exchanges between India and Pakistan, and Pakistan and Afghanistan. In East Asia, China’s military exercises around Taiwan, and its relations with Japan worsened last year. The conflicts in 2025 also witnessed the use of tariffs as strategic tools, artificial intelligence, unmanned systems, and renewed nuclear signaling.
At the systemic level, the global and regional institutions remain fractured to deal with the conflicts. Worse, there is a trans-Atlantic rupture, between the US and Europe that would worsen the conflict situation in Ukraine and the Middle East. Trump’s assertion in Latin America, Greenland and now in the Chagos Islands highlight the American unilateralism and its fallouts.
Against the above backdrop in 2025, the lecture will focus on what is likely to be the conflict landscape in 2026, focusing on existing and emerging flashpoints, and what do they mean for the international order.
About the speaker: Prof D Suba Chandran is Dean, School of Conflict and Security Studies, NIAS. He is the editor of “NIAS Conflict Weekly” and “NIAS Conflict Annual.”