War is on the rise everywhere. When the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London published its authoritative Armed Conflict Survey in early December, it counted 183 conflicts globally in 2023 — higher than had been recorded in 30 years. The most remarkable episode of this harrowing new era of global violence is an astounding spate of military takeovers in what has come to be known as the coup belt, stretching uninterrupted across Africa’s Sahel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea: six countries enduring 11 coup attempts, eight of them successful, since just 2020.
I think it’s also worth flagging another possible contributor: climate change.
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