Current Events - January 2026

Nathan Peterson

Friends,

Gentleman, good evening.  I am your back-up pinch hitter for current events, subbing in for John Krieger.  For those I have not met, I am relatively new, I am Nathan Peterson, I am the clinical pharmacy manager for UnityPoint Health in the QC but also encompassing Muscatine as well.  New to the area but have been here since 2018. 

Tonight, I have current events, and the theme tonight for me is going to be, ‘military conflict in which the US is not directly involved.’ In the spirit of lists, I’ve got a top ten for you.

1. Let’s start in the Middle East, with the confrontation between Israel and Iran. Israel has long been viewed as a ‘western outpost’. A Jewish democracy surrounded by Muslim caliphates. For years this was a shadow war—covert operations, cyberattacks, proxy militias. In June 2025, that shadow war burst into the open when Israel launched “Operation Rising Lion,” a series of strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities at sites. Iran responded with waves of ballistic missiles and drones against Israeli territory, prompting emergency meetings at the UN Security Council and raising fears of a wider regional war.

The open exchange of strikes in 2025 rattled global oil markets, pushing prices upward due to fears of supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s already fragile economy suffered further as infrastructure damage, sanctions pressure, and currency depreciation accelerated. Israel faced costly mobilization expenses, disruptions to commerce during missile alerts, and declines in tourism and foreign investment.

2. Shift east to the Taiwan Strait, one of the most dangerous flashpoints on earth. China has long claimed Taiwan as its own, but in the last two years Beijing has moved from pressure to rehearsal. In 2025, the People’s Liberation Army launched large-scale exercises around the island, simulating missile strikes and a blockade of Taiwan’s ports. At the end of 2025, China followed with “Justice Mission 2025,” encircling Taiwan with warships and aircraft in drills that looked less like symbolism and more like a dress rehearsal for cutting the island off from the world.

China’s large‑scale military drills around Taiwan disrupted shipping lanes and forced cargo vessels to reroute, increasing global freight costs. Taiwan’s semiconductor sector—central to global electronics—faced production delays due to airspace restrictions and supply‑chain uncertainty. Regional stock markets dipped during each major PLA exercise, and multinational firms began reassessing supply‑chain exposure to the Taiwan Strait. A prolonged crisis threatens trillions in global trade that passes through East Asian sea lanes.

3. Now to South Asia, where India and Pakistan—two nuclear-armed neighbors—remain locked in a dangerous rivalry centered on Kashmir. This goes back to 1947, when British parliament passed the Indian Independence Act of 1947.  It ordered that the dominions of India and Pakistan be split, and that the assets of the world’s largest empire – which had been integrated in countless ways for more than a century – be divided in a single month.  The Hindus and the Sikhs tried to flea to India, while the Muslims tried to rush to Pakistan. 2 million people died in the process. 

Fast forward to April 2025, a terrorist attack in Indian‑administered Kashmir killed 26 civilians, mostly Hindu tourists. India blamed Pakistan‑based militants and responded with missile strikes on targets deep inside Pakistan and Pakistan‑administered Kashmir. For several days in May 2025, the two countries exchanged fire across the Line of Control before agreeing to a fragile ceasefire on May 10.

4. In Africa, Sudan is living through one of the worst crises on the planet. It started with a coup in 2021 when the civilians overthrew a 30-year reign of Omar al-Bashir and tried to establish a democracy. Since April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, have been locked in a brutal civil war. By early 2025, more than 12 million people had been displaced, making Sudan the world’s largest displacement and hunger crisis. In January 2025, the United States formally determined that the RSF had committed genocide in parts of Darfur, citing ethnic killings, systematic sexual violence, and deliberate obstruction of aid.

Recent months have seen major shifts on the battlefield. The SAF has retaken key areas in Khartoum and other states, while the RSF has consolidated control in parts of Darfur and Kordofan, transforming the map of the war. Humanitarian access remains severely restricted; famine conditions are spreading, and aid workers face attacks, bureaucratic obstruction, and active hostilities.

5. Next door in Ethiopia, conflict has been ongoing between central government and ethnically based regional groups over political power, autonomy, and control within Ethiopia’s federal system since the 90s. In early 2025, reports documented renewed violence in Tigray and a sharp surge in political violence in the Amhara region, where Fano militias launched “Operation Unity” against federal forces across multiple zones.

The humanitarian situation in Tigray is still dire: displacement, food insecurity, and restricted aid access persist despite the formal cessation of hostilities. Economically, Ethiopia—once one of Africa’s fastest‑growing economies—has seen investor confidence shaken, infrastructure damaged, and public finances strained by war. The conflict also has geopolitical dimensions: tensions with Eritrea, disputes over access to the Red Sea, and cross‑border clashes with communities in neighboring Kenya all risk turning Ethiopia’s internal crises into regional ones.

6. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the long‑running conflict in the east has entered a new and dangerous phase driven by competition over the region’s vast mineral resources. The M23 rebel group, widely reported to be backed by Rwanda, launched a major offensive in early 2025, capturing key towns and eventually seizing the two largest cities in eastern DRC. In September 2025, the President Kabila was sentenced to death in absentia for treason and war crimes. UN human rights officials have documented summary executions, bombings of displacement camps, and a deepening human rights crisis as fighting spreads toward South Kivu.

The humanitarian implications are staggering: millions displaced, repeated cycles of violence in camps meant to be safe, and chronic underfunding of relief efforts. All fighting has been heavily linked to the control of valuable natural resources. Economically, control over mineral‑rich territories—cobalt, coltan, gold—means this war is unlikely to end soon. Over 25 million people are dealing with famine.

7. In Myanmar, a civil war that began with the 2021 coup has evolved into a nationwide revolt against military rule. By late 2024 and into 2025, resistance forces—generally pro-democracy ethnic groups-- had captured wide swathes of territory and overrun key regional command bases, shattering the country’s military. Analysts now estimate the military controls only a fraction of the country’s towns and townships, while rebel groups push closer to major cities and weapons factories.

There have been ongoing airstrikes on villages, mass displacement across borders into Thailand, India, and Bangladesh. An estimated 20 million people were displaced in 2025 alone. Politically, the conflict has also become a test of whether a diverse resistance movement can translate battlefield gains into a coherent federal democratic project.

8. Let’s turn to the Sahel. Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, and Sudan and their neighbors—where jihadist insurgencies have turned vast areas into conflict zones. Militant Islamist groups have made the Sahel the deadliest theater of Islamist violence in Africa, accounting for more than half of related fatalities on the continent. In 2024 and 2025, these groups expanded southward and westward, launching coordinated attacks across Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and even into coastal states like Benin, targeting civilians, security forces, and urban centers.

The humanitarian consequences are devastating: villages emptied, schools closed, farmers unable to plant, and millions displaced in some of the world’s poorest countries. Economically, the violence has cut off trade routes, undermined agriculture, and scared away investment, deepening poverty and feeding the very grievances that militants exploit. Geopolitically, the Sahel has become a zone of intense competition—between military and regional organizations, between Western and non‑Western security partners, and between different visions of how to respond to terrorism and state fragility.

9. Not all critical conflicts look like conventional wars. In Haiti, state authority has eroded so badly that heavily armed gangs now control large parts of the capital and beyond. Between mid‑2024 and early 2025, thousands of people were killed or injured and more than a million displaced as gangs launched coordinated attacks, kidnappings, and massacres, often targeting police and their families. The UN human rights chief has described the situation as a “catastrophe,” with public institutions in ruins and the political process “hanging by a thread.”

The crisis is acute: people sheltering in stadiums and schools, widespread hunger, and almost no effective protection from violence. Economically, Haiti’s already fragile economy has been strangled by insecurity, with businesses shuttered and basic services collapsing. Geopolitically, the crisis raises hard questions about international responsibility and intervention: how to support a society trapped between predatory gangs and weak institutions without repeating past mistakes or undermining Haitian sovereignty.

10. Finally, in the South Caucasus, the long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno‑Karabakh has entered a new chapter. After Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive in September 2023 retook the region and triggered the exodus of nearly 100,000 ethnic Armenians, the two countries moved—surprisingly—toward a peace deal. In March 2025, they announced that they had agreed on the text of a treaty to normalize relations and end nearly four decades of hostilities. Analysts called it a “real opportunity” for lasting peace, even as unresolved issues and mutual distrust kept the treaty from being signed immediately.

So where does all this leave us?

Across these ten conflicts, a few threads stand out. First, civilians are not just “collateral damage”—they are the primary targets and the primary victims. Second, the line between local and global is thin: a drone strike in Goma, a blockade drill off Taiwan, a missile salvo over Iran, a militia attack in the Sahel—each can ripple through supply chains, energy markets, migration routes, and security alliances. Third, the world is drifting toward a more fragmented order, where regional wars, proxy struggles, and state collapse coexist with high‑tech militaries and nuclear risks.

But there is another thread too: in every one of these places, people are still organizing, documenting abuses, negotiating ceasefires, pushing for accountability, and imagining different futures. The question for the rest of us is whether we treat these conflicts as distant headlines—or as mirrors that reflect the kind of world we are willing to live in.