Global Peace Index: Fragmentation and Conflict Escalation

Nov. 18, 2025 /Mpelembe Media/ — The report offers an extensive analysis of the current state of global peace, highlighting a deterioration in peacefulness for the sixth consecutive year, driven primarily by increases in Ongoing Conflict and Militarisation. It details rising geopolitical fragmentation, an increase in the number of internationalised conflicts, and a major jump in global military spending to a record $2.7 trillion in 2024. The report also examines the economic impact of violence, noting it reached $19.97 trillion and that developing countries are heavily burdened by debt, often spending more on servicing it than on public services, leading to increased domestic conflict risk in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Finally, the analysis identifies nine key factors that escalate conflict intensity and uses case studies—such as the Tigray War and the Kashmir conflict—to illustrate the risks of future large-scale violence.

The global trends in militarisation, conflict, and geopolitical fragmentation are intersecting to create widespread systemic instability, pushing the international order toward a tipping point where the risk of large-scale conflict is substantially increased.

This systemic instability is characterized by a continued decline in global peacefulness, which has deteriorated for 13 of the past 17 years and every year since 2014. Many of the factors that historically precede major conflicts are now at levels higher than seen since the end of WWII.

Here is a comprehensive breakdown of how these specific trends drive systemic instability:

1. Accelerating Militarisation

The reversal of a long-term decline in global militarisation is a core driver of instability, signaling a world preparing for violence rather than peace.

Deterioration of the Militarisation Domain: The Militarisation domain of the Global Peace Index (GPI) deteriorated for the second consecutive year in 2025, reversing a decade-long trend of improvement. This deterioration is driven by countries responding to increasing threats and rising geopolitical uncertainty.

Record Military Spending and Arms Races: Global military spending hit a record $2.7 trillion in 2024, marking a nine per cent increase from the previous year, largely fueled by conflicts such as the war in Ukraine. Eighty-four countries increased their relative military expenditure in the past year.

Nuclear Expansion and Technological Rivalry: Every nuclear-armed state has maintained or expanded its arsenal since 2022. Great-power rivalry is also fueling an arms race in advanced technologies, including AI-enabled drones and counter-space systems. This surge in military focus is considered a direct consequence of a deteriorating global security environment.

Socioeconomic Trade-Offs: The increased expenditure on military and defence capabilities crowds out necessary investment in productive areas such as education, health, and business development. These investments underpin social cohesion, and the reallocation of public funds towards defence heightens the risk of exacerbating existing social tensions and declining public trust within countries, particularly in Europe.

2. Escalation and Internationalization of Conflict

The sheer volume, difficulty in resolution, and geographic spread of conflicts are creating a violent conflict crisis.

Crisis in Conflict Management: There are currently 59 active state-based conflicts, the highest number since the end of World War II. The international conflict-management system is overstretched precisely when geopolitical fragmentation is increasing.

Internationalization: Conflicts are increasingly becoming internationalized intrastate conflicts, which have increased 175 per cent since 2010. A staggering 78 countries are now involved in a conflict beyond their borders. This increased involvement is driven by geopolitical fragmentation and increasing major power competition.

Difficulty of Resolution: Conflicts are persisting longer because fewer end decisively. Since the 1970s, the percentage of conflicts ending in a clear victory has dropped from 49 per cent to nine per cent, while those ending through peace agreements fell from 23 per cent to four per cent over the same period. The propensity for conflicts to end due to “low activity” rather than resolution means they become “frozen conflicts” that are likely to erupt again, increasing long-term instability.

Escalation Risk: The rising number of active conflicts increases the risk of at least one conflict rapidly escalating. Factors contributing to rapid escalation—such as significant external support, non-state actor heavy weapons, and high levels of ethnic exclusion—are present in nearly all assessed state-based conflict pairs, indicating a significant risk for violence to substantially worsen in hotspots like South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Syria.

Humanitarian and Economic Costs: The sheer scale of conflict has resulted in over 122 million people forcibly displaced globally, an increase of over 185 per cent since the inception of the GPI. This violence incurred an economic impact of $19.97 trillion in 2024, equivalent to 11.6 per cent of global GDP.

3. Geopolitical and Economic Fragmentation

Geopolitical fragmentation—the accelerating breakup of the international system into competing blocs—is central to current instability.

Geopolitical Breakdown: Geopolitical fragmentation is rising, with levels now exceeding those seen during the Cold War. This weakens the common rules and institutions that previously bound states together, showing up in sharper strategic rivalries and diminishing multilateral institutions like the UN and WTO.

Rise of Global Power Fragmentation: The world is moving into the age of ‘global power fragmentation’. The number of countries considered to have substantial influence in another country has risen significantly, from six in the 1970s to 34 by 2023, increasing competition for influence, particularly in lower and middle-income countries.

Economic Decoupling: Global integration is declining. Global trade has plateaued at roughly 60 per cent of global GDP for the last decade, following rapid post-Cold War growth. This stagnation is coupled with the weaponization of economic interdependence, leading to a surge in restrictive trade practices—over 3,000 such measures were imposed in 2023, nearly triple the 2019 figure.

Debt and Economic Stressors: Macro-economic adjustments globally are likely to increase the risk of conflict. Public debt reached $97 trillion in 2023, and developing countries are struggling, spending an average of 42 per cent of government revenue on servicing debt. This severe debt pressure, combined with modest global GDP growth (3.3% in 2024) and elevated inflation (5.8% in 2024), creates conditions for social unrest and political volatility, particularly in fragile regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa.

The relationship between these trends resembles a self-reinforcing cycle: fragmentation increases geopolitical distrust, which fuels greater militarisation and arms races. This environment then lowers the threshold for conflict escalation, while underlying economic stress and unresolved conflicts undermine domestic stability, ensuring that the global level of peacefulness continues to decline.

Analogy: The current systemic instability can be likened to a massive international cargo ship, already listing heavily (declining peacefulness). Geopolitical fragmentation is the hull beginning to break apart into separate sections, eroding the stability provided by the overall structure. The surge in militarisation is everyone frantically arming themselves inside their respective sections, convinced they need protection from the others, which only adds weight and stress to the fracturing vessel. Meanwhile, conflict is the rapidly spreading fire below deck, increasing the chaos and ensuring that any economic or social strain on board could cause the entire ship to capsize.

The full report is available for download here