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Five Impending Inter-State Wars
Due to the destructiveness of modern military arsenals, war between states has become less frequent than in the past. However, growing instability and competitiveness in the international system indicates that we could be facing into a future where the likelihood of inter-state war might rise once more. The fact that climate change will result in severe shortages of resources, with accompanying instances of territorial disputes, in the coming decades only increases this possibility.
Presently, there are numerous unresolved disputes between heavily armed nations that could conceivably escalate into all-out war. What follows is a short explanation of five such cases.
Azerbaijan vs Armenia
The disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh has seen its deadliest flare-up of violence since the 1994 ceasefire that ended the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Armenian backed fighters have clashed with Azerbaijani troops in recent days, with the death toll reaching at least ninety-five, a figure that includes eleven civilians. On Tuesday, the Armenian government claimed one of its warplanes had been shot down by Turkey, a strong ally of the Azerbaijani government.
The dispute goes back to the collapse of the Soviet Union when both Armenia and Azerbaijan gained their independence. At the time, Nagorno-Karabakh, an…
