Though the dust from the devastating Tigray War of 2020–2022 has barely settled, the Horn of Africa once again appears to be drifting toward catastrophe. Recent developments suggest a growing risk of renewed conflict involving Ethiopia’s federal government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), and neighboring Eritrea. Military buildups, drone strikes, and a rising chorus of diplomatic accusations all point to a region edging back toward war. Should fighting resume, the consequences would be severe: hundreds of thousands more lives potentially lost, humanitarian crises deepening, and...

In late February, longstanding tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan erupted into open conflict, marking one of the most severe escalations since the Taliban regained control of Kabul in 2021. What began as targeted Pakistani airstrikes against militant camps in eastern Afghanistan has spiraled into cross-border offensives, artillery exchanges, and strikes on major Afghan cities, including Kabul and Kandahar. Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif declared an “open war” with the Taliban government following Afghan retaliatory attacks on Pakistani border positions. This flare-up, rooted...

In late January 2026, China’s Ministry of National Defense announced investigations into two of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) most senior officers: General Zhang Youxia, long-time vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) and a close Xi Jinping ally, and General Liu Zhenli, chief of the CMC’s Joint Staff Department. These investigations capped a wave of high-level purges that began in 2023 and steadily hollowed out the PLA’s senior leadership. At one point, the CMC, China’s supreme military decision-making body, was reduced in functional terms to Xi himself as chairman...