The bad news is the International Crisis Group (ICG), an independent body that works to prevent wars and hopefully promote peace, has had a difficult and fraught year.
The worse news is that it expects to be even busier in 2023 as it continues to seek solutions to a series of hot spots, any one of which could explode into a global conflagration to complement the continuing war in Ukraine.
After reviewing the fallout from the Russian invasion of its neighbour, which occupied most of the year, ICG Chief Executive, Comfort Ero and Executive Vice President, Richard Atwood believe the impact of that conflict may will influence a return to hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia, with the very real possibility that Azerbaijan may overrun its neighbour.
They believe the military balance is now so totally tilted in Azerbaijan’s favour that its forces could take complete control of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, now that Armenia’s Russian backer is distracted in Ukraine.
Iran, rocked by internal protests and ostracized in the West for its military support of Russia, is another potential pressure-point in 2023.
Police and other pro-Government authorities have killed hundreds of demonstrators, many of them young women protesting over the compulsory hijab law, all of which makes the chances of further talks over the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal even less likely.
In this scenario, Israel’s new right-wing Government might decide to take matters into its own hands and strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.
With so much going on, the world seems to have forgotten about Yemen, and while major fighting between Houthi rebels and the country’s internationally-recognised Government has ceased, hopes of a broader resolution have dimmed as both sides have used the truce to prepare for further war.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo the M23 rebel group holds several towns in the eastern part of this vast African nation. It appears to be well-armed and quite capable of extending its influence in 2023.
The waters are muddied by the presence of several other rebel groups, including the so-called Allied Democratic Forces, which is linked to Islamic State, while troops from Uganda and Kenya, invited in by President Félix Tshisekedi, are a further complication.
To the north, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are having no success in beating back Islamic insurgents in fighting that has killed thousands and driven more than two million people from their homes.
Add Haiti, wracked by political and gang violence since the murder of President Jovenal Moïse in July 2021, and the perennial flashpoint of Taiwan, which could easily boil over into a confrontation between China and the United States, and there is little to cheer about now the New Year celebrations are over.
Despite all this, Ukraine continues to be front of mind. President Vladimir Putin’s once proud boast that his forces would be in Kyiv in three days and conquer the entire country in 17, have been carefully filed away by the Kremlin, and with Western-armed Ukraine on the offensive, there is little chance of the conflict ending any time soon.
In desperation, Putin has tried to re-portray the war as between Russia and the West, with Russia’s very survival at stake. This may pave the way for a full-scale mobilisation in 2023, a risky move that could easily backfire, considering the chaos that followed a partial mobilisation of 300,000 conscripts during the year.
The real danger is the war taking on a momentum of its own, with neither side able to control an escalation towards an all-out conflict, rather like what occurred in the fateful summer of 1914.
I believe Putin is beyond hope, but the West must never cease its attempts to convince other influential figures in the Kremlin that while any threat to Russia itself is a nonsense, attempts to expand its territories beyond current borders is, and always will be, unacceptable.
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