Global Security Balance Sheet 2025: Political Conflicts Reach Record Levels as Escalation Shifts Below the Threshold of War

Heidelberg / Karlsruhe, December 18th, 2025: Global political conflict reached a new high in 2025. As of September 30, 2025, the CONIAS Conflict Database records 1,450 ongoing political conflicts worldwide. The Security Balance Sheet 2025: Preliminary Trends (Jan-Sep), released today by the Political Risk Research Unit of Michael Bauer International (MBI), highlights a sustained intensification of political tensions across nearly all regions of the world.

The analysis classifies political conflicts into five intensity levels, ranging from disputes to full-scale wars. Currently, 35 conflicts are categorized as wars, with a further 54 classified as limited wars. In addition, there are 523 violent crises that remain below the formal threshold of war but already involve the use of political violence.

The largest share, however, consists of conflicts without violent action. Globally, CONIAS documents 591 disputes and 246 non-violent crises. These non-violent crises are often characterized by political deadlock, economic coercion, institutional confrontation, or diplomatic disputes. Increasingly, they serve as the starting point for later escalation into violence.

“Focusing on wars alone provides an incomplete picture of today’s security landscape,” says Dr. Nicolas Schwank, Chief Data Scientist for Political Risk at MBI. “Our data show that political risks often build up long before military escalation occurs. Many of the most relevant dynamics unfold at non-war conflict levels, which are frequently underestimated in public debate.”

Both intrastate and interstate conflicts shape the current global environment. While the majority of wars and violent crises are domestic in nature, a substantial share of disputes and non-violent crises occur between states. These are often linked to trade relations, sanctions, border issues, or political influence operations.

The Security Balance Sheet 2025 is based on the CONIAS Conflict Database, originally developed at Heidelberg University and now analyzing approximately 600,000 conflict-related data points each month. All figures represent analytically classified estimates derived from continuous data collection and may be subject to revision as part of ongoing editorial updates.

Contact for inquiries and data requests: [email protected]