Anthropologically Speaking: Conflict, Power, and the Rising Incidence of War The chart was constructed from the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset, as processed by Our World in Data. Its comparable annual series begins in 1946 because no methodologically equivalent dataset covers 1926 through 1945. UCDP defines a state-based armed conflict as organized violence involving at least one government and causing at least twenty-five battle-related deaths within a calendar year. The green indicators identify years of documented United States participation. Most historical markers use UCDP’s narrow designation of the United States as a primary participant. The indicators for 2025 and 2026 employ a broader standard that includes direct strikes, raids, naval operations, and military assistance documented by U.S. combatant commands, Reuters, and the Associated Press. Because 2026 remains incomplete, the chart does not assign it a final global conflict count. From an anthropological perspective, the graph invites attention to the historical moments in which conflict rises sharply. These spikes are not simply collections of unrelated battles. They represent periods when arrangements of authority, territory, identity, and political legitimacy are being contested across multiple societies. The rise around 1990 corresponded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the fragmentation of states, and the reemergence of disputes previously contained within Cold War structures. The present increase may likewise indicate a weakening international order and a growing willingness among governments to resolve political disputes through coercion. The recent figures are historically significant. Shawn Davies, Therése Pettersson, and Magnus Öberg report in “Organized Violence 1989–2025” that UCDP recorded 65 state-based conflicts in 2025, the highest number since the series began in 1946. This represented an increase from 59 conflicts in 2023 and 2024. Uppsala University also reported that interstate conflicts increased from two in 2023 to eight in 2025. The graph therefore shows more than a subjective impression that the world has become increasingly violent. It records an observable proliferation of organized conflicts involving governments. Conflict theory provides a useful framework for interpreting this pattern. Originating in the work of Karl Marx and subsequently developed in different directions by scholars such as Antonio Gramsci, Ralf Dahrendorf, and C. Wright Mills, conflict theory treats social order as an outcome of unequal power rather than universal agreement. Institutions distribute authority, resources, risks, and opportunities unevenly. Dominant groups possess greater capacity to establish rules, define threats, legitimate coercion, and transfer the costs of their decisions to less powerful populations. Applied internationally, this approach asks who has the authority to initiate military action, who benefits from militarization, and who experiences its consequences. A relatively small number of political, military, intelligence, and corporate institutions make decisions concerning airstrikes, blockades, weapons transfers, and military deployments. The resulting deaths, displacement, economic disruption, and environmental destruction are experienced largely by people who did not participate in those decisions. C. Wright Mills’s The Power Elite is particularly relevant. Mills examined the interlocking authority of American political, military, and corporate institutions. His argument does not require us to imagine a secret conspiracy governing every decision. It directs attention to the institutional positions from which a small number of people make choices with consequences extending far beyond themselves. The concentration of military decision-making within the executive branch makes presidential conduct especially consequential. This brings us to the relationship between American political conditions and the graph’s recent rise. The chart cannot establish that the United States or its leadership caused the increase. Many conflicts represented in the total have long local histories, including those in Sudan, Myanmar, Ukraine, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. UCDP identifies 2014 as an important turning point, connecting the longer rise to the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the proliferation of Islamic State affiliates. Nevertheless, the United States cannot be treated as an outside observer. During 2026, American forces have conducted operations in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The United States has also provided military assistance associated with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. This does not make Washington responsible for every conflict, but it places American power within the pattern being examined. Research on domestic polarization and foreign policy provides a possible mechanism. Gordon Friedrichs and Sebastian Harnisch’s 2022 work on American polarization shows how partisan division can weaken policy continuity, reduce alliance confidence, and make American commitments less predictable. Dorian Cadier’s 2024 analysis of populist foreign policy argues that populist leaders frequently make international relations an extension of domestic political competition. Foreign policy becomes a means of distinguishing the current government from its predecessors, mobilizing supporters, and presenting political opponents as obstacles to national strength. Conflict theory sharpens this analysis by asking whose interests are served when force becomes the preferred demonstration of leadership. Political leaders may gain authority, military institutions may acquire resources, and defense corporations may receive contracts, while civilians and military personnel bear the physical consequences. This does not prove that wars are manufactured solely for profit or domestic distraction. It shows that conflict distributes benefits and suffering unevenly. Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People Without History adds an essential anthropological caution. Conflicts that appear local must be understood within wider histories of empire, capitalism, state formation, and global interdependence. Disorder within a powerful country can travel through alliances, markets, weapons systems, military bases, and political narratives. The graph therefore supports a serious hypothesis rather than a final verdict. The recent increase in armed conflict may partly reflect a global environment in which American polarization, institutional instability, and executive unpredictability weaken restraints on coercion. The United States does not cause every conflict, but its extraordinary power allows its internal struggles to influence the conditions under which other governments and armed groups make decisions. Conflict theory helps us see that the rising line is not merely a record of violence. It is also a record of struggles over who possesses the authority to define threats, use force, and make others bear the consequences. What do you think?