NEW YORK — Comfort Ero, president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, is urging leaders to treat 10 flashpoints — from Syria’s post-Assad transition to U.S.-China rivalry — as one escalating risk map for 2025. Her argument is that weak diplomacy and hardening great-power competition are letting local wars spill into global markets, migration routes and security alliances faster than governments can respond, Dec. 13, 2025.
The annual watchlist, compiled by Comfort Ero and Crisis Group executive vice president Richard Atwood, was published in Foreign Policy as “10 Conflicts to Watch in 2025” — and it reads less like prediction than triage: even “local” wars can ricochet into energy prices, trade lanes, elections and border policy.
Comfort Ero’s 10 flashpoints leaders can’t ignore in 2025
Syria: A fragile reset after Bashar Assad’s fall, with governance, minority rights and outside powers competing to shape what comes next.
Sudan: A war of attrition and atrocities that is starving the country; the World Food Programme said it will cut rations because of funding gaps, Reuters reported in a Dec. 12 dispatch.
Ukraine and European security: A grinding fight with Europe trying to backfill U.S. support; UNHCR has been forced to narrow assistance as funding falls short, Reuters reported in an April 25 story.
Israel-Palestine: A conflict with a widening blast radius — across the region and into domestic politics far beyond it.
Iran vs. the U.S. and Israel: A high-stakes standoff where strikes, sanctions and nuclear risk can spiral into open confrontation.
Haiti: A state hollowed out by gangs and political paralysis; the IOM said a record 1.3 million people were displaced, Reuters reported in a June 11 report.
U.S.-Mexico: Migration, cartels and election-season brinkmanship colliding on a shared border that doubles as a pressure valve for the hemisphere.
Myanmar: A brutal, undercovered civil war with regional spillover — and a humanitarian toll that rarely matches the headlines.
Korean Peninsula: A nuclear-armed powder keg where “tests” and “signals” can become incidents — and incidents can become doctrine.
U.S.-China: A rivalry that can still be managed, but only if communication stays open and “red lines” aren’t theater.
In an FP Live conversation about the list, Comfort Ero said the “core thread” is the return of Donald Trump in the middle of big-power rivalry — and that tariffs and trade could either cool tensions or inflame them, depending on how they are used, according to the transcript.
For CEOs and ministers alike, the takeaway is speed. Plan for stacked crises, not single shocks: fund humanitarian relief early (it is cheaper than firefighting), keep back channels alive even with adversaries, and stress-test supply chains against sudden border closures, shipping disruptions and sanctions whiplash.
Comfort Ero’s outlook in context: the same alarms have been ringing for years
This annual watchlist has been documenting the slow erosion of global guardrails for years — from the 2020 edition warning that “friends and foes alike no longer know where the United States stands,” to the 2022 list pointing to looming confrontations “from Ukraine to Taiwan,” to the 2023 edition arguing that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was still reverberating around the world.
Comfort Ero’s 2025 message is blunt: leaders don’t get to pick just one crisis. Ignore any of these flashpoints, and the bill can arrive somewhere else — in refugees, prices, elections or war.
