Appendix 1A. Patterns of major armed conflicts, 1990–2001

Appendix 1A. Patterns of major armed conflicts, 1990–2001

MIKAEL ERIKSSON, MARGARETA SOLLENBERG AND PETER WALLENSTEEN

Full text Appendix 1A [PDF].

Summary

In 2001, there were 24 major armed conflicts in 22 locations. Both the number of major armed conflicts and the number of conflict locations in 2001 were slightly lower than in 2000, when there were 25 major armed conflicts in 23 locations. Africa continued to be the region with the greatest number of conflicts. Worldwide, there were approximately equal numbers of contests for control of government and for territory.

In the 12-year post-cold war period 1990–2001 there were 57 different major armed conflicts in 45 different locations. The number of conflicts in 2001 was below the average of around 27 per year since the end of the cold war. The highest number of conflicts for the period 1990–2000 was recorded in 1990–93, and the lowest in 1996 and 1997.

All but 3 of the major armed conflicts registered for 1990–2001 were internal—the issue concerned control over the government or territory of one state. The 3 interstate conflicts in this period were Iraq versus Kuwait, India versus Pakistan and Eritrea versus Ethiopia. Other states contributed regular troops to one side or the other in 15 of the internal conflicts. The year 2001 was overshadowed in September by one new major conflict with qualitatively different, global characteristics which have so far proved difficult to categorize.

Mikael Eriksson (Sweden) is a Research Assistant on the Uppsala Conflict Data Project at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. He is currently working on the Stockholm Process on the Implementation of Targeted Sanctions.

Margareta Sollenberg (Sweden) is a Research Assistant on the Uppsala Conflict Data Project at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. She has been editor of States in Armed Conflict since 1994 and has contributed to the SIPRI Yearbook since 1995.

Professor Peter Wallensteen (Sweden) has held the Dag Hammarskjöld Chair in Peace and Conflict Research since 1985 and was Head of the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University in 1972–99. He has most recently published Understanding Conflict Resolution: War, Peace and the Global System (SAGE, 2002) and Conflict Prevention through Co-Operation Development (Uppsala, 2001). He has co-authored chapters in the SIPRI Yearbook since 1988.