Global warfare has evolved dramatically since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While the world fixates on headline-grabbing confrontations—Ukraine, Gaza, and the like—a much larger constellation of conflicts, especially those raging across the Global South, passes largely unnoticed. These “forgotten wars” exact a terrible human cost and mask the increasingly precarious architecture of global stability. Attention, as ever, is a scarce resource. Where the spotlight does not reach, suffering multiplies and cracks emerge in the systems designed to uphold what little “systemic” peace remains. If policymakers continue to overlook these simmering crises, the risk is not just continued neglect, but the genuine possibility of an escalating chain reaction—one with the potential to tip the world into chaos on a scale not seen since the last century’s total wars.

From Cold War Order to Systemic Instability: The Return of Total War

The end of the Cold War was expected to deliver a “peace dividend”: a reduction in armed conflict, deeper international collaboration, and the global spread of liberal ideals. Yet reality has confounded these hopes. While the era of superpower brinkmanship gave way to diplomatic overtures, major interstate wars have diminished—only for a new breed of internal strife to take their place beneath the surface.

Gone is the simple calculus of nuclear rivals; in its stead lies a fragmented terrain of civil wars, insurgencies, proxy conflicts, and a proliferation of non-state actors. Ideological contests have faded, replaced by tangled knots of ethnic, religious, economic, and political dispute. The boundaries—once clear—between interstate and intrastate war, between soldiers and civilians, are now blurred beyond recognition.

 Data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the Peace Research Institute Oslo reveal a stark reality: while classic interstate wars have become rare, internal conflicts—civil wars, insurgencies, and enduring proxy battles—are on the rise, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. In 2023 alone, 59 state-based conflicts were recorded—the highest number since 1946. Meanwhile, the Geneva Academy estimates that over 110 armed conflicts remain active globally, with humanitarian catastrophes in Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan exacting a heavy toll and sowing regional instability.

Even these figures may underplay the true danger. As Mara Karlin recently observed in Foreign Affairs, the global security landscape appears to be edging back toward a form of “total war”—a perilous fusion of traditional state-centric clashes, sprawling alliances, and novel proxy battles. The complex interplay between state and non-state actors, the looming threat of escalation among nuclear-armed powers, and a fraying of longstanding norms all suggest a troubling revival of patterns reminiscent of the twentieth century’s most devastating conflicts.

Technological advances have further reshaped the battlefield. Cyberattacks, drone warfare, and hybrid tactics have redefined the nature of conflict, allowing non-state actors and smaller states—armed with inexpensive technology and global networks—to challenge the international order in ways once exclusive to great powers. The result is a security landscape of unprecedented complexity, one better grasped through the frameworks of complexity theory and “systemic risk” than traditional balance-of-power models.

Meanwhile, the international frameworks devised to manage state-to-state wars and isolated crises are rapidly losing their relevance amid this shifting reality. In a world fraught with overlapping emergencies—climate change, technological upheaval, and widespread insecurity—the lack of flexible, resilient mechanisms for conflict prevention and resolution itself constitutes a profound systemic risk. As thinkers like Mary Kaldor and David Held have noted, we now face an era where unattended local conflicts can ignite broader conflagrations, rendering the global architecture for peace more fragile than at any time since 1945.

 The Dynamics of Forgetting—From Selective Attention to Systemic Risk

Why do so many global conflicts go largely unnoticed? Agenda-setting theory in International Relations and media studies reveals that global attention is neither random nor naturally distributed. A war becomes “forgotten” when it vanishes from headlines, is pushed to the margins in diplomatic circles, receives minimal international aid, and disappears from the focus of policy research and advocacy. This layered neglect is far from accidental; it is shaped by entrenched dynamics of global power, international organizations, and increasingly by transnational media platforms and algorithmic filters. High-profile conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza dominate coverage because they align with the interests of powerful states and reflect established networks of alliances, aid, and lobbying. Ukraine’s war with Russia, which erupted in 2022, is seen as a direct threat to European security and the post-Cold War global order, while NATO and U.S. support symbolize a defense of democracy and sovereignty. Similarly, the Gaza conflict embodies entrenched regional power struggles involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran. Studies in media dynamics show that conflicts outside the Euro-Atlantic orbit are frequently “de-prioritized” by newsrooms and social media algorithms—whose business models hinge on audience engagement, click-through rates, and advertiser revenue—thus deepening their invisibility.

The dynamics of the “attention economy,” as described by Davenport and Beck (2001), only deepen this disparity. The conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza receive extensive coverage because they fit broader symbolic and ideological narratives and are framed as “existential” threats to Western interests: Russia’s invasion is cast as a clash between authoritarianism and democracy, while Gaza embodies persistent fights for human rights, self-determination, and statehood. The Israel-Palestine conflict carries profound cultural and historical resonance for Western audiences, tied especially to religious connections and political alliances with Israel. Likewise, Ukraine’s battle is portrayed as a struggle to preserve democratic European values, making it a compelling cause for international support. These narratives engage Western publics and galvanize humanitarian aid.

By contrast, news from politically less sensitive regions—such as Congo, Yemen, or the Sahel receive scant sustained media attention regardless of the humanitarian toll involved. They are often reduced to reductive stereotypes as “tribal” conflicts or the fallout of “failed states,” conveniently obscuring Western roles in colonial histories that underpin ongoing instability. This framing depersonalizes suffering and diminishes the urgency for international intervention. The political economy of humanitarianism reinforces these patterns: aid flows and diplomatic efforts follow the trajectory of attention, perpetuating cycles of neglect. Academic and policy focus similarly gravitates toward high-profile crises, sidelining prolonged violence in regions deemed “non-strategic”.

This selective attention is far from a mere reflection of media bias or public indifference; it is deeply woven into the political economy of global security. Structural forces—the arms trade, illicit financial flows, corporate resource extraction, climate change, and the enduring legacies of colonial border-making—determine which conflicts gain visibility and which fade into the background. International Relations theory offers varied lenses on this phenomenon: realists emphasize a “hierarchy of interests” guiding elite focus; liberals point to the shortcomings of multilateral institutions in fostering impartial concern; constructivists draw attention to the influence of norms, symbolic framing, and the creation of “worthy victims” within Western imaginaries.

Moreover, the broad label of the “Global South” risks erasing the nuanced realities of conflict, agency, and resistance across diverse regions. It glosses over the distinct complexities found in, for example, Central Africa compared to the Middle East, and downplays the dynamic, often self-organizing capacities of local actors. The forgetting of these wars is thus not solely a Western oversight—it arises from a troubling interplay between external neglect and internal political fragmentation, at times exploited by local elites who leverage international indifference for their own ends.

The absence of significant external strategic interests often leaves global institutions and states reluctant to intervene, allowing these conflicts to persist unchecked. Yet in an era of mounting global tensions, such neglect carries grave risks: unresolved conflicts can rapidly multiply, threatening broader regional—and even global—stability. Empirical and theoretical studies (see Kaldor, 2012; Paris, 2004) highlight several interconnected mechanisms at work:

These dynamics are further exacerbated by climate shocks, digital disinformation, and the unraveling of global arms control regimes, all of which undermine already fragile mechanisms for conflict prevention.

Justice, Legitimacy, and the Normative Turn

The selective attention paid to war extends beyond media bias or diplomatic oversight; it reflects deeper dynamics within the global order, exposing how justice and legitimacy are distributed, withheld, and contested. The modern “attention economy” functions as a regime of moral triage, deciding who deserves recognition, who is granted the dignity of being seen, and who is consigned to obscurity. In this calculus, the logic of marketable spectacle systematically sidelines conflicts that lack strategic importance to the global North or fail to fit dominant narratives of good versus evil.

Here, “might makes right” operates not through overt rejection of justice, but via a gradual narrowing of moral concern—a collective shrinking of the field of vision. As Iris Marion Young observed, “Responsibility for justice cannot be discharged by formal rules alone; it is a function of our structural position and our willingness to see the suffering of others.” Consequently, the politics of attention cannot be separated from the politics of justice itself.

This is far from a mere theoretical abstraction. The philosophical tradition of justice—from Aristotle and Aquinas to Rawls and Nussbaum—asserts that true justice demands impartiality: a refusal to turn away from suffering, no matter how distant or uncomfortable. Just War Theory, traced from Augustine and Aquinas through Grotius and further refined in contemporary political thought, holds that wars must be judged both by their causes (jus ad bellum) and their conduct (jus in bello). Yet, the post–Cold War record of intervention reveals a troubling erosion of these principles. NATO’s intervention in Libya and the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, initially justified on humanitarian and security grounds, devolved into prolonged engagements marked by strategic overreach and mission creep, raising serious questions about their legitimacy, proportionality, and the very logic of humanitarian warfare.

Critical scholars such as Michael Walzer and Anne Orford have demonstrated how such interventions, though rhetorically justified, often detach from their original aims, spawning cycles of violence and “lawfare” that undermine the foundations of a rules-based international order.

Today, most wars—especially those on the margins of global attention—fail even the most basic tests of justice. Rather than self-defense or just cause, they are driven by internal repression, external manipulation, illicit arms flows, and enduring structural violence. Here, moral philosophy and international relations intersect: as Hedley Bull, Martha Finnemore, and Ramesh Thakur have argued, the global system is no moral vacuum but a profoundly contested space where the legitimacy of violence is continuously negotiated through power, law, and norms. “Forgotten wars” are not merely ignored; their injustice is actively normalized, ratified by the silence or inaction of the international community. By tolerating this, we undermine not only the credibility of global governance but also our own ethical self-understanding.

The true danger of indifference lies not simply in ignoring suffering, but in normalizing injustice, granting impunity to perpetrators, and corroding the very foundations of a meaningful rules-based order. The “total war” dynamics emerging in the 21st century may well reflect a world where justice is increasingly displaced by selective attention, market-driven priorities, and collective strategic amnesia.

The challenge before us is thus not merely empirical or technical, but fundamentally moral and normative. What is needed is a global ethic—a renewal of what Benedict XVI termed caritas in veritate: a profound call for justice, truth, and love to guide the architecture of global attention and institutional response. This ethic must go beyond humanitarian relief or symbolic gestures of inclusion; it demands the creation of new institutions capable of addressing not only the manifestations of violence, but its root causes: structural inequality, climate injustice, and the enduring legacies of colonialism and empire.

If “forgetting” is structural rather than accidental, remedying it demands more than moral appeals or good intentions. Achieving global justice in the twenty-first century requires institutionalization—embedding it within new mechanisms of representation, accountability, and collective security that counteract the inertia of self-interest and resist the allure of strategic amnesia. This imperative calls for profound institutional innovation and a redistribution of power: reforming agenda-setting processes, holding international media and donor systems accountable, overhauling the Security Council, establishing binding commitments for equitable humanitarian aid, and bolstering regional and South–South solidarity. Moreover, we must challenge the epistemic and institutional frameworks that foster forgetting—decentering Euro-Atlantic priorities, investing in local peacebuilding and oversight, and nurturing a global civic solidarity and education that transcends narrow strategic interests.

The gravest danger, then, is not only that wars proliferate, but that our shared capacity for justice—our willingness to see, to care, and to act—is systematically eroded. Where injustice is tolerated, the very possibility of justice withers. We may not only be forgetting the world’s wars; we may be forgetting ourselves.

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