Political theorist Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed that the end of the Cold War marked “the end of history,” a triumph of capitalist, liberal Western democracy over competing ideologies. It was believed that 21st-century humanity would be a globalized post-conflict society moving in deterministic concert toward collective peace and prosperity. While Fukuyama’s thesis was profoundly challenged by the September 11, 2001, attacks and the subsequent U.S. “war on terrorism,” open warfare between the armies of nation-states did, in fact, become increasingly rare in the post-Cold War environment. Instead, terrorism, ethnic conflict, civil wars, and hybrid and special operations warfare (techniques used by developed nations to harass or destabilize opponents through nontraditional means) accounted for the bulk of nonstate, intrastate, and interstate violence. Although the 21st century has seen a greatly reduced battle death rate when compared with similar time spans in the previous century, these numbers nevertheless represent tens of thousands of lives lost each year.

政治理论家弗朗西斯·福山（Francis Fukuyama）曾著名地宣称，冷战的结束标志着“历史的终结”，这是资本主义、自由的西方民主制度战胜了其他竞争意识形态的胜利。人们认为，21世纪的人类将是一个全球化的后冲突社会，朝着集体和平与繁荣的方向确定性地协同前进。尽管福山的论点受到了2001年9月11日袭击事件和随后美国“反恐战争”的深刻挑战，但事实上，在后冷战环境中，民族国家军队之间的公开战争确实变得越来越罕见。相反，恐怖主义、种族冲突、内战以及混合和特殊作战（发达国家通过非传统手段骚扰或破坏对手的技术）占据了非国家、国内和国际暴力的大部分。与上个世纪的类似时间段相比，尽管 21 世纪的战斗死亡率大大降低，但这些数字仍然代表着每年有数万人丧生。

Second Congo War (1998–2003)第二次刚果战争Far and away the deadliest war of the 21st century was a conflict that had its genesis in the 20th. The Rwandan genocide, the toppling and death of Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko, and ethnic strife between Hutu and Tutsi peoples were direct contributing factors to the Second Congo War (also called the Great War in Africa or Africa’s First World War because of its scope and destructiveness). In May 1997 rebel leader Laurent Kabila deposed Mobutu and renamed Zaire the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but he soon found himself engaged in a civil war with some of the forces that had elevated him to power. The eastern third of the DRC became a battlefield every bit as bloody and contested as the Western Front in World War I had been. The armies of nine countries and an assortment of affiliated militias devastated the countryside. Angola, Namibia, Chad, Sudan, and Zimbabwe backed Kabila’s Congolese government forces, while troops from Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda supported anti-Kabila rebels. Mass rapes were reported in areas of conflict, and large sections of the DRC were stripped of resources, as organized combat between professional armies gave way to brigandage and plunder. An estimated three million people—mostly civilians—were killed in the fighting or died of disease or malnutrition as a result of the conflict.21世纪最致命的战争远远是起源于20世纪的一场冲突。卢旺达大屠杀、扎伊尔总统蒙博托·塞塞·塞科的倒台和死亡，以及胡图族和图西族之间的种族冲突，都是第二次刚果战争（也因其规模和破坏性而被称为非洲大战或非洲第一次世界大战）的直接促成因素。1997年5月，叛军领导人洛朗·卡比拉推翻了蒙博托，并将扎伊尔更名为刚果民主共和国（DRC），但他很快发现自己与一些让他掌权的军队陷入了内战。刚果民主共和国东部的三分之一地区成为了一个和第一次世界大战西线一样血腥和有争议的战场。九个国家的军队和各种附属民兵摧毁了农村。安哥拉、纳米比亚、乍得、苏丹和津巴布韦支持卡比拉的刚果政府军队，而布隆迪、卢旺达和乌干达的军队则支持反卡比拉叛军。在冲突地区有大规模强奸的报道，刚果民主共和国的大部分地区的资源被剥夺，因为职业军队之间有组织的战斗让位于土匪和掠夺。估计有 300 万人——主要是平民——在战斗中丧生，或因冲突而死于疾病或营养不良。Syrian Civil War 叙利亚内战As the Arab Spring swept through the Middle East and North Africa, popular uprisings toppled the authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. In Syria, however, President Bashar al-Assad responded to protests with a combination of political concessions and escalating violence against his own people. The uprising became a civil war that spread violence into neighboring Iraq and provided a fertile breeding ground for militant groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; also known as ISIS). Rebel groups seized huge swathes of territory, and the area under government control was reduced to a small strip of land in western Syria. Assad resorted to increasingly desperate and savage measures to maintain power, dropping crude “barrel bombs” on urban populations and using chemical weapons on rebel-controlled territory. As regional powers and Western countries assumed a greater role in the conflict, it seemed inevitable that Assad would be forced from power. Kurdish militias advanced from the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, and the U.S. conducted air strikes against ISIL forces in both Syria and Iraq. In 2015 Russia, a longtime supporter of the Assad regime, began a bombing campaign in support of Syrian government forces that reversed the tide of the war. Cease-fire agreements failed to stop the violence, and by 2016 it was estimated that 1 in 10 Syrians had been killed or wounded by the fighting. Four million people fled the country, while millions more were internally displaced. At least 470,000 deaths were caused directly or indirectly by the war, and life expectancy at birth experienced a shocking plunge from more than 70 years (pre-conflict) to just 55 years in 2015. In 2022 the United Nations estimated that the fighting had claimed the lives of more than 300,000 civilians, some 1.5 percent of Syria’s pre-war population.随着“阿拉伯之春”席卷中东和北非，民众起义推翻了突尼斯、利比亚、埃及和也门的专制政权。然而，在叙利亚，巴沙尔·阿萨德总统对抗议活动采取了政治让步和对自己人民不断升级的暴力相结合的应对措施。起义变成了内战，暴力蔓延到邻国伊拉克，并为伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国（ISIL；也称为 ISIS）等激进组织提供了肥沃的滋生地。反叛组织占领了大片领土，政府控制的地区减少到叙利亚西部的一小条土地。阿萨德采取了越来越绝望和野蛮的措施来维持权力，向城市人口投掷粗糙的“桶装炸弹”，并在叛军控制的地区使用化学武器。随着地区大国和西方国家在冲突中扮演越来越重要的角色，阿萨德被迫下台似乎不可避免。库尔德民兵从伊拉克北部的库尔德自治区挺进，美国对叙利亚和伊拉克的 ISIL 部队进行了空袭。2015 年，长期支持阿萨德政权的俄罗斯开始了支持叙利亚政府军队的轰炸行动，扭转了战争的局势。停火协议未能停止暴力，到 2016 年，据估计，每 10 个叙利亚人中就有 1 人在战斗中被杀或受伤。400 万人逃离了这个国家，而还有数百万人在国内流离失所。至少有 47 万人直接或间接死于战争，出生时的预期寿命从冲突前的 70 多年惊人地下降到 2015 年的仅 55 岁。2022 年，联合国估计，战斗已经造成超过 30 万平民死亡，约占叙利亚战前人口的 1.5%。Darfur Conflict 达尔富尔冲突In early 2003 rebel groups took up arms against the Khartoum-based regime of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, igniting long-standing tensions in the Darfur region of western Sudan. That conflict erupted into what the U.S. government later described as the first genocide of the 21st century. After rebel groups scored a string of high-profile victories against the Sudanese military, the Sudanese government equipped and supported Arab militias that came to be known as Janjaweed. The Janjaweed conducted a targeted campaign of terrorism and ethnic cleansing against the civilian population of Darfur, killing at least 300,000 people and displacing nearly three million. It was not until 2008 that a joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping force was able to restore a semblance of order to the region. On March 4, 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Bashir—the first time that the ICC sought the arrest of a sitting head of state—charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity. That investigation was suspended in December 2014 because of a lack of cooperation from the UN Security Council.2003年初，反叛组织拿起武器对抗苏丹总统奥马尔·巴希尔在喀土穆的政权，点燃了苏丹西部达尔富尔地区长期存在的紧张局势。这场冲突爆发成美国政府后来所说的21世纪的第一次种族灭绝。在反叛组织对苏丹军队取得一系列引人注目的胜利后，苏丹政府装备并支持了被称为金戈威德的阿拉伯民兵。金戈威德对达尔富尔的平民进行了有针对性的恐怖主义和种族清洗运动，至少造成 30 万人死亡，近 300 万人流离失所。直到 2008 年，联合国和非洲联盟的联合维和部队才能够恢复该地区的表面秩序。2009 年 3 月 4 日，国际刑事法院（ICC）对巴希尔发出逮捕令——这是国际刑事法院首次寻求逮捕在任国家元首——指控他犯有战争罪和危害人类罪。由于联合国安全理事会缺乏合作，该调查于 2014 年 12 月暂停。Iraq War 伊拉克战争Neoconservative officials within the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had sought to topple the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein prior to the events of September 11, 2001, but the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history would provide (at least in part) the casus belli for the Iraq War. Citing links between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda as well as the presence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction—both claims that were ultimately proved false—the U.S. assembled a “coalition of the willing” and launched an attack on Iraq on March 20, 2003. The subsequent war unfolded in two distinct phases: a short one-sided conventional war, in which coalition forces suffered fewer than 200 fatalities in just over a month of major combat operations, and an insurgency that continued for years and claimed tens of thousands of lives. By the time U.S. combat forces were withdrawn in August 2010, more than 4,700 coalition troops had been killed; at least 85,000 Iraqi civilians had also been killed, but some estimates place that total much higher. The sectarian violence that wracked the country in the wake of the overthrow of Hussein’s Baʿathist regime gave rise to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL; also called ISIS), a Sunni group that sought to establish a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Between 2013 and the end of 2016, more than 50,000 additional civilians were murdered by ISIL or killed in clashes between ISIL and Iraqi government forces.在 2001年9月11日事件之前，美国总统乔治·W·布什政府内的新保守主义官员就试图推翻伊拉克总统萨达姆·侯赛因的政权，但美国历史上最致命的恐怖袭击事件（至少部分地）为伊拉克战争提供了开战的理由。美国以伊拉克政权与基地组织有联系以及伊拉克存在大规模杀伤性武器（这两种说法最终都被证明是错误的）为理由，组建了“自愿联盟”，并于2003年3月20日对伊拉克发动了攻击。随后的战争分为两个不同的阶段：一个短暂的单边常规战争，联军在一个多月的主要战斗行动中死亡人数不到200人，以及一场持续多年并造成数万人死亡的叛乱。当美国作战部队于2010年8月撤出时，已有4700多名联军士兵丧生；至少有8.5万名伊拉克平民也被杀害，但一些估计认为总数要高得多。在推翻侯赛因的复兴党政权后，席卷全国的宗派暴力导致了伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯兰国（ISIL；也称为 ISIS）的出现，这是一个试图在伊拉克和叙利亚建立哈里发国的逊尼派组织。在2013年至2016年底期间，又有5万多名平民被 ISIL 杀害或在 ISIL 与伊拉克政府军队的冲突中丧生。Afghanistan War 阿富汗战争Within weeks of the September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States began carrying out air strikes against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The Taliban, an ultraconservative Islamist faction that seized power in the vacuum left after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden. The war in Afghanistan became, for a time, the most obvious manifestation of the U.S.-led “war on terrorism.” By December 2001 the Taliban had been forced from power, but both the Afghan Taliban and its Pakistani counterpart would recover strength in the tribal areas that straddle the border of those two countries. Revising its tactics to reflect those used by insurgents in Iraq, the Taliban began employing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on military and civilian targets, to great effect. The Taliban boosted poppy cultivation in areas under its control, and the international opium trade funded much of its military and terrorist activities. Between 2001 and 2016 an estimated 30,000 Afghan troops and police and 31,000 Afghan civilians were killed. More than 3,500 troops from the NATO-led coalition were killed during that time, and 29 countries were represented among the dead. In addition, some 30,000 Pakistani government forces and civilians were killed by the Pakistani Taliban.2001年9月11日袭击发生几周后，美国开始对阿富汗的塔利班政权进行空袭。塔利班是一个在苏联从阿富汗撤军后乘虚而入夺取政权的极端保守的伊斯兰派别，为基地组织及其领导人奥萨马·本·拉登提供了安全庇护所。阿富汗战争一度成为美国领导的“反恐战争”最明显的表现。到 2001年12月，塔利班已被迫下台，但阿富汗塔利班和其巴基斯坦对应组织都将在跨越这两个国家边境的部落地区恢复实力。塔利班修改了其战术，以反映伊拉克叛乱分子使用的战术，开始在军事和民用目标上使用简易爆炸装置（IED），效果显著。塔利班在其控制的地区增加了罂粟种植，并为其大部分军事和恐怖活动提供了国际鸦片贸易的资金。2001年至2016年间，估计有3万名阿富汗军队和警察以及3.1万名阿富汗平民被杀。在那段时间里，北约领导的联军中有超过3500名士兵阵亡，死亡的士兵来自29个国家。此外，约有3万名巴基斯坦政府军队和平民被巴基斯坦塔利班杀害。The War Against Boko Haram 反博科圣地战争The Islamist militant group Boko Haram (a name that means “Westernization is sacrilege” in the Hausa language) was founded in 2002 with the goal of imposing sharia (Islamic law) on Nigeria. The group was relatively obscure until 2009, when it launched a series of raids that killed dozens of police officers. The Nigerian government retaliated with a military operation that left more than 700 Boko Haram members dead. The Nigerian police and military then conducted a campaign of extrajudicial killing that inflamed what remained of Boko Haram. Beginning in 2010, Boko Haram struck back, assassinating police officers, staging jailbreaks, and attacking civilian targets across Nigeria. Schools and Christian churches in the country’s northeast were especially hard-hit, and the kidnapping of nearly 300 schoolgirls in 2014 drew international condemnation. As Boko Haram began to assert control over more territory, the character of the conflict shifted from a terrorist campaign to a full-blown insurgency that recalled the bloody Nigerian Civil War. Whole cities were destroyed in Boko Haram attacks, and troops from Cameroon, Chad, Benin, and Niger eventually joined the military response. Although the area under Boko Haram control had been eroded significantly by the end of 2016, the group still retained the ability to carry out deadly suicide attacks. At least 11,000 civilians were killed by Boko Haram, and more than two million people were displaced by the violence.伊斯兰激进组织博科圣地（在豪萨语中的意思是“西方化是亵渎”）成立于 2002 年，其目标是在尼日利亚实施伊斯兰教法。该组织相对不为人知，直到2009年，当时它发动了一系列袭击，导致数十名警察死亡。尼日利亚政府进行了军事行动，导致700多名博科圣地成员死亡。尼日利亚警察和军队随后进行了法外处决行动，激怒了博科圣地的剩余成员。从2010年开始，博科圣地进行了反击，暗杀警察，策划越狱，并袭击尼日利亚各地的平民目标。该国东北部的学校和基督教教堂受到的打击尤其严重，2014 年近 300 名女学生被绑架，引起了国际社会的谴责。随着博科圣地开始对更多领土实施控制，冲突的性质从恐怖主义运动转变为类似于血腥尼日利亚内战的全面叛乱。博科圣地袭击摧毁了整个城市，喀麦隆、乍得、贝宁和尼日尔的军队最终加入了军事反应。尽管到 2016 年底，博科圣地控制的地区已经大大减少，但该组织仍然有能力实施致命的自杀式袭击。至少有 1.1 万名平民被博科圣地杀害，超过 200 万人因暴力而流离失所。Yemeni Civil War 也门内战The civil war in Yemen had its genesis in the Arab Spring and the uprising that toppled the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh. As Saleh struggled to maintain his grip on the presidency, he recalled the military from outlying areas to Sanaa, the Yemeni capital. Houthi rebels in the country’s north and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants in the south were quick to exploit the power vacuum. Fighting between government forces and opposition tribal militias intensified, and on June 3, 2011, Saleh was the target of an assassination attempt that left him seriously injured. Saleh left Yemen to receive medical treatment, a move that ultimately led to the transfer of power to Saleh’s vice president, Abd Rabbuh Manṣur Hadi. Hadi failed to reassert an effective government presence in regions under Houthi and AQAP control, and his violent response to protests in Sanaa sparked sympathy for the antigovernment cause. In September 2014 Houthi rebels entered Sanaa, and by January 2015 they had occupied the presidential palace. Hadi was placed under house arrest, but he escaped and fled to the southwestern port city of Aden. A force composed of Houthis and troops loyal to the deposed Saleh then laid siege to Aden, and Hadi fled the country in March 2015. That month the conflict was internationalized when a coalition led by Saudi Arabia moved to drive the Houthis from power and restore the Hadi government. It was widely believed that Iran was providing material support to the Houthis, and numerous arms shipments from Iran were seized en route to the conflict zone. By the end of 2021 the United Nations estimated that more than 375,000 lives had been lost as a result of the war; indirect causes, such as hunger and easily treatable diseases, were responsible for more than half of that total. In addition, more than three million Yemenis had been displaced by the war.也门内战起源于阿拉伯之春以及推翻阿里·阿卜杜拉·萨利赫政府的起义。当萨利赫努力维持对总统职位的控制时，他将军队从边远地区召回萨那，也门首都。该国北部的胡塞叛军和阿拉伯半岛的基地组织（AQAP）激进分子迅速利用了权力真空。政府军队与反对派部落民兵之间的战斗加剧，2011年6月3日，萨利赫成为一次暗杀企图的目标，伤势严重。萨利赫离开也门接受治疗，这一举动最终导致权力移交给他的副总统阿卜杜·拉布·曼苏尔·哈迪。哈迪未能在胡塞和 AQAP 控制的地区重新确立有效的政府存在，他对萨那抗议活动的暴力回应引发了对反政府事业的同情。2014年9月，胡塞叛军进入萨那，到2015年1月，他们占领了总统府。哈迪被软禁，但他逃脱并逃往西南部的亚丁港。由胡塞和被罢黜的萨利赫的军队组成的一支部队随后包围了亚丁，哈迪于2015年3月逃离该国。当月，以沙特阿拉伯为首的联军采取行动，将胡塞赶下台并恢复哈迪政府。人们普遍认为，伊朗向胡塞提供了物质支持，许多从伊朗运往冲突地区的武器在途中被扣押。到2021年底，联合国估计，由于战争，已有超过37.5万人丧生；间接原因，如饥饿和可治疗的疾病，导致了一半以上的死亡总数。此外，超过300万也门人因战争而流离失所。

Russia-Ukraine War 俄乌战争In February 2014 Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was swept from power after months of popular demonstrations and a failed violent crackdown on protesters. Yanukovych fled to Russia and, within days of his departure, disguised Russian troops invaded the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the illegal annexation of Crimea in March, and weeks later disguised Russian troops invaded the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. By early summer in 2014, pro-Russian forces had overrun a sizable swathe of territory, and in July Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over rebel-controlled territory by a Russian-supplied surface-to-air missile. Nearly 300 passengers and crew were killed. A cease-fire was signed in February 2015 that slowed but did not stop the bloodshed, and the Donbas remained in a state of frozen conflict for the next seven years. By 2021 more than 14,000 people had been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine.2014年2月，乌克兰亲俄总统维克托·亚努科维奇在数月的民众示威和对抗议者的暴力镇压失败后被赶下台。亚努科维奇逃到俄罗斯，在他离开后的几天内，伪装的俄罗斯军队入侵了乌克兰的克里米亚自治共和国。俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京于3月宣布非法吞并克里米亚，数周后，伪装的俄罗斯军队入侵了乌克兰的顿涅茨克和卢甘斯克地区。到2014年夏初，亲俄势力已经占领了大片领土，7月，马来西亚航空公司MH17航班在叛军控制的领土上被一枚俄罗斯提供的地对空导弹击落。近300名乘客和机组人员遇难。2015年2月签署了停火协议，这减缓了但并没有停止流血事件，顿巴斯在接下来的七年里仍然处于冻结冲突状态。到2021年，在乌克兰东部的战斗中已有超过14000人丧生。On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Although Russian forces made significant gains in the first days of combat, Ukrainian defenders rebuffed attempts to seize Kyiv and other major cities and were soon launching counterattacks at Russian positions. The Russian invasion was characterized by indiscriminate artillery bombardments and air strikes on Ukraine’s cities, and at least 40,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed in the fighting. Perhaps 200,000 Ukrainian troops were killed in combat and more than a third of Ukraine’s population was displaced by combat. Russia also conducted an ethnic cleansing campaign in the territory that it occupied, and as many as 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens were forcibly transferred to Russian territory. Putin had hoped to complete his conquest of Ukraine in a matter of days, but, after two years of sanguinary combat, some 340,000 Russian troops had been killed or wounded, and Russia’s conventional military capability had been significantly degraded.2022年2月24日，俄罗斯对乌克兰发动了全面入侵。尽管俄罗斯军队在战斗的头几天取得了重大进展，但乌克兰守军挫败了夺取基辅和其他主要城市的企图，并很快对俄罗斯阵地发起了反击。俄罗斯的入侵以对乌克兰城市的不分青红皂白的炮击和空袭为特点，至少有4万名乌克兰平民在战斗中丧生。也许有20万乌克兰军队在战斗中丧生，超过三分之一的乌克兰人口因战斗而流离失所。俄罗斯还在其占领的领土上进行了种族清洗运动，多达160万乌克兰公民被强行转移到俄罗斯领土。普京原本希望在几天内完成对乌克兰的征服，但在经过两年的血腥战斗后，约有34万俄罗斯军队伤亡，俄罗斯的常规军事能力也被大大削弱。

引自：Ray, Michael. "8 Deadliest Wars of the 21st Century". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Apr. 2023, . Accessed 4 March 2024.