By Mafaza Ahmed

2025 was a year marked by simultaneous conflicts and mass casualties around the globe, as the year was followed by 240000 deaths recorded from organized violent events, showcasing a constant, lethal global conflict environment in Sudan, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Iran, etc. As it was assumed post-Cold War that globalization. Economic interdependence and international institutions would ultimately lead to the reduction of large-scale warfare.

In contrast, 2025 can be described as a decisive return to hard power politics, where military coercion, strategic interests, overshadow economic interdependence, diplomacy, and international law; thus, the escalations of 2025 demonstrate the classical realist assumptions about power, security, statism, and survival.

As the classical realist Hans Morgenthau states, hard power is a tangible, measurable capacity used by states to pursue their goals in the international system. Additionally, he viewed international politics as a perpetual struggle for power. Kenneth Waltz reinforces that power is about the survival of a state in an anarchic world where states ensure their survival through tangible military build-up and alliances, which often leads to a balance of power.

Hard power can be defined as the ability to change others’ decisions by taking appropriate military and economic measures, which include deterrence and sanctions. It is also coercive in nature as it is by force and absolute.

On the contrary, soft power is about attraction rather than coercion; it is more about diplomacy and the internalization of norms, moving on to institutional liberalism, which emphasizes cooperation, legal regimes, and international institutions to minimize confrontation, but states often prioritize survival and security over moral or legal considerations in times of global instability.

Realist scholars argue that the international system is anarchic, meaning there is no central authority to enforce peace. As a result, states depend on self-help and military strength. The conflicts of 2025 reflect this logic, as states chose force over negotiation when vital interests were threatened.

The global conflict pattern reveals that Russia and Ukraine remain the most crucial conventional conflict of 2025, as it is a defining example of hard power politics in action. Heavy fighting persisted through artillery battles, drone attacks, and territorial contestation. Russia expanded troop deployment and pursued territorial objectives in eastern and southern Ukraine by targeting Ukrainian cities, infrastructure, and transportation networks.

Ukraine responded by strengthening air defense systems, increasing domestic drone production, and adopting innovative military tactics. Civilian casualties continued to rise, and millions remained internally displaced or living as refugees, which highlights the humanitarian cost of prolonged warfare. According to United Nations monitoring reports, civilian casualties in Ukraine increased sharply in 2025, with thousands killed or injured.

Despite diplomatic efforts and economic sanctions, neither side achieved a decisive breakthrough. NATO’s military assistance to Ukraine and Russia’s continued offensives illustrate balance-of-power politics. This conflict highlights the limits of international law and sanctions in restraining major powers during wartime

The Middle East remained another major theater of violence in 2025, as the Gaza conflict caused massive damage. Large-scale Israeli military operations resulted in tens of thousands of casualties within short periods, including a high proportion of civilians. Hospitals, residential neighborhoods, and essential infrastructure were repeatedly destroyed.

Conflict expansion effects intensified, including maritime attacks in the Red Sea and growing tensions involving Iran and allied groups. These developments emphasized deterrence, military superiority, and escalation control rather than negotiation or reconciliation. In 2025, ceasefires were strategically timed to coincide with military regrouping rather than humanitarian relief, as the key regional states withheld pressure on Israel and aid corridors were frequently negotiated bilaterally, bypassing the UN.

Despite massive civilian casualties, state behavior remained unchanged because survival and deterrence dominated policy, as there is no universal morality in international relations, only national interest. The Gaza war underscored how strategic interests and security doctrines continue to dominate Middle Eastern politics, often at the expense of humanitarian norms

South Asia witnessed a serious military crisis in 2025 as India and Pakistan engaged in a brief but intense confrontation. The escalation involved missile strikes, drones, and air operations. Although a full-scale war was avoided, the crisis revealed how quickly tensions can spiral in a nuclearized region.

Backchannel communication continued even during missile exchanges, showing rational actor behavior. Furthermore, no third-party mediation succeeded as the escalation control was achieved internally. Both states deliberately avoided cyberattacks on nuclear command systems, which revealed mutual vulnerability awareness. Stability was preserved primarily through nuclear deterrence rather than international mediation, which resulted in preserved peace.

This episode demonstrated that even in regions with catastrophic weapons, hard power calculations remain central to state behavior. It is proven from the above situation that deterrence is more reliable than diplomacy.

Africa continued to experience severe armed conflicts in 2025, particularly in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Sudan, civil war caused widespread displacement, famine risks, and attacks on civilian infrastructure. External actors supported different factions without formal recognition, thereby avoiding legal responsibility. Arms flows continued despite UN embargoes, highlighting the weakness of enforcement. The conflict intensified precisely because no great power saw strategic value in stabilizing Sudan.

This situation demonstrates that humanitarian disasters do not trigger intervention unless strategic interests exist and weak states become battlegrounds for proxy competition. In eastern Congo, major offensives resulted in thousands of casualties within days due to Armed offensives in 2025 correlated directly with rare-earth mineral zones, not ethnic tension. Moreover, multinational corporations increased private security spending more than states increased peacekeeping contributions, as peacekeeping forces were deliberately kept under-equipped.

This basically highlights that peace is secondary to material interests. These conflicts received limited global attention compared to Ukraine or Gaza, reflecting selective engagement by major powers. Nevertheless, they significantly contributed to global instability and humanitarian crises, reinforcing the idea that power politics often determine whose conflicts matter internationally

The wars of 2025 exposed the declining effectiveness of the liberal international order. The United Nations Security Council remained paralyzed due to veto politics, while international humanitarian law failed to prevent civilian targeting. Major powers increasingly acted unilaterally or through military alliances rather than multilateral frameworks. Defense spending rose globally, arms production increased, and military alliances regained strategic importance while development aid stagnated. Economic sanctions replaced diplomacy as a primary policy tool.

The global conflicts of 2025 reaffirm the relevance of realism. Power, not norms, shaped outcomes. Military capability, deterrence, and alliances determined survival and influence. Smaller states faced growing pressure to align with major powers or pursue strategic neutrality. Instead of a rules-based international order, the world appears to be moving toward managed instability, where conflict is contained but not resolved, where International Institutions reflect power distribution, and when power shifts, rules collapse

The wars of 2025 collectively demonstrate that international politics remains governed by realist logic, where power, security, and survival outweigh norms, laws, and moral responsibility.

From Ukraine to Gaza, from Africa to South Asia, military force replaced diplomacy as the primary instrument of state policy. High casualty figures, prolonged wars, and institutional paralysis confirmed that international politics remains driven by power and security concerns. Unless global governance mechanisms are strengthened and trust among states improves, armed conflict is likely to remain a defining feature of international relations. The experience of 2025 serves as a stark reminder that peace cannot be assumed; it must be actively enforced in a system still governed by power.