On March 11, 2026, Russia could have vetoed a UN resolution condemning Iran, its strategic partner, and chose to abstain. Meanwhile Russia nearly doubled its oil exports to Asia, filling the gap left by Iranian barrels. And Ukrainian crews were shooting down Iranian drones over the Gulf.
In 2014, Sudanese soldiers raped over 220 women and girls in the Darfur village of Tabit, an hour's drive from UN peacekeepers. The largest peacekeeping mission in UN history, costing over $1.5 billion a year, said it had found no evidence. Soon after it left, Darfur faced its second genocide in twenty years.
On December 26, 2025, Israel became the first UN member state to recognize Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991. The African Union and the Arab League condemned it, but no sanctions followed. Somaliland lies across the Gulf of Aden from the Houthis, and there is already talk of an Israeli base there.
In June 2025, Donald Trump hailed a peace deal between Congo and Rwanda, but the M23 rebels never signed it and kept fighting. His Gaza plan was approved without the Palestinians, and the truce between Thailand and Cambodia collapsed by December. What do these failures mean for a peace deal in Ukraine?
On April 22, militants killed 26 people in the Kashmiri town of Pahalgam. Within days, India suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, and Pakistan suspended the Simla Agreement. Each side holds about 170 nuclear warheads, and Pakistan's defense minister has already spoken of using them.