Abstract

The Armed Conflict Survey reviews and analyses the Most armed conflicts take place within the bounda- armed conflicts that are active worldwide every ries of a state and are therefore listed under those year. We define an armed conflict as a sustained mil- country names, although many do not affect the itary contest between two or more organised actors national territory as a whole. In Sudan, for example, making purposive use of armed force. The inclusion the central state fights various armed groups in the of a conflict in the book is based on this definition Blue Nile and South Kordofan provinces and in the and the methodology detailed below, which are the Darfur region, but Khartoum has never become a same as for the Armed Conflict Database. theatre in these long-standing wars. Other conflicts, such as the Boko Haram insurgency, unfold across Armed conflicts in 2018 state boundaries, in this case involving territories in This year’s Armed Conflict Survey includes 33 armed Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. The opposite conflicts that were ongoing during the 2018 cal- and extreme case in this category is Rio de Janeiro, endar year (from 1 January to 31 December) in six the