Map of contemporary conflicts

Understanding our contemporary history through conflict is tricky and complex, sometimes altered by our geographical location and our sources of information inflected by state propaganda, cultural propaganda, fake news, cancel culture ...

Sometimes we need to step back, zoom out to assess the horror and impact of these tragedies on certain populations and to note the reigning quietude in the states involved in many extraterritorial battles.

This map proposes to identify 232 conflicts, ongoing or past, from 1945 to 2021, and filter by dates, casualties, or country involved.

When searching, pointers are positioned according to a location of insurgency, a region key associated with a revolt, an invasion, an incursion. When clicked, the results show the conflict period, the place of the confrontation, the number of victims, the belligerents and the source of the document. The belligerents are not listed in a Manichean way because some states have made or are making the game of the double.

"Democracies have supported the worst regimes on the planet and the most serious coups [...]. Whatever the regime, the obedient ally is the 'Good', and the enemy's ally is the 'Bad', even if it means changing categories in the event of a reversal of alliance.1 "

So these sources will supplement information, because let's not forget, the map, the oldest tool of design and power, is only a simplification of data². This digital map is just a portal to more fleshed-out analysis and testimony. In the end, what you are exploring here is not only an object of quantification of war, of terror, but the reflection of our multiple our multiple politics, of a common history to be discovered and assimilated.

1. Pierre Conesa, La Fabrication de l’ennemi ou Comment tuer avec sa conscience pour soi, Paris, Robert Laffont, coll. « Le Monde comme il va », 2011, p. 156.

2. Joost Grootens, De l'ambiguïté du design cartographique, revue Back Office n°2 Édition B42, avril 2018.