12 September 2026

The picture in ten lines

1. Two interstate wars sit at level 5. Russia-Ukraine is in its fifth year with a static front and escalating deep strikes (Ukraine hit gas plants 2,800 km inside Russia this week) and a real risk of Russian mobilization after the Sept 18-20 Duma vote. The US-Israeli war with Iran is in its seventh month: the Strait of Hormuz is contested, CENTCOM sank ten Iranian tankers this week, Iran fired cluster-warhead missiles at a US base in Jordan, and Brent closed above 101 dollars.
2. The Iran war has spread. The Houthis seized the islands at Bab el-Mandeb and are at war with Saudi Arabia; drones launched from Iraq shut Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline; Iraqi militias face a Sept 30 disarmament deadline that Badr says would mean civil war; every Gulf state has been struck; Israel occupies about a fifth of Lebanon.
3. Africa carries two more level-5 wars. Sudan's partition is hardening under an RSF drone campaign, with up to 2,000 ex-Colombian soldiers in RSF service per the UN and a Security Council deadlocked by Russia. In the central Sahel JNIM is strangling Bamako with a fuel blockade, and Russia's Africa Corps crushed a mutiny in Niamey on Aug 29-30, its first defence of a Sahel regime against an internal challenge.
4. Russia's pressure on NATO is the most dangerous grey-zone flashpoint. Airspace violations are routine, the Kremlin issued an explicit nuclear threat to Lithuania on Sept 11, sabotage of Europe's defence industry is near-weekly, and Russian submarines rehearsed a traceless cable-cutting operation near Svalbard. The CIA director reportedly flew to Moscow to warn against testing the alliance.
5. The Indo-Pacific is kinetically quieter but structurally worse. PLA sorties near Taiwan are at their lowest since 2024 while coast-guard coercion sets records at Scarborough and near Taiwan; Washington called Taiwan arms sales 'in abeyance', cut a Korea exercise unilaterally, and faces a PLA high command hollowed by purges. The Sept 24 Trump-Xi summit is the hinge.
6. The Western Hemisphere has become a theatre. The US co-manages post-Maduro Venezuela through a 100-year oil concession with a Pentagon stake, runs a counter-cartel bloc from Colombia to Chile, sinks boats off Ecuador, blockades Cuba's fuel supply, hints at unilateral action in Mexico, and is in a tariff war with Canada laced with annexation rhetoric.
7. Level 4 is crowded. Haiti (gangs hold 85 percent of the capital; the UN force at a fifth of its strength faces a Sept 30 renewal), Colombia (peace architecture dismantled, ELN escalating), Myanmar (the junta's largest Rakhine offensive stalled), eastern DRC, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and the Afghanistan-Pakistan war.
8. Arms control is gone. New START expired in February with nothing in its place; about 450 kg of Iranian highly enriched uranium is unaccounted for and inspectors are blocked; North Korea has roughly 60 warheads, troops in Russia and a new road bridge to it.
9. The hybrid domain is active. Chinese groups chained three zero-days in September; the SVR used frontier AI in espionage against Ukraine's drone industry; GPS is denied over Poland on most days; five elections in twelve weeks face AI-scaled Russian influence operations while US federal election defences are hollowed out.
10. Institutions are thinner. The UN Secretariat budget is down 20 percent with US arrears, nine ICC judges are under US sanctions, and great-power dealing has moved to leader summits: BRICS in New Delhi this weekend, Trump-Xi on Sept 24, a possible Putin-Xi-Trump trilateral at APEC in November, and a G20 in Miami in December.

Threat ladder

Escalating at level 4 or above

• Russia–Ukraine war (level 5): Fifth year of full-scale war.
• Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger) (level 5): JNIM and the Tuareg FLA can strike all three AES capitals: their April 25 offensive on Bamako and Kati killed Mali's defence minister, and JNIM's fuel blockade of Bamako, reimposed April 28, has destroyed more than 300 tankers.
• Sudan civil war (level 5): Fourth year of the SAF-RSF war with a hardening east-west partition: the RSF holds Darfur (El Fasher fell in Oct 2025) and runs a parallel 'Tasis' government in Nyala, while the SAF holds the initiative in Kordofan and El Obeid is under partial RSF siege.
• US and Israel vs Iran (Hormuz war) (level 5): Seventh month of the US-Israeli war with Iran that began Feb 28 (Ali Khamenei killed; Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded and has not appeared in public).
• Colombia (level 4): President De la Espriella (in office since Aug 7) has dismantled the peace architecture, ended Petro-era talks, resumed airstrikes (three minors killed in Guaviare), lifted the civilian gun-permit suspension and joined the US-led Shield of the Americas; the ELN answered with a drone attack that killed three soldiers in Ocana and car bombs.
• Ethiopia & Eritrea (level 4): First federal-TDF combat in western Tigray since the Pretoria deal (Shererina, Aug 1-3, with refugees fleeing into Sudan), a formalized TPLF-Fano-OLA coalition called Tsimdo, and open accusations that Eritrea is arming them while Asmara accuses Addis of coveting Assab.
• Haiti (level 4): Gangs hold about 85 percent of Port-au-Prince and are expanding into Artibonite, Centre and Kenscoff, where a raid on Aug 23 killed 47 and abducted more than 50.
• Infrastructure & domain sabotage (level 4): Reuters revealed on Sept 10 that Russian GUGI submarines rehearsed a traceless cut of the SvalSat cables near Svalbard in spring 2026, confronted by UK, Norwegian and US forces; Poland reported full-scale GPS disruption on 63 percent of days in early August from Kaliningrad's 36-antenna spoofing array; a Russian Il-20 violated Finnish airspace on Aug 20; at least 11 Baltic cables were damaged from 2023 to 2025..
• Iran internal stability (level 4): The regime is pre-positioning for unrest: Basij and police special units deployed to six cities on Sept 7 as gasoline prices rose, with the rial near 2.2 million to the dollar, inflation above 80 percent and about two months of gasoline stocks.
• Iran nuclear program (level 4): The IAEA has lost continuity of knowledge over roughly 450 kg of highly enriched uranium since inspectors left after the June 2025 strikes; it has never inspected Pickaxe Mountain, where centrifuges may have moved, and reported this week that cameras are disabled and inspectors blocked.
• Myanmar civil war (level 4): The junta, now a nominal civilian government under President Min Aung Hlaing after a partial election, launched Operation 4926 on Sept 4, its largest Rakhine offensive in years on five fronts including Kyaukphyu; the Arakan Army reported it stalled within a week.
• Nigeria & Lake Chad (level 4): Mass abductions across the north (about 600 worshippers taken from a mosque in Niger State on Aug 22, 2,000 fleeing to Benin), house-to-house killings in Plateau, and a reported secret three-month truce between the government and Boko Haram's JAS faction with an alleged 5 billion naira payment, all as the 2027 campaign opens.
• Russian hybrid operations in Europe (level 4): Russia-linked sabotage against Europe's defence industry is now near-weekly: fires at Milrem in Tallinn, KNDS in Italy, EMCO in Bulgaria and Polish defence sites, a foiled arson at a Ukrainian-owned drone maker in Slovakia, and incendiaries at Rohde and Schwarz in Munich, all since mid-August.
• Russia–NATO frontier (level 4): Russian drone and missile violations of NATO airspace are routine on the eastern flank (Romania logged 23 in 2026 by mid-August with four shootdowns), the Kremlin issued an explicit nuclear threat to Lithuania over its plan to lift the constitutional ban on foreign bases and nuclear weapons, and CIA Director Ratcliffe reportedly flew to Moscow in late August to warn against attacking or testing NATO.
• Somalia (level 4): Federal forces are fighting member-state militias (Laftagareen loyalists assaulted Baidoa three times; Puntland seized a federal camp at Galkayo) while al-Shabaab's Mogadishu attack tempo hit its highest since January and AUSSOM's budget is largely unfunded.
• State cyber operations (level 4): Chinese groups chained three zero-days against US NGOs, mining and aerospace firms from Aug 28; Salt Typhoon's telecom compromise is 'still ongoing' per the FBI while CISA sheds staff; the SVR's Midnight Blizzard used frontier AI to adapt malware against more than 20 defence targets; the US posted a 10 million dollar reward for the alleged head of IRGC cyber command; and OFAC designated Xinbi Guarantee, a 24 billion dollar laundering hub for North Korean heists..
• Yemen, Houthis & Red Sea (level 4): The Houthis entered the Iran war in July after an IRGC airlift to Sanaa, declared a Red Sea blockade on Saudi shipping and are now fighting Saudi Arabia directly: this week they seized Mocha port, Perim Island and the Hanish islands at Bab el-Mandeb (ISW: an 'Axis of Resistance-controlled' strait) and struck Abha, Jizan and Najran.

Dates ahead (next 120 days)

Actors of concern (level 4 and 5)

Region notes

Europe and Russia. The war's centre of gravity has shifted to long-range strike: Ukraine is attriting refineries, gas plants and the Black Sea Fleet while Russia hits Kyiv and Odesa daily; ISW judges Russia cannot take the rest of Donetsk before 2032 at current rates. The peace track is alive but empty after the Witkoff-Kushner shuttle. Watch the Duma vote for mobilization, the House for the Graham sanctions bill, Lithuania's constitutional vote, and October's elections in Bosnia and Serbia. Belarus is running readiness checks 'up to mobilization' with Oreshnik missiles in country.

Middle East. Seven months into the Iran war, the escalation ladder runs through Hormuz shipping and US bases; Israel's red line is an Iranian strike on Israel proper, which would trigger strikes on Iranian energy. Iran is pre-positioning security forces for unrest with the rial near 2.2 million to the dollar and a supreme leader nobody has seen since February. Gaza holds a fragile 'neither war nor peace' ceasefire frozen by Israel's Oct 27 election; the West Bank is being annexed in practice. Three deadlines cluster on Sept 27 to Oct 1: the UN Iran panel lapses, Iraq's coalition exit and militia disarmament, and the PKK camp deadline.

Indo-Pacific and South Asia. Beijing has swapped sorties for coast-guard 'law enforcement' that rehearses blockade; Manila and Beijing are trading public insults after the Seoul Defense Dialogue. North Korea launches on schedule and monetizes its Russia ties. Pakistan is the region's escalation driver (deadliest month since 2023, a two-front insurgency, an intermittent war with Afghanistan); India-Pakistan is quiet but the Indus treaty stays suspended. Myanmar's junta just failed its biggest offensive in years.

Africa. Sudan and the Sahel are the continent's level-5 wars, and both are internationalized: Gulf, Colombian and Russian actors are decisive on the ground while the Security Council splits. The Horn is heading the wrong way (Ethiopia-Eritrea war risk, Somalia's federal-state fighting, South Sudan's collapsed deal), eastern DRC is stalemated with a record Ebola outbreak inside the war zone, and Nigeria's abductions are at industrial scale. Libya is the one improving file.

Americas. The organizing fact is a US 'Shield of the Americas' posture: co-management of Venezuela, a militarized Colombia, boat sinkings off Ecuador, a Cuban fuel blockade and explicit threats toward Mexico, alongside a trade war with Canada. Haiti is the humanitarian emergency and the Sept 30 UN vote is its hinge. Brazil's Oct 4 election is a tie under US tariff pressure.

Transnational. Cyber (level 4), infrastructure sabotage (4) and the nuclear file (4) are the domains to watch; sanctions enforcement is intensifying but circumvention through Turkey, the UAE, China and crypto is robust; election-interference risk peaks between Sweden's vote on Sept 13 and the US midterms on Nov 3.

Confidence and gaps

• Independently spot-checked on Sept 12: the ISW Iran Update of Sept 11 (Houthi seizures, Hormuz flows, Iraqi disarmament), Al Jazeera's Sept 1 report on the Venezuela oil concession and Maduro's January capture, and the ISW Ukraine assessment of Sept 11 (static front, deep strikes). All matched the reports.
• Contested figures. Hormuz throughput (about 2 million b/d per Reuters vs 10 to 17 million per ISW and the US Energy Department, different bases); the toll of Iran's January crackdown (3,117 to 36,500); Sudan's displacement totals (6 million IDPs plus 4.5 million refugees vs 8.6 million 'fled'); Iran-war casualty totals; the date of Ali Khamenei's death (Feb 28 vs Mar 2).
• Single-sourced items carried with caveats. Hungary expelling ten Russian diplomats; Romania detaining a Russian saboteur; Andy Burnham as UK prime minister; Armenia's Sept 15 court date; the Nigeria-JAS secret truce and payment; Ethiopia's Tsimdo coalition date; the Niassa lodge raid; Pakistan's August defence pact with Turkey and Saudi Arabia; the CIA-facilitated killing in Mexico; a Hegseth defence pact with Colombia; Houthi-Iraqi joint operations; the Kremlin's APEC trilateral claim.
• Not verified in the window (treat as 'no verified change', not 'quiet'). Afghanistan-Pakistan fighting after Aug 7; any South China Sea kinetic incident after July 24; Thailand-Cambodia September incidents; IAEA Board dates and outcomes; EU and UK sanctions designations in the window; any Israeli or Iranian strike on the other's territory after July 19; Houthi attacks on Israel after June; Alawite-coast violence in Syria; Tripoli militia clashes; El Salvador and Greenland and Panama in-window events; drone-at-airport incidents; nuclear test-preparation signals.