The Off Topic Topic

[Duque de Bragança]

Conflict in Mali and other parts of the Sahel is ongoing indeed.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think we're conflating a lot of conflicts across a large spectrum. But I think we are back at basically Cold War levels of deaths in conflict and numbers of conflict without the structuring logic of the Cold War.

There is instability in the Sahel but for example, I have a friend who is regularly in Mali and Burkina for work and was there just the last fortnight. It's a "be careful" level of conflict (possibly unless your French). I think that's significantly less than the incredibly brutal civil war, really a war of all against all (heavily sponsored by UAE and others) in, say, Sudan.

Similarly I think there's probably a fair difference between Afghanistan-Pakistan to Ukraine-Russia.