The revival of territorial disputes and the de-thawing of conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guyana, Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula have drifted closer to armed conflict in recent years due to changes in the global geopolitical order and the emboldening effect created by the coalescence of the Neo-Authoritarian Bloc (NAB) and its apparent military successes to date. I use the term NAB to refer to the collective of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Venezuela, and Myanmar. As I argued in 2023, this bloc has altered the trajectory of global conflicts, emboldened revisionism and opportunistic territorial aggression, and has established means to bypass Western sanctions. Unlike the ideological uniformity of the Cold War’s Warsaw Pact, the NAB is not restricted by traditional alliances or treaties. Instead, ‘the strengths of the bloc are that it is amorphous, its arrangements are flexible, and the roles played by members are optional’ – with the three main pillars of support provided by the bloc being military collaboration, economic cooperation and diplomatic shielding.

Following the ‘Unipolar moment’ of the 1990s and the early-2000s, the steady erosion of Western dominance began with Russia’s invasions of Georgia (2008) and then Ukraine (2014), followed by China’s intensifying claims over Taiwan throughout the second half of the 2010s. Growing Sino-American friction during the first Trump administration laid the groundwork for the authoritarian alignment seen during the Biden administration, when this collective of sanctioned and ostracised authoritarian states coalesced into the NAB through a matrix of bi-lateral agreements and a growing level of cooperation most clearly expressed in the February 2022 Sino-Russian ‘No limits’ partnership. This period of growing cohesion also saw the revival of dormant territorial disputes and irredentist claims, such as Venezuela’s claims over Guyana’s Essequibo region and a revival in Bosnian-Serb secessionist rhetoric. The bloc also empowered sub-state proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, triggering a regional Middle East war that led to joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran in 2025 and 2026. Yet, despite this unprecedented level of coordination, the NAB has struggled with the most important aim of all: regime survival, as can be seen by the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria in late 2024, the abduction of Venezuela’s Maduro in January 2026, and Iran’s failure to repel US-Israeli airstrikes using Chinese and Russian military technology in both 2025 and 2026.

Although the four case studies discussed below are different conflicts with separate histories, all have experienced the same pattern of revival or de-thawing in recent years due to changes at the top of the global geopolitical order and the coalescence of the NAB. In all four examples, one of the opposing sides is a recipient of support from the bloc, which has led this party to develop a stronger position vis-a-vis its long-term rival. None of these four conflicts has led to a resumption of armed conflict, but all four regions have begun to drift further toward crisis. All four have seen constitutional or legal changes aimed at legitimising aggression in the near future, a shift in rhetoric and a re-framing of historical events, rearmament initiatives, and an increasing number of military drills and displays of strength near the areas under dispute. Historical revisionism has been a common feature that can be observed across the bloc. The endurance of both Vladimir Putin’s War in Ukraine and of the junta in Myanmar has had an emboldening effect on the other members of the bloc; as I previously argued. These two military campaigns, together with the high level of cooperation and support provided by the bloc in general, has had an emboldening effect on the Russian-backed Bosnian-Serb leadership, the Chávista regime in Venezuela, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un concerning their own ambitions for their near abroad.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Following the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) underwent two decades of peace and reconstruction, without achieving reconciliation or developing a new political culture. Political development has not been a success in the country and some have argued that it has been the DPA itself which has soldified divisions within BiH and restricted the emergence of a new political culture, as the DPA separated the country into two autonomous political entities. Others have argued that political reform from within has always been unwanted by the country’s ethno-nationalist leaders. From 2010 to 2025, populist leader Milorad Dodik dominated Bosnian-Serb politics. Using Montenegro’s independence from Serbia (2006) as a precedent, Dodik asserted that Republika Srpska (RS) should also have the right to hold a referendum on secession from Bosnia and Herzegovina and that the statelet should be united with neighbouring Serbia in the future. Ostracised by Western leaders, Dodik cultivated allies in Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the 2010s.

The emergence of the NAB since the beginning of this decade has undermined progress made in the first twenty years following the 1992–95 Bosnian War. A key form of support for Dodik has been diplomatic support from Russia at the United Nations’ Security Council (UNSC), where Russia, supported by China, has consistently vetoed moves against RS by the council for over the last decade. In 2021, Russia put forward a proposal at the UN to close the Office of the High Representative (OHR), the body established to oversee the implementation of the DPA. This was rejected by the other members of the security council. Recent years have also seen a growing economic partnership between RS and Beijing, in addition to closer economic cooperation with Minsk. Support related to military and psi-ops has also been provided by Russia and Belarus. This has  included training in the use of disinformation, cyber attacks, and the weaponization of energy supplies to undermine NATO and EU influence in BiH. Russia has also sold weapons to the police of RS. In recent years, rumours have also circulated that Bosnian-Serb paramilitaries are being trained at Russia’s military base in the south of Serbia.

The growing level of Russian patronage in........

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