The world in the 21st century
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The world in the 21st century
Today we still face many of the same problems that have troubled our world for centuries: how to provide food and clean water, healthcare and education for all. Many believe that the age-old problem of the gap between rich and poor is a growing problem in the 21st century, both within countries and between rich countries and poor countries. The tensions and bloodshed in the Middle East, ongoing for generations, pose perhaps the greatest threat to world peace and stability. In our Information Age, many new challenges face us as well, such as how to use technology for the good of all, and how to protect our environment from industry, pollution and population growth.
Updated 10th June 2026
9/11
Four attacks were launched by the terrorist group al-Qaeda (meaning “The Base”) against the USA on 11th September 2001. They quickly became known as the 9/11 attacks. Al-Qaeda is a worldwide Islamist terrorist group founded by Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) in 1988/9. Islamists believe that Islam should play a central role in the way a country is governed. Militant Islamists believe in the removal of all non-Muslim influences from the Muslim world. They are opposed to US foreign policy in the Middle East.
During the attacks, four airliners were hijacked: the pilots were forced to fly according to the orders of the hijackers. Two planes were deliberately crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, causing them to collapse. The third plane was crashed into the Pentagon, headquarters of the US Department of Defense, in Virginia. The last plane, which was heading for Washington, crashed into a field after its passengers battled the hijackers. Including the 19 hijackers, 2996 people died in the attacks.
War on Terror
Nine days after the 9/11 attacks, US President George W. Bush first used the term “War on Terror”. The War on Terror was an international military, legal and political campaign to get rid of al-Qaeda, other terrorist organizations and any governments that were believed to be supporting them. The USA, UK, the NATO nations and Pakistan were major participants in the campaign. In 2013, US President Barack Obama announced that the United States was no longer pursuing a War on Terror, but in 2017 President Donald Trump renewed the fight against terrorist organizations, focusing particularly on Islamic State (Isis or ISIL).
The war in Afghanistan (2001–21) was the first major military conflict of the campaign. The USA and its allies quickly succeeded in driving out Afghanistan’s Taliban government, which had close ties with al-Qaeda. But the Taliban still controlled a significant portion of the country. The battle to create peace and stability in Afghanistan continued for 20 years until US and NATO forces finally withdrew in August 2021. Taliban forces rapidly swept across the country, capturing the capital Kabul and retaking control of the whole of Afghanistan.
During the Iraq War (2003–11), the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled by the US, UK and allies. The USA and UK withdrew their troops from Iraq in 2011, but violence continued between different religious groups and the new Iraqi government and its opposition. In May 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in a US military operation in Pakistan.
Global Financial Crisis
The stability of a country's banks is crucial to their customers and to the whole economy. For this reason, most governments strictly regulate (supervise by means of rules and regulations) their banks. For example, banks must hold a minimum amount of funds (a "capital requirement") so that, if a lot of money lent out is not repaid, the banks still have some money to repay customers who have made deposits.
But by 2008, the activities of many banks went unnoticed by regulators. Excessive risk-taking, such as lending money to people who could not pay back the loans, resulted in the bankruptcy of American firm Lehman Brothers on September 2008, and the near-bankruptcy of many other financial institutions. Governments around the world were forced to lend colossal amounts of money to their countries’ banks, since there was a significant risk the banks would not be able to repay their customers. For a while in 2008, it looked as if the entire world economy might collapse as a result.
The Global Financial Crisis, as it was called, sparked the Great Recession—a time of declining international trade, falling prices, failing businesses and increases in unemployment. Many countries' governments chose to attempt to reduce spending by making cuts in public services, a policy known as austerity. The Great Recession also led, in late 2009, to the European Debt Crisis (or Eurozone Crisis). This was a time when several European Union (EU) member states, notably Greece, became unable to repay government debts without the assistance (called "bail-outs") of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the European Central Bank.
Britain's decision to leave the EU in June 2016 is thought by many experts to be at least partly the result of the impact of the Great Recession on the country. Similarly, many have argued that the Great Recession was also an important factor in the rise of populism (the belief among ordinary people that their concerns have been ignored by "elite" groups who make up the government and other leading figures in the "establishment") in the US that resulted in the election of President Donald Trump in November 2016.
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring is the wave of protests, revolutions and civil wars that swept across the Arab world from 18th December 2010, the date when demonstrations began in Tunisia. Many of these protests were aimed at overthrowing authoritarian regimes (governments that demand absolute obedience) and bringing about free elections, human rights and, in some cases, governments promoting the cause of Islam.
Rulers were forced from power in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. In March 2011, a civil war broke out in Syria between the government and a range of opposition groups trying to overthrow it.
The wave of revolutions and protests faded by mid-2012, as rebels in many Arab countries met with violent responses from authorities. However, uprisings and the continued existence of protest movements in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt after 2018 showed that how the conditions that started the Arab Spring had not faded. In Yemen, for example, a civil war continues to affect the country (as of May 2025).
Syrian Civil War
The Syrian Civil War broke out in 2011. Unrest, which began in March as part of the Arab Spring protests, grew out of discontent with the government. It became an armed conflict after the protests calling for the removal of President Assad were violently suppressed. Fighting broke out between different rebel groups within the the Syrian population (most of whom follow Sunni Islam) on one side, against the armed forces loyal to the government (dominated by a smaller group of people called the Alawites, who follow Shi'a Islam) on the other.
Other countries gave military assistance to the rival forces: the rebels were backed by Turkey and the Gulf states; the government were supported by Iran and Russia. The Kurds, a non-Arab people living in northeastern Syria, who seized the opportunity to press for self-rule, had the backing of the US, in order to fight against Islamic State (Isis or ISIL) forces, seeking to take advantage of the turmoil to gain territory, invading from Iraq.
By March 2020, Syria was divided into three main areas. The government controlled more than two-thirds of the country, including the cities of Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. The northwestern corner, centred on Idlib, was in the hands of rebel opposition, while the northeastern region, called Rojava, was governed by its Kurdish population from their capital Raqqa. In addition, parts of the northern border were occupied by Turkish troops, to prevent Syrian Kurds allying with Turkish Kurds.
Over the course of the war, more than 13.5 million Syrians fled their homes to look for a safer place to live. Around 6.8 million became refugees, seeking shelter in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, or travelling to Europe (see European migrant crisis, below). More than 600,000 Syrians are thought to have died as a result of the war. Around half of Syrian families are starving. Three-quarters of the 3.4 million people who live in the rebel-controlled northwestern region depend on United Nations aid.
On 27th November 2024, a coalition of Syrian opposition groups led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) under Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani), launched an offensive against Syrian government forces in Idlib, Aleppo and Hama. They made rapid advances as government forces disintegrated, taking Homs and the capital Damascus on 8th December. President Assad fled to Moscow, bringing to an end the Assad family's 53-year-long rule over Syria.
Jihadism
In Arabic, the word jihad means "struggle". In Islam, this could be simply an attempt to be a good Muslim, or the peaceful will to build a good Muslim society. But since 2001, the term "jihadi" or "jihadist" has been more widely used to describe someone, usually a follower of Sunni Islam, who sees the need to restore God's rule on Earth and defend the Muslim community (the umma) against non-believers, or those that have abandoned their beliefs—with violence if necessary. Most Muslims believe it wrong to link their religion with violence.
Al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups regard the United States and its allies (accused of "occupying the lands of Islam")—including both soldiers and civilians—as targets for violent action. Those Muslims or Muslim governments whom the jihadists consider to have abandoned the princles of Islamic law are also targets. Many jihadist groups seek to establish Islamic states within countries, or even "caliphates" that extend across several countries. Examples of jihadist campaigns include the conflict in Bosnia (1992–95), the Taliban in the Afghan war (2001–21), the Chechen uprising in the Russian Caucasus (1994–2017), Boko Haram in Nigeria (2002–present) and the involvement of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis or ISIL) in Iraq (until 2017) and Syria (until 2019).
War in the Sahel
War in the Sahel region of West Africa (the zone between the Sahara Desert and the more humid savanna to the south) has raged since the Arab Spring in 2011. As of May 2025, the conflict is at its most intense within the three countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as northeastern Nigeria.
As Islamist Tuareg rebels overran Mali in 2012, an uprising in Nigeria led by Boko Haram, began to spread to neighbouring countries. By 2015, the fighting had spread to Burkina Faso and Niger, due to the growing involvement of a splinter group of Islamic State. From 2019 onwards, the rivalry for power has led to a series of military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Sudan, Chad and Guinea.
Terrorist violence
Jihadis commit violent acts of terrorism in the West to support their cause: the 9/11 attacks in the US (2001), the Madrid train bombings (2004) and the London bombings (7th July 2005) are notable examples. On 7th January 2015, two gunmen murdered 11 people who worked for the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo at their offices in Paris. Identifying themselves as members of the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda, the men carried out the shootings in revenge for the magazine's depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in cartoons. They were later shot by police.
On 11th January 2015 more than 2 million people filled the streets of Paris in a show of national unity against the terrorist action. The phrase, Je suis Charlie ("I am Charlie") was used by many in protest against the atrocity.
On the night of Friday 13th November 2015, gunmen and suicide bombers carried out attacks on a concert hall, stadium, restaurants and bars in Paris, leaving 130 people dead and hundreds wounded. The deadliest attack of the night came at the Bataclan concert venue where Californian rock group Eagles of Death Metal was playing. Eighty-nine people died in the hall. The attackers were members of the Islamic State jihadist group. Then, on the evening of 14th July 2016, 84 people were killed when a cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds in Nice, southern France, by a man acting on behalf of Islamic State.
On 22nd May 2017, an Islamist extremist (of Libyan heritage, and not thought to have links with either al-Qaeda or Islamic State) detonated a homemade bomb as people were leaving the Manchester Arena following a concert by American singer Ariana Grande. Twenty-three people died, including the attacker, while 1017 were injured, some of them children.
European migrant crisis
In 2015, the number of migrants, most of them refugees, to the European Union (EU), travelling across the Mediterranean Sea and the Balkans, rose sharply. Many risked their lives on unsafe boats carrying too many passengers. Most of the migrants were from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Many of the boats sank, causing thousands of people to lose their lives by drowning. Some EU countries, including Bulgaria and Hungary, built border fences to prevent those migrants who had made it to Europe gaining entry to their countries.
According to a United Nations estimate made in July 2015, 62% of the migrants were war refugees, fleeing conflicts including those in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were more likely to be escaping desperate poverty. or, in the case of Eritrea, long-running human rights abuses. Altogether, about 1.3 million people came to Europe to request asylum during 2015.
Apart from drowning at sea, several serious accidents occurred in Europe as a result of human trafficking, in which smugglers arranged a sea crossing or entry into a country for people in return for payment. Lorries, trains, cars or vans were used for transport across Europe.
Before 2015, most refugees reached Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy. In 2015, however, the vast majority of refugees used the much shorter Aegean Sea crossing from Turkey to Greece, arriving on the Greek islands of Chios, Kos and Lesbos. From there, most attempted to head north towards Germany and Sweden, although the closure of borders in central Europe led to nearly all the migrants being trapped in Greece and being forced to live in refugee camps, such as Mória on Lesbos.
In March 2016, an agreement between the EU and Turkey to tackle the migrant crisis came into effect. All migrants arriving in Greece would be sent back to Turkey if they did not apply for asylum (refuge given to someone fleeing from persecution in their home country), or their claim was rejected. As a result, the number of "irregular" arrivals in Europe fell sharply.
While arrival numbers fell in each of the following years—dropping to 280,000 by 2023—irregular immigration from both Asia and Africa to Europe remains significant in scale. Some asylum-seekers attempt the overland route from Turkey, crossing the snow-capped mountains of the Balkans to reach Bosnia and Herzegovina. Others put their lives in the hands of people-smugglers, who send people across the sea in overcrowded dinghies from western Libya to Malta and the Italian island of Lampedusa, or the short but dangerous crossing from Turkey to Lesbos. Several hundreds of people die this way each year. Migrants attempting to reach Spain travel across the Mediterranean Sea by boat, to the Canary Islands by boat from Africa, or by land to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Northern Africa.
Asylum-seekers who are bound for England face another dangerous journey by sea across the English Channel, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. More than 25,000 people made the crossing in small boats in 2021, rising sharply to a record 46,000 in 2022. In 2025, a total of 41,472 migrants arrived in England by this method.
Rohingya crisis
The Rohingya crisis was brought on as a result of the persecution by the government of Myanmar against the Muslim Rohingya people from Rakhine state in the northwest of the country. Since 2017, more than a million Rohingya have been forced to flee to neighbouring countries, mostly Bangladesh. Kutupalong refugee camp and overspill camps in the Cox's Bazar district hold (as of June 2026) around 1.2 million Rohingya who have fled Myanmar.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s military has been accused by the United Nations of genocide (an intentional action to destroy an entire people), which it denies. Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's leader until the military seized power in a coup in February 2021, also rejected allegations of genocide when she appeared before the International Court of Justice in December 2019.
Violence broke out in northern Rakhine state on 25th August 2017, when, in response to violent assaults by the Myanmar armed forces, some Rohingya began to fight back. The army launched a “clearance operation”, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee. Refugees have since spoken of massacres in their villages, where they say soldiers raided and burned their homes. The Myanmar government claimed the Rohingya burned their own homes and killed local Buddhist people, describing them as "terrorists".
Covid pandemic
In December 2019, a pneumonia outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China. The disease was traced to a new strain of coronavirus, later named Sars-CoV-2. A lockdown in Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province failed to contain the outbreak. In early 2020, the disease, called Covid-19, quickly spread to other parts of mainland China—and then around the world. A pandemic was declared on 11th March. Variants of the virus, named by Greek letters such as Delta and Omicron, have emerged over the course of the pandemic. As of early December 2021, more than 264 million cases and 5.22 million deaths have been confirmed, making the Covid-19 pandemic one of the deadliest in history.
Before effective vaccines became available at the end of 2020, it was vitally important to contain the spread of the virus as much as possible. Most governments practised a policy of mitigation—slowing the virus's spread to give health services time to deal with the huge volume of serious cases. Emergency measures included: travel restrictions, workplace controls, lockdowns and quarantines. This meant that across the world large parts of countries' economies had to be temporarily shut down. Governments were forced to spend enormous sums to support businesses and citizens while people stayed at home.
Soon after the outbreak was reported, companies and academic institutions around the world set out to attempt to develop a successful vaccine. This was achieved in record time, with the first vaccinations taking place in mid-December 2020.
With governments taking action to close down their countries' economies and spending vast amounts of money on supporting businesses and their populations, the result was severe global social and economic disruption. It led to another global recession, the deepest since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
China, new superpower
China has developed extremely rapidly as an industrial nation in the early 21st century. This growth has raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and has resulted in China becoming one of the world’s major manufacturing countries. China produces and exports huge quantities of textiles, clothing and other manufactured goods each year. It is now the world’s largest exporter of goods, the world's largest economy by PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) and its second largest economy, after the US, by GDP (Gross Domestic Product). China's huge population, however, means its that income per head is low: hundreds of millions of Chinese people still live in poverty.
After the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, the United States became the world’s only superpower—a nation capable of wielding power and influencing events on a worldwide scale. However, many now regard China as having achieved superpower status. Long the world’s most populous nation (although India is fast catching up), China is second only to the US in economic strength, military power and political influence. In 2003 China became only the third country in the world after the US and the Soviet Union to send a person into space. Some observers think China will actually overtake the US as the world's biggest superpower by 2030.
In the 2010s, China began significantly increasing its influence in parts of South America, Africa, South Asia the Middle East and Europe, through establishing trading links and multi-billion dollar "infrastructure projects" (ports, power stations, roads, communications networks etc.) funded by Chinese banks and investment companies, and buying up international businesses. China has nuclear weapons and has the world's largest army (2.2 million personnel). Importantly, it is one of five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. This gives it the opportunity to veto any UN proposal, and so influence major decisions that affect, for example, peace efforts or sanctions against other countries.
US-China relations have been strained by disagreements in many areas. These include the status of Taiwan—whether it should be allowed to remain as an independent nation or become united with mainland China—and Chinese territorial claims over the South China Sea, where it is building artificial islands to house military bases. In 2018, President Trump introduced $200 billion in trade tariffs with China (making Chinese goods more expensive in the US, causing imports to dip. The Chinese responded with tariffs on US products, sparking fears of a trade war.
Globalization
Globalization is the increasing exchange of products, money, people and ideas across the world. This exchange is made possible by freedom of trade,as well as improvements in transport (such as large container ships to carry goods cheaply over long distances) and telecommunications, especially the internet. Globalization makes the economy and culture of each country closely connected with, and dependent on, those of every other country. Multinational enterprises (worldwide businesses), such as McDonalds, Samsung and Starbucks, thrive in a global economy; their products are produced and sold all over the world.
In the global economy, manufacturing of goods can be relocated, or outsourced, to other countries where the costs of production (labour and raw materials in particular) are lower, or where the manufacturing process is more efficient in some way. Products are often assembled from parts produced in a number of different countries. Anything from steel to shoes can be manufactured in this way. This process of relocating manufacturing to other countries is called offshoring. Services, such as accounting and telesales, may also be relocated overseas. China is a leading offshoring country for manufacturing, while India is emerging as a key offshoring country for software development and information systems. Offshoring has contributed hugely to both countries' rapid economic growth.
Critics of globalization claim that the power of such huge companies is shaping our world to enrich a small number of already wealthy people to the disadvantage of many ordinary people, including workers in developed nations, and the environment.
Information Age
Many people believe that our period of history will one day be known as the Information Age. This period was sparked by the Digital Revolution, when computers and mobile (cell) phones started to become commonplace during the 1980s. The Information Age truly took off when use of the internet became widespread after the early 1990s.
Today, rapid communication across the world, and the ease with which knowledge can be shared, have changed the way we work, study and conduct business. Social networking and online communities have revolutionized the way we make and keep friendships, listen to music, watch videos and find out about the world in general.
Global warming
The Earth is becoming warmer. The average temperature has risen by more than 0.5°C in the past century and is predicted to rise by 2°C by 2050. The effects may be felt by more frequent droughts, violent storms and changing climates. Glaciers are retreating (shrinking). The ice caps at both poles may start to melt, resulting in rising sea levels and the flooding of coastal regions where most cities are located. Scientists are convinced that human activities—especially the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas by factories, power stations, cars and planes—has contributed to a huge increase in greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide and methane) in the atmosphere, the direct result of which has been global warming.
Scientists say that unless drastic action is taken to eliminate carbon emissions, low-lying coastal areas, along with many of the world's great cities, home to billions of people, will be lost under the sea. Extreme weather events (such as droughts, flooding, wildfires and destructive storms), the acidification of the oceans, the extinction of many animal species and the steep decline in crop yields are among the other disastrous possible effects of global warming. Experts describe the situation as a climate emergency.
At what came to be known as the Earth Summit in 1992, nearly all nations signed the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which went into force in 2005, industrialized nations pledged to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2% per year by 2012. Although this was ratified (approved) by nearly all nations, global carbon emissions actually rose by nearly 40% from 1990 to 2009.
The Paris Agreement (Accord de Paris) was an agreement made in 2015 within the UNFCCC that dealt with limiting greenhouse gases emissions and achieving net zero by 2050. Nations pledged to limit the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C (3.6°F) above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C (2.7°F).
However, by 2022, a UN report stated there was now "no credible pathway" to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5°C. The report describes plans to cut emissions as "woefully inadequate". They were predicted to fall by less than 1% by 2030, when reductions of 45% would be needed if the 1.5°C limit were to be kept.
2026 Iran War
The Iran War broke out on 28th February 2026, when the US and Israel launched surprise airstrikes on multiple sites across Iran, including intelligence headquarters, ballistic missile sites and Revolutionary Guards facilities. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several other senior Iranian officials were assassinated by an airstrike on the presidential compound in Tehran. Nearly 150 civilians, mostly children, were reportedly killed in a strike on a girls’ school in Minab in the southeast of the country.
Iran responded with missile and drone strikes against Israel, US bases and US-allied countries in the Middle East, including Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain. In retaliation, Iran's ally, the Lebanon-based Islamist group Hezbollah, launched drone and missiles into Israel, leading Israel to respond with airstrikes on Beirut and an invasion of southern Lebanon.
Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz on 2nd March, along with Israel and Iran's attacks on energy facilities in the Persian Gulf and the US decision to blockade Iranian ports (13th April), has caused fuel shortages, surges in oil and gas prices, widespread disruption in flights and heightened uncertainty in financial markets across the world.
Consultant: Philip Parker
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