Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea has a 4.4% 12-month probability of a new armed-conflict onset, placing it in the moderate risk category. The country’s history of communal and tribal fighting, the unresolved Bougainville question, limited state reach across difficult terrain, and weak institutional capacity support a persistent underlying risk of internal violence.

Recent reporting places Prime Minister James Marape within sharper Pacific tensions over great-power rivalry and nuclear testing. His warning that Pacific nations “do not want history repeated,” alongside Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s description of the test as “provocative” and “destabilizing,” indicates heightened regional friction, but does not itself show fighting on Papua New Guinean territory.

The main uncertainty is whether domestic grievances and local disputes could combine with political instability or outside pressure to produce sustained armed violence. Risk would rise with organized clashes involving national or provincial authorities, renewed Bougainville violence, or major tribal fighting; it would fall with effective mediation, security restraint, and continued containment of regional tensions.