Geopolitics can often be best understood as an equilibrium — of expectations337jili, of strength and of capabilities. When something upsets that balance, it can lead to chaos.

That’s been a frequent theme of this column over the last few months, and the examples keep adding up. It’s now clear that a number of “frozen conflicts" — wars that had become stuck in stalemates for years because neither side was strong enough to make substantial gains — have suddenly heated up.

Five years ago, there were frozen conflicts in eastern Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon. All have since flared into open conflicts that shattered the status quos.

These conflicts are all different, with their own separate causes. But they also share many of the same players, which means that ripple effects of events like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel are now being felt around the world.

The most notable recent example is Syria, where the frozen civil war reignited in dramatic fashion when the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a surprise attack last week, capturing a large swath of territory, as seen in this map by my colleague Samuel Granados:

ImageCredit...Sources: Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project (areas of control as of Dec. 5); Janes (rebel control as of November)

The rebels have taken Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, and Hama, a longtime government stronghold. They are pushing south toward the major city of Homs, and could even threaten the capital of Damascus.

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