Journalist and author Michela Wrong unpacks the stakes of Congo’s latest crisis—and why it matters beyond the region.

Recently, well-armed militias, accompanied by the Rwandan military, have seized key provinces in the country's mineral-rich east. They're threatening to continue their offensive with an ever-changing mix of tribal, political, and economic justifications thatmay be pointing towards violent regime change in Kinshasa.

Why should we care? Obviously, because the human tragedies that define such wars should not be happening in the 21st century. But, beyond that, the Congo conflict is a dangerous microcosm of our time: international borders no longer sacrosanct; 19th-century-style natural resource grabs for 21st-century rare earth minerals; Great Power rivalries; the potential for a larger regional conflict if full-blown civil war breaks out across Africa’s second largest country.

Michela Wrong is a journalist and an author who knows Rwanda, Congo, and the Great Lakes region as well as anyone. Her recent article in Foreign Affairs, “How Far Will Rwanda Go in Congo?” provides some of the backstory to this New Thinking for a New World conversation about the huge dangers of yet another conflict in Congo.