The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and its tiny neighbor Rwanda could not be more different. The DRC is Africa’s second largest country, its boundaries encompassing more than 900,000 square miles, big enough to swallow Germany, France, Poland, Italy, and a sizable portion of Central Europe. Rwanda, on the other hand, just barely breaks the 10,000 square mile mark and is comparable in size to the state of Maryland. The DRC’s population contains more than 100 million people, versus just 10 million within Rwanda. Economically, too, the neighbors differ: Rwanda holds the edge with a higher GDP per capita, nearly $1,100 to the DRC’s $627, and due to its extraordinarily rapid economic growth relative to its immediate neighbors, it has often been heralded as the “Singapore of Africa.” Rwanda’s president since 2000, Paul Kagame, would take issue with such a comparison. In his words, “We have been asked whether we want to turn Rwanda into Singapore or Switzerland. Rwanda is Rwanda.” And yet, Kagame may have difficulty defining where and what “Rwanda” truly is: for evidence of such confusion, one must only look across Rwanda's border to its eastern neighbor, the DRC. 

For years, it has been an open secret that Rwanda has been meddling in the affairs of its larger neighbor. The history is a complex and bloody one: owing its genesis to the Rwandan Genocide and the new Rwandan government’s goal of eliminating Hutu rebels who fled into the DRC in 1994, Rwanda’s interventions in the DRC have spanned two wars, displaced millions, and led to devastating and prolonged periods of violence. The First and Second Congo Wars devastated the DRC, with the Second drawing in Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, elements from Libya, Burundi, and Uganda and often called “The Great War of Africa.” While untangling the motivations and causes of the various sides in the past Congo Wars is certainly key to understanding the region’s history, Rwanda’s recent actions may still be interpreted as a new phase to the conflict. 

In 2022, the Rwandan-backed rebel group known as M23 launched a surprise uprising in the DRC, taking control of large swathes of North Kivu province across Rwanda’s border. Since then, intermittent ceasefires and international condemnation have failed to cap the violence. In January of 2025, M23 launched its most ambitious offensive of the period: with Rwandan troops fighting alongside them, by the end of the month it had captured the strategic city of Goma, capital of North Kivu. Upon the city’s fall, M23 declared a temporary unilateral ceasefire, with mass protests and riots erupting all over the DRC upon the news. Since then, M23’s success along the frontline has only continued: several other rebel groups in the DRC’s east have declared their allegiance to M23, and the capital of South Kivu province, Bukavu, was captured just one week later in the beginning of February. While drawing exact lines of control is impossible given the rapidly shifting dynamics of the conflict, as well as the difficulty of navigating the terrain, elements of M23 considered their successes in the Eastern Congo robust enough to threaten a march all the way to the DRC capital of Kinshasa, a clear callback to the Congo Wars.

Rwanda, through its proxy of M23, effectively controls the DRC’s easternmost provinces of North and South Kivu. While Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting M23 with the direct involvement of its military in attacking the forces of the DRC, the UN believes otherwise: not only have reports surfaced of Rwandan advisors and nearly 4,000 soldiers taking part in M23 operations, but surrendering Congolese troops have been taken into custody within Rwanda itself. Furthermore, M23’s advance is largely attributed to its access to heavy and sophisticated weapons, including mobile anti-air launchers and precision guided missiles, both of which are likely to have been supplied by Rwanda. In taking these aggressive actions while at the same time hoping to retain some form of plausible deniability through its front of M23, Rwanda recognizes its international isolation in launching another invasion of the DRC. In fact, Rwanda successfully employed such a strategy in the past: during both Congo Wars, it heavily supplemented its official armed forces with militias such as M23 in the east. 

Rwanda is not without its justifications, however. While M23 has primarily been fighting the DRC’s army, the Eastern Congo is a notoriously dangerous place. Dozens of militias each claim control over often overlapping swathes of territory, and the region’s extraordinarily vast mineral wealth remains largely untapped, fueling incentives for violence. Huge deposits of cobalt, tin, gold, zinc, and rare earth minerals present massive opportunities for the development of extractive industry, with such resources unfortunately also being prime candidates for smuggling, the black market, and a source of reliable cash. Of primary concern to Rwanda, at least according to its official narrative, is the presence of the militia known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or the FDLR. Founded in 2000 by remnants of Hutu militias fleeing after the end of the Rwandan Genocide, it has operated indiscriminately in the Eastern Congo, with the explicit goal of returning to power in Rwanda. Why the destruction of the FDLR requires the shipment of hundreds of tons of diamonds and rare earth minerals from illegally seized mining towns into Rwanda, however, is a question Rwanda would be hard pressed to answer, indicating that the FDLR may simply be a casus belli for a greater, more sustained operation. 

Where will the Rwanda-Congolese conflict go from here? While a Third Congo War would require serious escalation from even the current state of affairs, the risk of spiraling violence is ever present. The combination of heavily armed militias, extremely valuable economic resources, already existing ethnic tension, and the history of Rwandan intervention are all contributing factors toward full scale interstate war. Before a major war breaks out, however, several key conditions would be necessary to fulfill. First, historically, Zimbabwe and Angola have not shied away from intervening on behalf of the DRC’s government: in that case, should Rwandan forces or Rwandan-backed militias threaten the full sovereignty of the DRC, perhaps by threatening the capital of Kinshasa or advancing into the country’s core, foreign intervention might breed escalation just as it did in the Second Congo War. The second condition would be belligerence on the part of Rwanda. Depending on its objectives, Rwanda may simply be satisfied with de facto control over North and South Kivu. Should this be the case, and Kagame was content to leave the political status of these provinces in jeopardy, perhaps Rwanda’s theft of minerals could be, as odd as it sounds, maintainable. The DRC, remaining preoccupied with local instability across most of its vast territory, would be unable to push back M23 or gather the diplomatic support to force a wider conflict. Given the bold assumption that nothing significant changes along the front, this appears to be the current trajectory of the conflict. Only in the case of Rwandan escalation would a conflict erupt, such as through an expansion of M23 operations or the official involvement of Rwandan extraction. 

While predicting the future of any armed conflict, let alone one as complex as that between the DRC and Rwanda, is impossible, a key factor underlies both scenarios above: aggressive action on the part of Rwanda. Fundamentally, Rwanda holds the initiative, both as the current aggressor and as the one dictating the pace of the conflict. Should Kagame wish to avoid a Third Congo War, itself an uncertain assumption, restraint and withdrawal remain his best options. To pursue any other course of action, even one maintaining the current imbalance, would speak harshly as to Rwanda’s true motives.