Like in an article noting the decline in war over the last couple decades:
Today’s wars are less deadlyThe project found a 70 percent decrease in high-intensity conflict – those wars with 1,000 or more battle-deaths per year – since the end of the cold war, and a 40 percent overall decrease in conflict, according to Mack.
Meanwhile, he says, emergency humanitarian assistance is increasingly effective – in part because those in war-torn areas are healthier when the fighting starts, a fact he attributes to peace-time health projects such as immunization or breast-feeding campaigns.
The number of battle deaths is also going down, he says, from 33,000 a year in 1950 to “just around” 1,000 a year in 2007.
This dramatic change should require some explanation other than the nebulous and wonderfully non-specific "end of the cold war," no?
Like what happened in the Cold War that no longer happens that might account for the change? Could it be the former Soviet Union's support for every psycho thug willing to support Moscow? The Soviet Union we opposed during the Cold War and ultimately defeated? Now that we are dominant, we don't seem to support all that death and violence as a matter of foreign policy.
And what about that "increasingly effective" humanitarian assistance? Might that not have something to do with our ability to mobilize resources in emergencies? Yes, I'll throw in compliments to the NGOs and even the UN for part of this, but with our funding levels for the UN and assistance in allowing them to provide that aid, once again a little credit goes our way.
It's a good thing that we won the Cold War and the Soviet Union lost it. Otherwise, a lot more people would be dead now. And those not dead would be more likely to live under despotism.
