World peace - if it weren't for the recent events on the soil of our
eastern neighbor, it would seem the world is finally calming down. Less than
two years ago, it seemed that people finally came to their senses and stopped
the madness called war.
Peace operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were about to end, Balkan
slaughters were a thing of the past. There was a civil war in Syria, but
evening news rarely covered the subject, so it wasn't hard to omit that
information. We can hear about four conflicts areas – it seems to be quite a good
situation. Unfortunately, it's far from the truth.
A very short search reveals that there are almost 50 ongoing armed
conflicts, which have claimed over 5 million victims for over 60 years. These
are only the deaths from direct acts of violence that are still ongoing. Who
knows how much would this number grow if we added hunger and disease casualties
that always follow the steps of war?
Looking at the map, we could come to a terrifying realization that
almost half of the humanity is involved in war. This is of course
misinterpretation, as most of the conflicts are minor, happening on borders -
not affecting societies. It still gives
us an impression the world has changed not much in the matter of conflict
solving.
In the past two years, wars that have taken highest tolls in human
life were Afghanistan, Syrian, Iraqi conflicts and the insurgency of Boko Haram
in Africa. First three being a consequence of American invasion in 2001. With
Afghanistan being a war torn country since the Russian military operation in
1978. The country has lost almost 2 million citizens in violent deaths in the
past 37 years. The most violent conflict is the Syrian war which claimed
220.000 casualties so far.
Even in countries which we wouldn't consider a war zone, inner
confusions and crime are of such magnitude that casualties reach thousands of
people. Mexico, a member of G20, is a place, where drug cartels kill people
every day. In the United States there are 14,000 murders committed annually, 2,400
are related to gangs. Numbers are really terrifying, but we are looking at conflicts that haven’t
finished yet. To truly understand the seriousness of the situation, we need to
have an insight into wars that already ended and
took place in the last couple of decades.
The link below describes the number of combatant deaths in conflicts
post World War II.
http://www.economist.com/content/inner-turmoil
You can see that there are no civilian casualties included.
So, are we going into the direction of total chaos and world full of
violence?
Actually the numbers are descending and compared to the general
growth of world population a smaller percentage of people is involved in
violence.
This paradox is explained by an animated info graphic above, which
may seem overoptimistic, but still helps to understand what is actually happening
with our civilization. In my opinion the author omitted one important fact in
counting the reasons, why fewer countries are involved in acts of war. It is
expensive like nothing before. Military equipment has become so sophisticated
that a full scale war would tremble if not crash most countries’ economies.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=War&redirect=no
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbuUW9i-mHs
Comments
Anyway we shoud be happy that wars nowadays are not as big as they were 50 years ago. We try to stop some wars but it is not really easy. Nobody can't say if if we can say stop to wars. We don't know what will future bring for us.
I think the main problem is greed. Some people are not able to satisfy a very high level of life and want to grab everything. They do not heed the good of other people and treat them inhumanly. Sooner or later, it will revolt of which will be another military conflict.
I truly hope that humanity will be able to rise over military conflicts. It costs people's lives and enormous amounts of money. I wish we could spend all that money on medical and scientific research. The US government spends more than other countries on military and the amount spent on science and outer space research is just ridicules.
Interesting links:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/money-for-science/
http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go
I found the other nice animation, it's about World War II. In this one I like the way how numbers are visualized.
https://vimeo.com/128373915
I can't agree with your last thought:
>In my opinion the author omitted one important fact in counting the reasons, why >fewer countries are involved in acts of war. It is expensive like nothing before. >Military equipment has become so sophisticated that a full scale war would tremble if not crash most countries’ economies.
War is money. Please remember that after WWII, Germany, even if it lost, had already big factories and people trained to work there, they were able to pay tribute and focus on their own economy and that's why they are one of the best economies in EU.
As for the subject I agree, that we should be happy that we live in a more or less peaceful times. I'm not sure if the world peace is possible, but I hope it is. There are a lot of other, more important things, we can spend our money and lives on.
As the rest of the people, I agree living in the peaceful world would be idyllic. I really hope that the number of conflicts will decrease over the years, especially that human race is getting more and more intelligent, and science agrees that the smarter the race, the more peaceful it is. It's ridiculous and really sad that some people are greedy enough to kill other human beings by hundreds and thousands.
You should take into consideration the factor of inflation looking at this: http://www.ww2f.com/topic/20451-cost-of-ww2-weapons/
Abrams Main battle tank:
Unit cost US$6.21 million (M1A2 / FY99)[3] Estimated in 2012 as US$8.58 million (with inflation adjustment)
Lighting 2, newest generation fighter:
Program cost US$59.2B for development, $261B for procurement, $590B for operations & sustainment in 2012
Unit cost:
F-35A: $98M
F-35B: US$104M (low rate initial production)
F-35C: US$116M (low rate initial production)
Included animation is cool. I like so much this way to derive knowledge. Moreover this infographics is very nice designed.
I think we should be happy that we live in a calm part of Europe. In our country it is hardly to meets the holy wars.
And this is only Europe. While in Africa we can see such conflicts every year. One state with glorious revolution appears, the new leader says that finally the previous dictator is gone and now he can bring the wealth and prosperity to his state, then there appears another state, who thinks that it is pretty good idea to expand their territories. So there is another armed conflict, which goes on until both sides will get rid of all bullets or soldiers (usually bullets are ending much faster as they cost more than life of the average guy in the failed African state) and they declare peace. And until the next time.
So yeah, the world peace is pretty interesting question.