World is more peaceful now than at any time in 12 years

[Scurrilous]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051018.wxunside18/BNStory/International/

<snip>


"Despite the daily horrors in Iraq and seemingly regular spasms of terrorist-sponsored violence, the world is a much more peaceful place than it was a little more than a decade ago, a new study says.

Since the end of the Cold War, the number of armed conflicts has declined by more than 40 per cent, while the number of the deadliest conflicts -- those involving more than 1,000 battle-related deaths -- has dropped by 80 per cent, said the Human Security Report, which was released here yesterday.

"Over the past dozen years, the global security climate has changed in dramatic, positive and largely unheralded ways," the report states.

"Civil wars, genocides and international crises have all declined sharply. International wars, now only a small minority of all conflicts, have been in steady decline for a much longer period, as have military coups and the average number of people killed per conflict per year."


The one dark spot, not surprisingly, is international terrorism, which has been on the rise since the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, though the death toll from such attacks is only a tiny fraction of war casualties."

[Oversea Visitor]

1. Gee you got to be joking right

Look at all the bombing that happen now and then.

[cornermouse]

2. I guess all those massacres in Africa aren't be recorded?

I'm sorry, I don't believe this.

[LynnTheDem]

5. My thought exactly.

A bit of a "WTF???" moment.

[AngryAmish]

8. the war in the Congo has calmed down a bit

It was the biggest war in the world for a number of years. Everyone just ignored it. There still is a war going on, but fewer folks are dying. We just don't give a shit.

[On the Road]

25. Here's the Deal on Africa:

"The report's authors calculated that civil and external wars killed about 700,000 combatants and civilians in 1950 but that figure dropped to about 100,000 in 1992 and 20,000 in 2002.

Prof. Mack acknowledged that his data end in 2003, but insisted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been raging for the past two years have not dramatically increased the death toll or reversed the long-term trend.

In 2004, there were just 25 armed secessionist conflicts under way in the world, the lowest number since 1976.

In addition to the Middle East, Africa remained mired in armed conflict. At the turn of the 21st century, more people were killed in wars in sub-Saharan Africa than in the rest of the world combined."

It's easy to forget. The world has always been a violent place.

[ClintonTyree]

3. Perception is everything.........

the real numbers may be down, but what people perceive is the opposite.
This quote stuck out; "There is absolutely no doubt that the UN has been a critical actor, albeit an imperfect one, in bringing the numbers down," he said.
This was PRE-Bolton in the U.N. I would now expect that trend to reverse itself with the presence of "Mr. Warmth" walking the halls of the U.N. There has never been a more divisive figure within that organization.

[xchrom]

4. hey -- that's a good thing

regardless, i'm not giving bushco credit for it.

[Scurrilous]

6. Give credit to the UN:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051018/ap_on_re_us/un_global_violence;_ylt=An_2Q5H_MyBWBf7Qz5QUwiys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b3JuZGZhBHNlYwM3MjE-

<snip>

"Andrew Mack, a professor at the University of British Columbia who directed the study, said the end of the Cold War eliminated tensions between capitalism and communism, cut off U.S. and Russian funding for proxy wars, and most importantly liberated the United Nations.

"With the Security Council no longer paralyzed by Cold War politics, the U.N. spearheaded a veritable explosion of conflict prevention, peacemaking and post-conflict peace-building activities in the early 1990s," the report said.

A Rand Corp. study earlier this year concluded that the United Nations was successful in 66 percent of its peace efforts, but even the 40 percent success rate some believe is more accurate would be an achievement considering that prior to the 1990s "there was nothing going on at all," Mack said.

"We think the United Nations, despite the many failures, has done in many ways an extraordinary job ... very often with inadequate resources, inappropriate mandates, and with horrible politics in the council," said Mack, who was the director of strategic planning in U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office from 1998-2001. "If the politics were less horrible, the resources more adequate ... the U.N. could do a much better job."

[Missy M]

7. The U.N. did a good job in spite of the politics and insufficient...

resources. Imagine what could have been done without the horrible politics and more resources. The only problem now is terrorism has taken over the Cold War as the bogeyman!!

[jus_the_facts]

9. In lala land maybe......

....to each his own reality...or better yet...to each his own brainwashing. :crazy:

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. So what are the facts, "jus_the_facts"?

Here is the report, and here are the figures from it. Which ones are you disputing?

[jus_the_facts]

18. From that report...their section called Data Sources states....

http://www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=83

Data Sources

It is a little known fact that no international organization collects data on regional or global political violence trends. This makes the task of mapping threats to human security a very difficult undertaking. There is a dearth of reliable information; methodologies are complex and often contested; and findings are sometimes contradictory, or at the very least, appear to be so.

In the absence of official statistics, the Human Security Report draws on a range of different data sources including a new dataset on political violence created especially for the Report, commissioned Background Papers by key experts, and other reports and studies.

....these two paragraphs make it sound as if it's entirely bogus..it's all about perspectives....plainly says "complex...contested and contradictory"...it's left up to you basically to choose your illusion.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. But you don't have any facts yourself, then.

You are content to dismiss this research as 'la la land' without even specifying your alternate reality, let alone what your sources are. Your screen name is looking more ironic by the minute.

[jus_the_facts]

22. so you wanna strangle me then....is that it...

....I point out where they admit themselves...that their own data appears to be contradictory and contested....that's pretty ironic I'd say...regardless of how peaceful I or anybody else perceives the world to be...or not to be...


In the absence of official statistics, the Human Security Report draws on a range of different data sources including a new dataset on political violence created especially for the Report...

http://www.humansecurityreport.info/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=83

on edit...according to their own report as well it says there aren't any official statistics to draw from either...where would I find some other information on the subject but from my own perspective of current events possibly...not real peaceful world we're living in from where I sit...just because some report states I should feel secure doesn't make it so...here's a few examples other perspectives to make me feel quite insecure about the state of the world in fact...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x4168911

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5077724

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. The report does talk about why there haven't been any UN statistics

they basically say that there are always member governments who refuse to provide figures, or block attempts to establish independent agencies run by the UN or similar international organisations. So the report has to rely on the research done largely by institutes like the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. It does say that the WHO produced statistics for war-related deaths from 1998 to 2002, but that those numbers were very much greater than ones from other sources, and that the authors of this report couldn't see how they were arrived at.

There's a difference between 'contested' and 'la la land'. The report is an attempt to draw together the existing research, and do some new stuff, on what is going on. I don't think it deserves to be dismissed out of hand. I know you're not the only one who did that, but it was your screen name that made me wonder why you were doing it.

[ixion]

10. uh, what planet is this person on?

seriously, this person is not a member of the reality based community. :crazy:

[jobycom]

11. So if not for America, the world would be in good shape, then

Is what it sounds like. We're the ones waging all the wars. The rest of the world has moved beyond us.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

20. Actually the report cites the UK as leading in involvement in

international conflicts with France in second place and the US in 3rd...the authors are all your standard think tank players however and the merhodology is in question since we know that 2 million have died in Africa between Coltan wars and genocide...but the report states the figures as follows:

The report's authors calculated that civil and external wars killed about 700,000 combatants and civilians in 1950 but that figure dropped to about 100,000 in 1992 and 20,000 in 2002.


So in my view, they are not counting ancillary deaths....just actual battlefield related deaths.

They also claim that less civilians are being targetted but in order to claim it is down by such a percentage, they started counting (I think) the year AFTER the RWANDA/ Burundi massacres

[indigo32]

47. thx for pointing that out NSMA

it didn't make any sense to me either.

[Truebrit71sbruv]

12. Hold on a sec?!?

Did I just see Beelzebub ice-skating in the underworld???

[TygrBright]

13. Eh...? Congo. Sudan. Chechnya. Kashmir. Tibet. Uzbekistan....

East Timor. Sri Lanka. Colombia. Liberia. Burundi. Nepal. Angola...

Oh, yeah. And Iran. And Afghanistan.

But, OTHER THAN THAT--

Peace is breaking out all over!!

yehright

cynically,
Bright

[On the Road]

23. Yes, and in Most of Those

conflict has gone down recently. The more I think about the report, the more it makes sense that conflicts have gone down.

[enigma000]

14. Has a certain logic to it

Wars between great powers are mostly a thing of the past. Discounting the breakup of Yugoslavia and resulting civil war, Europe has been at peace for 60 years. The European empires have been all but dissolved ending wars of liberation. The proxy wars during the Cold War in Latin America, Africa, South East Asia have all ended; many of them within months of end of the Cold War. Without outside players intervening in existing local wars for idealogical or imperialistic rationals, these conflicts are far less deadly.

Oddly enough, the world is far more peaceful than 20 years ago. Possibly more so than any time in history.

[jobycom]

29. Yeah, that's probably right, mostly.

The odd thing is, we didn't realize how many wars our nation was fighting before. When we were head-to-head with the Soviets, we had wars, declared or not, in Afghanistan, Central America, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Iran, Iraq, and Africa. We never admitted we were fighting the wars, but we would take one side and the Soviets the other and we'd beat some poor country to death and move our fight elsewhere. Viet Nam nd Cambodia killed tens of millions, IIRC, and Iraq versus Iran in the 80s killed millions. Now our wars kill hundreds of thousands, and we don't have that one great enemy to raise the totals.

I don't trust their figures over the 92-02 period, though. 20,000 in 2002 seems very low, considering our actions in Afghanistan. Though I guess most of those were in 2001. Still, that was just our invasion, and there were other wars in the old Soviet regions and in Africa. Somehow, they don't look right. They make it sound as though there was a decline from 100K in 1992 to 20K in 2002. They don't mention a million dead in 94 in Rwanda as being a spike between their numbers.

And they admit they aren't including anything after 2002, like Iraq, or the Sudan.

It's hard to judge, not knowing their criteria for casualties and not seeing the numbers they are using. Those are just my impressions.

[0007]

16. What can ya say when one reads horse shit like this....?

Ya gotta know its coming right out of the White House.

They can spin it like Hitler was indeed a decent bloke.

[Zynx]

17. So without the war in Iraq things would be better.

This is despite the fact we are doing this silly Iraq adventure.

[jobycom]

30. Iraq is after their study. It goes through 2002.

"The report's authors calculated that civil and external wars killed about 700,000 combatants and civilians in 1950 but that figure dropped to about 100,000 in 1992 and 20,000 in 2002.

Prof. Mack acknowledged that his data end in 2003, but insisted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have been raging for the past two years have not dramatically increased the death toll or reversed the long-term trend."


The last statement makes me question their source for casualty counts. Although it's also possible that the original study is not as rosy as the article makes it sound. We are still talking about the media trying to skim detailed reports for controversy-grabbing headlines, and not trying to accurately present the full story.

[leesa]

19. So weapons sales are down for the Bush Crime Syndicate, huh?

These people simply don't have their eyes open.

[cantstandbush]

24. These people are apologists for the war on terrorism and the Bush regime.

Just use your own common sense and you know this stuff is not true.

[jobycom]

26. Well, now that I've read the article and not just the headline :)

The data stops before the Iraqi invasion, which I think excludes the Sudan violence. Also, they claim 20,000 were killed in "civil and external" wars in 2002, and they don't believe what's happening in Iraq significantly changes that trend, which makes me wonder what sources they are using for casualty counts, since the estimated 100K + people between 2003 and 2004 would be a bit higher than their 20,000 from 2002.

The Rwanda massacre was in 1994, and the Srebenica massacre (about 7,000) was in 95. Both were in the time frame of this study. So I'm not sure how they are ignoring a million dead in Rwanda in 94. That would be an increase over his 100,000 in 92.

I'd have to see where this group is getting their figures, and if they are just ignoring casualties when they don't have actual counts, rather than taking estimates. Iraq, for instance, in 2003, had no one to count how many we killed, and we weren't counting, so all totals are estimates. Would they just ignore those dead, then?

These figures could be the result of greater government secrecy, in other words.

In general, though, he may be right, that wars have declined over the last forty years or so. The casualties in WW II, Viet Nam, Cambodia and various Soviet atrocities were in the tens of millions. There seem to be smaller numbers in the last decade. Our wars now are measured in the hundreds of thousands. (That's all from my general impression, not any specific data).

I don't trust reports like this one without being able to see what they are basing their numbers on, and this article is not very informative about the data. No critical analysis, for sure.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. Rwanda is not included in their figures

because the datasets for 1946-2002 don't include one-sided massacres - they are for conflict. The report commissioned research to include massacres for 2002 and 2003. The 100K in Iraq is one estimate; 25K is another (and I think the 100K came from statistical estimates, which isn't the kind of data this report normally uses).

I think this is their primary source for war-related deaths - "Lacina and Gleditsch".

The report does talk about how reliable its data is:

First, those who collate battle-death data can only record
those events that are reported—and many are not.
This is particularly true in conflicts such as Chechnya,
where journalists are denied access to the war zone. The
result is that death rates in some conflicts will be considerably
under-reported. Such problems are generally more serious
in developing countries than in developed ones, and
in authoritarian states as opposed to democracies.

Second, government and rebel forces often exaggerate
the death tolls they claim to have inflicted on their adversaries,
creating the possibility of over-counting.

Third, different counting methods can produce quite
different estimates of death tolls. These issues are discussed
in more detail in Part II of this report.

One way to minimise these problems—they can never
be completely resolved—is to collect as many different
accounts of battle fatalities as possible. Technology can
help here. Researchers at Uppsala University’s Conflict
Data Program, for example, cull conflict data from many
sources, including the 9,000 news outlets in the electronic
Factiva news database. Factiva is scanned automatically,
and the violent incidents that are tagged are then reviewed
by the researchers, coded and entered into the database.

http://www.humansecurityreport.info/HSR2005/Part1.pdf

[jobycom]

35. Thanks. The very information I was looking for.

I suspected most of that, otherwise their numbers weren't making sense. The Iraq figure of 100K casualties, as I understand it, was the result of a statistical analysis of the number of people who had died of violent means since the conflict started, factoring out, I think, the number of people who would normally have died in that period. They went door to door in many towns and villages to collect data, but I'm not sure if the data was complete or representative (A census as opposed to a poll). All that's from memory and impression, not a detailed understanding of the count.

I can understand why they wouldn't use that number, but that leaves them with no real number, since burial patterns and government records and US policy all lead to scattered, incomplete counts. If they use the 20K or so confirmed fatalities collected from media sources, they are only getting a fraction, and are therefore destroying the reliability of their conclusions. They are legitimizing the government attempts to turn casualty figures into PR figures.

One question: If they are not including "massacres," why are they claiming to include "genocide," since often genocide is not between two armed groups?

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. The number of deaths from genocide hasn't been collated

by Uppsala, who produced the figures for deaths from conflict. The talk about genocides decreasing seems to come from a study by Barbara Harff, in which the number of genocides seems to be decreasing - which I think isn't at all clear until you get into the detail of the report (they also use the term 'politicide' for massacres due to ideology rather than ethnic identity, such as Pol Pot).

[cyberpj]

44. I agree. I always want to know who's behind such reports - are they

funded or impartial?

And thanks for your excellent input and additions.

[Kablooie]

28. Don't you mean piece full?

With the Balkans and the USSR all split up we've got a lot more pieces.

[daleo]

32. It doesn't seem right to only include battle fatalities

Civilian deaths, perhaps a lot of civil war type conflict wouldn't be included. Still, the group seems fairly legitimate. Here is their lineup of donors:

The Human Security Centre’s work is funded by generous contributions from the following governments and foundations:

• The Human Security Program at Foreign Affairs Canada

• The Canadian International Development Agency

• The Department for International Development (United Kingdom)

• The Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs

• The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

• The Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

• The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

• The Rockefeller Foundation

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. It includes civilians killed as a result of conflicts

but its definition of 'conflict' means there have to be a recognisable organised group on each side - a government, a rebel group etc. Plain genocides, such as Rwanda or Pol Pot's massacres, don't get counted in this definition. The report says they are collecting new data on such massacres.

It has a bit about the relative amounts of civilain and military deaths - it says the often quoted figure of "90% of victims are civilians" is probably from a misunderstanding (it may have come from a report where 'victims' meant deaths or refugees). It thinks that in 2002, between 30 and 60% of conflict deaths were civilians.

[daleo]

39. Thanks, I do intend to read it later

I think the organization is relatively unbiased (as much as is likely given the nature of the subject), so it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. UBC is a good university, and I don't think they would become anyone's out and out propaganda organ. Not including data after 2002 is quite problematical, though, and will make many people suspicious of an attempt to avoid talking much about the Iraq invasion.

[cyberpj]

45. But doesn't include from Iraq war to present. nt.

[RumpusCat]

33. Reminds me of a Life In Hell cartoon

where Binky is telling Bongo to enjoy his childhood, as it's the best years of his life, and Bongo looks horrified and says, 'YOU MEAN IT GETS WORSE??'

[SunDrop23]

36. This is great: "Despite the daily horrors..."

It's as if the author is saying "well there is that thing in Iraq but that's not that big a deal..."

[HughBeaumont]

37. "Other than that little incident, how was your stay in Dallas, Jackie?"

[DemBones DemBones]

52. But how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

:eyes:

[Megahurtz]

40. Uh Huh. Yeah. Right.

:eyes:

[Bill McBlueState]

41. blah!

Rather than read and understand the study and its limitations, I'm going to disregard it out of hand! Instead, I'll go by my own preconceptions, which are all based on secondhand information from the TV and the internet! It's what everyone else is doing, so, hey, me too.

[sakabatou]

42. WTH?

[skypilot]

43. The Bush administration and al Qaeda...

...are working to change all that. :nuke:

[IntravenousDemilo]

46. Except for the high-pitched partisan shreiking on this and all other

political message boards, anyway, not to mention in the mass media. Sometimes it's hard to hear yourself think with all the shouting going on. One wants to scream, "HEY!!!!.... look... just chill out... OK...?"

A lot of the posters above are making the endemic and typically solipsistic American argument that just because their country is involved in a particular armed conflict that dominates their media, then the rest of the world must obviously be at war, too. If it doesn't happen to the United States, it isn't happening at all.

You know what? The United States is not the centre of the universe. The rest of us are not quite as obsessed with the Iraq invasion as you are, except insofar as you feel it should be our problem as well. This is a gross imposition.

Look here, the numbers in the study speak for themselves; during the time period discussed, there were indeed fewer people killed in armed conflict than in years past. This is not the first time or the first place I've seen these figures.

Let's take the long view backwards. The 18th century saw more war deaths than the 19th century, even though there were fewer people in the world. "Well, that can't be right. What about The Civil War?" some Americans might say. "More Americans died in that war than in any other." Yes, more Americans died in what should properly be called "The American Civil War" (as if there haven't been countless civil wars before and after yours; there's that annoying American self-obsession again -- The Civil War).

With the 20th century, we managed to hit the high-megadeath jackpot, with two world wars (oh, and let me emphasize this, they started in 1914 and 1939, respectively, not 1917 and 1941), the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, plus -- and this is in the 1930s alone -- the occupation of China by the Japanese even before the rest of the world got involved, the Spanish Civil War (or as the Spaniards might themselves call it, "The Civil War"), Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia, Libya, and Somaliland. Then there were the Balkan Wars earlier on, the Russo-Japanese War, and any number of other wars in Africa during colonial times. Oh, and let's not forget the Arab-Israeli perpetual conflict, Biafra, Bangladesh, guerilla warfare against the French colonialists in Vietnam years before America put its own clumsy foot in, the Russians in Afghanistan, skirmishes between the Pakistanis and Indians...

I don't need to add to this list, I think. The world has always been a nasty, bellicose place, mostly because human nature seems to dictate greed. But we're pulling ourselves out of the swamp, slowly but surely, and Iraq is a statistical blip that wouldn't even be there if George W Bush hadn't been having some erectile dysfunction or other that required his going to war so he could attain manly woodage. Even so, we haven't seen millions die in Iraq yet, unlike in past conflicts. Get rid of Mr Bush before he turns the blip into a "BLIP BAM BOOM!!!!" in Iran or North Korea or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or wherever his penis takes him next. That's all we ask.

America is not the world, it's in the world. America is not exceptional, just exceptionally self-centred.

America wants to get over itself.

[enigma000]

49. Nicely put

Good historical analogies as well. Sometimes we forget the past and assume our moment in history is unique........

[Bill McBlueState]

50. kick-ass response.

So few of the posts in this thread really address the OP; they just spout their own preconceptions. What's the point of responding if you won't even consider the original argument?

[Tight_rope]

48. Ok...Too Many people rich and poor..young and old..white or black..

:wow:Ok...Too Many people rich and poor..young and old..white or black.. are on the crack pipe! :smoke: :crazy: :spank: :banghead:

It's the only explanation!

[Dem2theMax]

51. Apparently I'm not living on the same planet

as the group who wrote the article.
Must be lovely for them to live in such a peaceful place. :sarcasm:

[Voltaire99]

53. "More peaceful" is a silly abstraction

...on a planet wracked by over two dozen current armed conflicts and reeling from its most lethal century.

The one dark spot, not surprisingly, is international terrorism, which has been on the rise since the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, though the death toll from such attacks is only a tiny fraction of war casualties."

The one? For a report making claims to statistical authority, this is an absurd conclusion.

A much darker spot is the rape of Iraq by the United States and Britain. Even if you are content to overlook the injustice--like, say, a Hillary or Kerry--any numerical count will find the number of victims in the Iraq war dwarfs that of terrorism.

[54anickel]

54. The calm before the storm with Whistle-Ass at the helm. The Uniter has

got all sorts of people making friends these days.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"... Seems the US doesn't have a whole lot of friends left these days, but there's been a whole lot of uniting goin' on.