World is a safer place
Discussion
but our perception is that it is getting worse. Perhaps terrorist attacks on the west have made us feel more vulnerable and thus given rise to the popular assumption that conflict is growing throughout the world.
World is a safer place despite people's fears
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 19/10/2005)
Widespread fears about a world in a perpetual state of war are unfounded, a study says today. It emphasises that the number of conflicts between nations, civil wars, battle deaths, coups and genocides has been falling steeply for more than a decade.
While the authors note that bloody wars continue in Iraq, Afghanistan and Congo, they argue that there are substantial grounds for optimism.
The first Human Security Report, written by academics led by Andrew Mack, of the University of British Columbia, cites popular notions that war is becoming more common and deadlier, that genocide is rising and that terrorism poses the greatest threat to humanity.
"Not one of these claims is based on reliable data," it says. "All are suspect; some are demonstrably false. Yet they are widely believed because they reinforce popular assumptions."
The authors say there are 40 per cent fewer armed conflicts than in the early 1990s. Between 1991 and last year 28 wars for self-determination began but 43 were ended or contained.
In 1992, when the Yugoslav wars of secession began, there were 51 state-based conflicts around the world. The figure dropped to 32 in 2002 and 29 in 2003. The arms trade declined by a third from 1990 to 2003 and the number of refugees fell by 45 per cent between 1992 and 2003.
In 1950 each conflict killed 38,000 people on average. By 2002 that had dropped to 600.
However, the report, which was funded by five nations including Britain, says that the potential for a major upsurge in violence remains.
"The risk of new wars breaking out or old ones resuming is very real in the absence of a sustained and strengthened commitment to conflict prevention and post-conflict peace-building," the authors say.
Most of the data gathered ended in 2003, the last full year for which statistics were available. That means that most of the deaths caused by the war in Iraq are not included. But by the standards of the bloodiest conflicts since the end of the Second World War, the deaths in Iraq are relatively few. About 27,000 Iraqis and Americans have died.
Major conflicts of the past 60 years, including Algeria, Korea, Vietnam, Congo and Sudan have killed between 400,000 and two million.
Prof Mack, an Australian former United Nations official, attributes much of the success in ending conflict to UN peacekeeping operations.
The reduction in war is also attributable to the end of the Cold War, he says. From 1945 to 1989, many local conflicts were aggravated by the intervention of the two great power blocs.
World is a safer place despite people's fears
By Francis Harris in Washington
(Filed: 19/10/2005)
Widespread fears about a world in a perpetual state of war are unfounded, a study says today. It emphasises that the number of conflicts between nations, civil wars, battle deaths, coups and genocides has been falling steeply for more than a decade.
While the authors note that bloody wars continue in Iraq, Afghanistan and Congo, they argue that there are substantial grounds for optimism.
The first Human Security Report, written by academics led by Andrew Mack, of the University of British Columbia, cites popular notions that war is becoming more common and deadlier, that genocide is rising and that terrorism poses the greatest threat to humanity.
"Not one of these claims is based on reliable data," it says. "All are suspect; some are demonstrably false. Yet they are widely believed because they reinforce popular assumptions."
The authors say there are 40 per cent fewer armed conflicts than in the early 1990s. Between 1991 and last year 28 wars for self-determination began but 43 were ended or contained.
In 1992, when the Yugoslav wars of secession began, there were 51 state-based conflicts around the world. The figure dropped to 32 in 2002 and 29 in 2003. The arms trade declined by a third from 1990 to 2003 and the number of refugees fell by 45 per cent between 1992 and 2003.
In 1950 each conflict killed 38,000 people on average. By 2002 that had dropped to 600.
However, the report, which was funded by five nations including Britain, says that the potential for a major upsurge in violence remains.
"The risk of new wars breaking out or old ones resuming is very real in the absence of a sustained and strengthened commitment to conflict prevention and post-conflict peace-building," the authors say.
Most of the data gathered ended in 2003, the last full year for which statistics were available. That means that most of the deaths caused by the war in Iraq are not included. But by the standards of the bloodiest conflicts since the end of the Second World War, the deaths in Iraq are relatively few. About 27,000 Iraqis and Americans have died.
Major conflicts of the past 60 years, including Algeria, Korea, Vietnam, Congo and Sudan have killed between 400,000 and two million.
Prof Mack, an Australian former United Nations official, attributes much of the success in ending conflict to UN peacekeeping operations.
The reduction in war is also attributable to the end of the Cold War, he says. From 1945 to 1989, many local conflicts were aggravated by the intervention of the two great power blocs.
article said:
Widespread fears about a world in a perpetual state of war are unfounded, a study says today. It emphasises that the number of conflicts between nations, civil wars, battle deaths, coups and genocides has been falling steeply for more than a decade.
Sorry but I don't think a decade is anything like long enough to draw any meaningful conclusions from; in fact, given the nature of human history, you could say that a century might not be long enough. Having said that, it is nice to have pointed out that things are not so grim as often seems the case.
Isn't it due to the tabloidisation of the media where every story has to be sensational and scary, although preferably a scare about something that we can all fret about but is very unlikely to actually happen to us?
uttered the still concussed and now sightly confused risk management consultant
uttered the still concussed and now sightly confused risk management consultant
timmy30 said:
Isn't it due to the tabloidisation of the media where every story has to be sensational and scary, although preferably a scare about something that we can all fret about but is very unlikely to actually happen to us?
uttered the still concussed and now sightly confused risk management consultant
I wake up every morning asking myself what it will be that they want me to be afraid of today, mostly it's a great relief when today's hobgoblin is no more substantive than yesterday's, and undeserving of my concern.
JagLover said:
uttered the still concussed and now sightly confused risk management consultant
How's the head
Doesn't hurt too much unless I make any kind of facial expression when I get a shooting pain across my forehead. But I'm a bit out of it, wierd like being a bit drunk, enough to have lost a bit of coordination.
I got up this morning to make myself a cup of coffee, proceeded to boil the kettle without putting the lid back on, after I'd poured the hot water into my cup I replaced the coffe jar onto the kettle stand. Odd.
andy mac said:
Current wars in the world...
www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/
Is this a glimpse into the future ?
North and South Korea are shown 'at war' and Iraq is shown as a 'civil war'.
So a foreign power invades your country, overthrows your government and while they're still there as an army of occupation it's a 'civil war. ??
Civil war it will become though, maybe the dates are wrong in this map
I think Iraq can legally be construed as a civil war, as the government is not at war with another nation. As such it is internal, and a civil war, of sorts. I think the North korea and South Korea thing is similar in kind to India-Pakistan, in that there is no declaration, but hostlities do take place, although not on a war front, if you get my meaning.
Hilts said:
North and South Korea are shown 'at war'
A "Cease Fire" has been in effect since the end of the Korean war, altough as far as i know there has never been an official truce / end of hostilities. Hence the US still has a fair few troops there the maintain the cease fire.
Officially they're still at war.
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