Decline of war

Gregg Easterbrook, a regular source of counter-intuitive insight, summarizes recent studies that show a decade-long decline in war around the world (TNR, May 30): “Five years ago, two academics – Monty Marshall, research director at the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University, and Ted Robert Gurr, a professor of government at the University of Maryland – spent months compiling all available data on the frequency and death toll of twentieth-century combat, expecting to find an ever-worsening ledger of blood and destruction. Instead, they found, after the terrible years of World Wars I and II, a global increase in war from the 1960s through the mid-’80s. But this was followed by a steady, nearly uninterrupted decline beginning in 1991. They also found a steady global rise since the mid-’80s in factors that reduce armed conflict – economic prosperity, free elections, stable central governments, better communication, more ‘peacekeeping institutions,’ and increased international engagement.” Even after 2001, they found that “the total number of wars and armed conflicts continued to decline.” In a third edition published this month “shows that, despite the invasion of Iraw and other outbreaks of fighting, the overall decline in war continues.” Mashall and Gurr attempted to brief UN officials about their fundings, but they were laughed away. UN officials “could not believe war was declining, because this went against political expectations,” Marshall reported.

As Easterbrook says, “the most powerful factor [in the decline] must be the end of the cold war, which has both lowered international tensions and withdrawn U.S. and Soviet support from proxy armies in the developing world.” Less persuasive is his claim that “another reason for less war is the rise of peacekeeping” and his claim that despite the faults of the UN “the global security system envisioned by the U.N. charter appears to be taking effect.”