Fewest armed conflicts ever: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cach...onflicts+lowest+ever&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=ca
"The End of War? Explaining 15 years of diminishing violence",
Greg Easterbrook, 2005/05/24, The New Republic
Combat in Iraq and in a few
% other places is an exception to a significant global trend that has
% gone nearly unnoticed--namely that, for about 15 years, there have
% been steadily fewer
armed conflicts worldwide.
Next consider a wonderful fact: Global military spending is also in
% decline.
Center for Defense
% Information, a nonpartisan Washington research organization.
Combat in Iraq and in a few
% other places is an exception to a significant global trend that has
% gone nearly unnoticed--namely that, for about 15 years, there have
% been steadily fewer
armed conflicts worldwide.
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 "peacemaking institutions,"
% and increased international engagement.
Of course, 2001 was
% the year of September 11. But, despite the battles in Afghanistan, the
% Philippines, and elsewhere that were ignited by Islamist terrorism and
% the West's response,
"After the first report came out, we wanted to brief some United
% Nations officials, but everyone at the United Nations just laughed at
% us.
How can war be in such decline when evening newscasts are filled with
% images of carnage?
News organizations must
% prominently report fighting, of course. But the fact that we now see
% so many visuals of combat and conflict creates the impression that
% these problems are increasing:
The striking decline in global military spending has also received no
% attention from the press, which continues to promote the notion of a
% world staggering under the weight of instruments of destruction.
Declining global military spending is exactly what one would expect to
% find if war itself were in decline.
Another reason for less war is the rise of peacekeeping. The world
% spends more every year on peacekeeping, and peacekeeping is turning
% out to be an excellent investment.
The spread of democracy has made another significant contribution to
% the decline of war. In 1975, only one-third of the world's nations
% held true multiparty elections; today two-thirds do, and the
% proportion continues to rise. In the last two decades, some 80
% countries have joined the democratic column, while hardly any moved in
% the opposite direction. Increasingly, developing-world leaders observe
% the simple fact that the free nations are the strongest and richest
% ones, and this creates a powerful argument for the expansion of
% freedom.
Swords really are being beaten into
% plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. The world ought to take
% notice.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. told the graduating class of Harvard that
% one of the highest expressions of honor was "the faith ... which leads
% a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted
% duty."Today, no major government appears to believe that war is
% the best path to nationalistic or monetary profit; trade seems much
% more promising.
Gregg Easterbrook is a senior editor at TNR and a visiting fellow at
% the Brookings Institution.
Walter what you need is to stop reading this crap, the article is an appaling pack of lies, rubbish totally unsupportable propaganda. This is not a paper that would pass any objective review, many highschool kids would spot the dung
in the first couple of paragraphs. It's written from the neo-liberal economic perspective that continues to boast about success that does not exist. From the bowles of the Military Industrial Complex itself. Simply put it's drivel of the commonest kind.
Totally unsuported by observable facts and situations, how you could possibly believe such rubbish is beyond imagination. Actually it's frightening. The outlandish claims are so ridiculous as to be comedic.It's not much wonder you have the perspective you do about the environment. You are reading and listening to the machine, you are hopelessly lost my friend.
I have read some others from The Brookings Institute before but this is a classic piece of right neo-con propaganda and nothing more. Everyone of the exerpts pasted above is undeniably wrong. I cannot believe that you are an educated man nay I will not believe that.
