A few months ago I suggested to someone that, if you controlled for the number of people walking the earth today, we are living in peaceful times. Which isn’t to say there are not wars going on, but they are small and local compared with centuries past.

I was too busy/lazy to do the research to back up my hunch, so fortunately someone else did. StrategyPage writes:

While the mass media continues to feature wars and terrorism, the overall trend continues away from such unpleasantness. Such stories are anathema to the mass media, because they do not attract eyeballs, and revenue. That’s the way people are, and the result is a distorted view of trends in global violence.

Worldwide, violence continues to decline, as it has for the last few years. Violence has also greatly diminished,  or disappeared completely, in places like  Iraq,  Nepal,  Chechnya,  Congo, Indonesia and Burundi. Even Afghanistan, touted as the new war zone, is seeing less violence this year than last.

All this continues a trend that began when the Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union no longer subsidized terrorist and rebel groups everywhere. The current wars are basically uprisings against police states or feudal societies, which are seen as out-of-step with the modern world. Many are led by radicals preaching failed dogmas (Islamic conservatism, Maoism), that still resonate among people who don’t know about the dismal track records of these movements.