Home | Hegemony | Archives | Blogroll | Resume | Links | RSS Feed | subscribe by email    

Flagrancy

to Reason

 

blog roll


    scatalogical, impractical thought on education..., 2005-05-24 22:03:34 | Main | I don't remember who was tryin..., 2005-05-25 10:17:00

    15 years of decline in armed conflict:

    leading gregg easterbook to ponder whether world peace is nigh. The 2003 second edition of the report is available at CIDCM, according to them we've levelled out to about double the number of international crises occurring in the decade after the first war to end all war, "total magnitude of armed conflict" is back down to the levels of late 60s, as is the number of ongoing armed conflicts. 1970-1990 were pretty astonishingly ugly decades if you count like them.

    The study's dataset for all conflicts has current, ongoing conflicts bolded in red and orange. Going through the list of 22 open hostilities, I know the US is significantly involved in a quarter of them, doing its part for world peace:

    1. Israel: Ethnic war (Arab Palestinians/PLO) (red)
    2. Philippines: Ethnic warfare (Moros) (orange)
    3. Indonesia: Ethnic violence (Aceh; GAM militants) (orange)
    4. Colombia: Civil violence (insurgency and drug lords) (red)
    5. Afghanistan: (USA) Ouster of Taliban/al Qaeda (red)
    6. Iraq (USA; UK) Invasion, ouster of Hussein-Ba'athist regime, and subsequent occupation (red)

    US arms have probably found their way into 20 or so out of the 22 ongong armed conflicts. India comes in with two hostilities, Russia one, Spain one, Burma one, and then a good portion of the continent of Africa, which depending on which books you've read you can find various ways to spread the blame to various ex-colonial powers in Europe, the USSR and US's collective efforts to wreck the place since 1950, and maybe toss in China and Cuba for good measure here and there.

    Statistically abbreviating the overall picture:

    Mueller calculates that about 200 million people were killed in the twentieth century by warfare, other violent conflicts, and government actions associated with war, such as the Holocaust. About twelve billion people lived during that century, meaning that a person of the twentieth century had a 1 to 2 percent chance of dying as the result of international war, ethnic fighting, or government-run genocide. A 1 to 2 percent chance, Mueller notes, is also an American's lifetime chance of dying in an automobile accident.


:: posted by buermann @ 2005-05-25 08:38:07 CST | link





    go ahead, express that vague notion
    Name:
    Email:
    Homepage:
    Comment

    your turing test:

journals, notes,
and
other curmudgeonry

Enforcing
American
Hegemony
- A Timeline -

Oil for Nothing:
US Holds On Humanitarian Supplies
Iraq: 1997-2001


the good book
and other cultural
artifacts


The Autobiography
of
Mother Jones


Contact Info:
buermann@mastodon