It’s about scale and deaths. Relativity. It’s indisputable. Yes there are conflicts but nothing like before ww2.
According to chat got:
1. Large-scale wars between major powers have virtually disappeared
Before 1945
- Great-power wars were common (Napoleonic Wars, WWI, WWII).
- WWI and WWII alone killed ~90–100 million people.
- Major powers regularly fought each other directly.
Since 1945
- No direct full-scale war between nuclear-armed great powers.
- The US, USSR/Russia, China, and Western Europe have avoided direct war for 80 years.
- This is unprecedented in recorded history.
Why this matters:
Great-power wars are by far the deadliest. Preventing them dramatically reduces overall violence.
2. Deaths from war per capita are far lower than in the past
Even though wars still occur,
the proportion of the global population killed by war has collapsed.
- Ancient and medieval wars often killed 10–30% of entire populations.
- The 17th-century Thirty Years’ War killed ~20% of Central Europe.
- WWII killed ~3% of the global population.
- Since 1945, annual war deaths are typically well under 0.1% of world population—even during bad years.
This is one of the strongest statistical arguments that the post-WWII era is more peaceful overall.
3. Interstate wars are rarer; conflicts are mostly civil or proxy wars
Trend shift
- Wars today are usually:
- Civil wars
- Insurgencies
- Proxy conflicts
- Classic “country vs country” wars have declined sharply.
Examples
- Korea and Vietnam were Cold War proxy wars.
- Many African and Middle Eastern conflicts are internal, not interstate.
These are still devastating—but historically, interstate wars were more frequent and more expansive.
