>mostly peaceful world Except it hasn't been. Pinker's "long peace" theory with respect to global conflict is bad statistics - 20th-21st century under US milit

>mostly peaceful world Except it hasn't been. Pinker's "long peace" theory with respect to global conflict is bad statistics - 20th-21st century under US military hegemony had a comparable if not higher number of conflicts, see Max Roser’s work documenting global conflicts over the past 600 years. What has changed is that war now is generally shorter and less deadly especially towards combatants, but that's more reflective of the pace of modern war enabled by modern weapons. High intensity wars don't last for 20+ years anymore because you can pretty much destroy nations in 1-5, and belligerents are quicker to exhaust and forced to settle. In aggregate war fatalities is down, but not # of conflicts. US hegemony didn't stop USSR and RU from warring in their periphery, nor PRC border skirmishes pre 90s when US had vast more naval power asymmetry. When countries want to fight for their interests, especially regional, they still do. His conjectures on QoL indicators around the world are improving, and we can credit some of that to US/western innovation, but it’s also a byproduct of technology disseminating as societies develop. As for the opinion of your colleagues, consider some sort of self-selection bias happening - I've not met many from PRC that don't think China needs better military and regional hegemony to forward her interests the same way US does hers, especially post Belgrade embassy bombing in 99 by US/NATO. And frankly even among PRC diasporas, most people I know except very liberal types are increasingly unabashedly pro PRC military power - they’re just too polite to say so. See how PRC students in the west generally become more pro China the more they’re exposed to western society. Many are smart enough to not voice "objectionable" opinions.I can't speak for RUs. Ultimately, US military dominance is good for US+LIO interests, but hard to extrapolate anything more. IMO multipolarity will increase the chance of "smaller" conflicts as poles assert their own interests for sure, but it's going to be around the baseline of conflicts that's consistently been simmering throughout history. The fear is increasing large-scale conflict between poles/blocks - ending the cyclic gap between major wars among major powers - but that's what happens when declining hegemon pushes their interests to the exclusion of others too intensely for too long.