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> the world's unprecedented amount of peace and stability ... in Syria, Iraq, Libya.

fridek 11y ago
You can view them as huge tragedies or local aberrations, depending on where you live I guess. But if you consider what the modern world is capable of in terms of armed conflict (probably few orders of magnitude more of what WW1/2 was) I think it's reasonably peaceful at the moment.
- theseatoms 11y ago
  They become even more extreme aberrations when you consider the state of modern communications technology, and the fact that the news media only reports on the most sensational stories. I can't even imagine what a representative sample of "news" would look like, but it's worth the thought experiment.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  IMHO since 9/11, the situation is going downwards. just because we have potential for more destruction than there is currently being done, I wouldn't call it a success and happy peaceful times. maybe that's an US view, far removed from all the mess you guys are creating daily
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    I think the situation has been generally going downward since the decline of the Soviet Union as a global power and its subsequent fall (I don't think that contradicts the core of hegemonic stability theory, really: late in the Soviet Era, the superpower conflict was less of a source of conflict than it had been earlier in the Cold War, and both the US and the USSR were exerting stabilizing influences in their respective spheres of influence -- since then the US has become unrivaled, but its expanding influence hasn't been enough to replace the influence of the USSR.) If you look at a lot of the big conflict regions since then, they are often places that had conflicts under the surface that were contained either specifically by Soviet influence, or by the combination of Soviet and US influence because, while both may have sought to exploit opportunities from the bubbling conflicts, neither really was prepared to accept the risk of a major conflict getting out of control where they might lose key interests, and neither had enough local influence and power to be confident of attaining a positive outcome. But the US's level of global influence through hard power -- maintained by military spending on par with the rest of the world combined -- is probably unsustainable, for much the same reason that the Soviet empire was (the US just started the hard-power spending war that was the Cold War from a much better starting point, and was able to carry it out longer.)
- throwaway999666 11y ago
  Subjugation is more profitable than total annihilation.
- ExpiredLink 11y ago
  > You can view them as huge tragedies or local aberrations ... or as successful strategy. Those countries were considered 'rogue states' and enemies. Predictably, they are now failed states in which the diverse ethnic and political groups fight each other. No danger for the US any more. Mission accomplished.
- nine_k 11y ago
  The number of people dying annually in military conflicts is steadily declining since approximately the end of Vietnam war. The French-German border is experiencing the longest stretch of peace in its entire history since the end of WWII. So yes, the current state of peace is unprecedented, though definitely not perfect.

You can view them as huge tragedies or local aberrations, depending on where you live I guess. But if you consider what the modern world is capable of in terms of armed conflict (probably few orders of magnitude more of what WW1/2 was) I think it's reasonably peaceful at the moment.

theseatoms 11y ago
They become even more extreme aberrations when you consider the state of modern communications technology, and the fact that the news media only reports on the most sensational stories. I can't even imagine what a representative sample of "news" would look like, but it's worth the thought experiment.
saiya-jin 11y ago
IMHO since 9/11, the situation is going downwards. just because we have potential for more destruction than there is currently being done, I wouldn't call it a success and happy peaceful times. maybe that's an US view, far removed from all the mess you guys are creating daily
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  I think the situation has been generally going downward since the decline of the Soviet Union as a global power and its subsequent fall (I don't think that contradicts the core of hegemonic stability theory, really: late in the Soviet Era, the superpower conflict was less of a source of conflict than it had been earlier in the Cold War, and both the US and the USSR were exerting stabilizing influences in their respective spheres of influence -- since then the US has become unrivaled, but its expanding influence hasn't been enough to replace the influence of the USSR.) If you look at a lot of the big conflict regions since then, they are often places that had conflicts under the surface that were contained either specifically by Soviet influence, or by the combination of Soviet and US influence because, while both may have sought to exploit opportunities from the bubbling conflicts, neither really was prepared to accept the risk of a major conflict getting out of control where they might lose key interests, and neither had enough local influence and power to be confident of attaining a positive outcome. But the US's level of global influence through hard power -- maintained by military spending on par with the rest of the world combined -- is probably unsustainable, for much the same reason that the Soviet empire was (the US just started the hard-power spending war that was the Cold War from a much better starting point, and was able to carry it out longer.)
throwaway999666 11y ago
Subjugation is more profitable than total annihilation.
ExpiredLink 11y ago
> You can view them as huge tragedies or local aberrations ... or as successful strategy. Those countries were considered 'rogue states' and enemies. Predictably, they are now failed states in which the diverse ethnic and political groups fight each other. No danger for the US any more. Mission accomplished.
nine_k 11y ago
The number of people dying annually in military conflicts is steadily declining since approximately the end of Vietnam war. The French-German border is experiencing the longest stretch of peace in its entire history since the end of WWII. So yes, the current state of peace is unprecedented, though definitely not perfect.