(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); So recently I've been studying topics on war...such as its progression, the philosophy of it, and what not. But on to the point...

I've read interesting statistics regarding the severity of wars throughout history and it appears that the overall trend of war is decreasing. Keep in mind this is in terms of the percentage of the world's population..not actual numbers. World War II still remains the bloodiest war in human history. But here are a few fun facts that may interest you:

1) The bloodiest century, in terms of percentage of population killed, may not be the 20th century. The bloodiest century may be the 13th century where events like the 4th Crusade (Sack of Constantinople of the Byzantine Empire) took place.

2) The % of the population killed in war has decreased significantly. Now the % of the world's population killed in war is around 1%. In the 20th century it was about 5%. Centuries before that the % sat between 10% and 5%.

So do you guys think that the trend of war is decreasing? Is humanity progressing to a more peaceful existence?

Discuss =D

I believe that you are correct. Mainly because civilization is a lot more civilized than it used to be and people are beginning to coexist a lot better than we used to. Mainly because we aren't fighting over "empires" anymore... mainly for freedom. And I'm sure some people believe for oil, even though we have oil here in the US.

I've also noticed that several wars could have been prevented such as the Vietnam War... instead of helping the south and preventing them from being invaded by the Communist north we could have let the Communist do their thing. And frankly Vietnam was still invaded, and are Communist to an extent now. Definitely spent money there that we could have saved for future use and for a better cause. But all in all, I do agree that we are heading to a more peaceful future. Unless another Crusade occurs.

I believe that wars are decreasing because everyone is so afraid of each other nowadays. Just think about it. In the US we run over less developed countries and don't really give them a say. However if they develop a nuke then we have to give them some say and leeway. Which is why they don't want North Korea to develop a nuke. Overall if there was a nuclear war then everyone would die which is why there aren't that many wars nowadays (except between lesser developed countries)

I think that we ourselves with technology are beginning to see that we are all becoming one together, this being a single cloud of thoughts that spread word quickly and influence nearly every person apart of it. With that, our ability to negotiate and develop an idea of a common purpose is growing, thus I think this is another reason as to why war is actually decreasing.

I don't think that war will ever end, but in all respect, I think that the actions going about war are lessening. Now, we have to take in consideration that with war, we have technology that isn't requiring soldiers to straight up enter battlefields, it's robotics. War itself is no longer 1 on 1 it's tactical so there is less bloodshed.

In the end, I do think it is decreasing but not at the dramatic rate that it may appear as. I think we are just losing less people.

It's like D-Day, thousands upon thousands died because they rushed the beaches, imagine with technology now, we never would have done that. Easily those thousands would have been hundreds, if that.

War never changes, and so it is with humans. They cannot change their ways, only some outside force could drive them to such.
Peace will only happen when the weapons of war become so terrible, that the mere thought of their use would distract any notion of war.
When man creates the means to his own extinction, perhaps then.

I don't think that we are becoming more civilized as you can see by the current war in Afghanistan, Israel Vs Gaza, Iran and now this current Falklands business with Argentina banning British stuff from the country. I think that the laws stop a lot of people. There is the international court which get's people for war crimes. Sure, it's not as bad as back in the 1500's where Britain was at war with France all the time, but it's still bad. Religion plays a big part in today, such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda on Jihads, Israel having a different religion to Gaza, I think.

The % of deaths incurred by war have decreased due to new technology and Rules of Engagement. With having only swords back in the day, it was close quarter, a cluster fuck or fighting. If you got tired you'd end up dead. Make one wrong move you end up dead. Now we have guns, rockets, jets, helis, bullet proof vests and so on meaning we don't have to be close to the enemy to kill them. Wars are won by who shows the most determination and progression on the field, not by how many people die which is seen by the 2 world wars. With the technology we have now, I highly doubt something like WWI&II would happen again, not only because I can't see commanders forcing you into certain death, but we have other ways to kill the enemy by sending in a barrage of men after men after men to certain death.

It will take a while for there to be peace on Earth. There are far too many power hungry people living in it for countries to get along. One country wants this, another country says no and relations decrease between them.

No. War is just not as barbaric anymore and large-scale anymore.

Imagine armies of 100,000+ men that have been trained to fight since childhood facing off. They don't have guns, any kind of medicine to treat wounds, and they're armed with swords and bows. Then they take your city, rape all the women, kill the children, loot everything, and then burn it down. There was no regard for civilian casualties. Hell, the Mongols are responsible for spreading the Bubonic Plague which killed over 110,000,000 people out of a world population of around 450,000,000 because they wanted to infect a port city during a siege with the disease. That's 1 out of every 4 people in the world dead. This is after they already killed 50,000,000+ million people with their conquests. The Tang and Yan Dynasty's war killed 36,000,000 in the 700s which was 15% of the world's population. World War 2 killed 70,000,000 people, around 45,000,000 were civilians.

Nowadays wars are fought smarter. You don't have to decimate a city and kill everyone in it to win. In Operation Desert Storm, the coalition force of 1,000,000 only lost 392 men compared to the opposition's 650,000 and 30,000 dead. Less than 5,000 civilians were killed.

There will always be wars...they just won't kill tens of millions and erase nations off the map anymore.

I disagree. I don't think we are pushing that much closer to a more peaceful existence in those terms. We are indeed doing a much better job containing and controlling wars, but at the same time this isn't the little game it used to be. The devastation that could occur under our new weaponry is unthinkable. Truthfully, we could extinguish almost all life on the surface of the world.

If anything it's more of an intimidation fight now. Hell, Pakistan and India are an example. Both hate each other, so why don't they attack? Because they both hold nuclear weapons. Wars have just turned into proxy wars in places like Syria, Iraq, Iran(maybe), etc... The middle east is really the last place where we still have "wars".

As for peace, I think we are creeping closer, but it takes almost nothing for it to shatter. All it takes is a few people to be manipulated, and bam new war breaks out. In summary our wars now are what they were always fought about, money and power.

---------- Post added at 04:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:51 PM ----------


I say they have become more of proxy wars. Knowing direct conflict would be damaging, everyone justs picks someone to try and gain a little more power.

Information is power....
War is changing towards cyber warefare then attacking.
Once you have the cyber world under your control it hard to fight back.

It used to be about who controlled the sea , then air , now it who controls the tech.
Troops on the ground matter less now when you can take over a nation just by taking down it power grids then moving in undetected.
Before you had to wipe out all the troops become you could enter.

More peaceful is being naive.