It has still been a relatively peaceful time in human history post fall of the Soviet Union even when you include Iraqi and Afghani deaths as a proportion to the world’s population. Wars still happened in that relative time of peace, but those conflicts were relatively contained to not create a new great power war.
Great powers haven’t entered in open conflict on the scale of World War II, which was chosen as a bench mark.
It has if you think only conflicts in western land matter. What’s more, the US might launder its military operations within proxy organizations and banking institutions but it absolutely has wars going on even outside Iraq and Afghanistan. Whistleblowers have confirmed the CIA as being behind every major terrorist attack in Chechnya and Xinjiang, and financing paramilitaries all over the world, as well as dealing with narcos and creating huge waves of drug violence in México, Ecuador and Colombia just to name a few.
Millions are dead as a direct result of US intervention in Iraq alone.
I didn’t just provide one example, though. There are cycles of war and peace in Europe that got mapped out to the globe as European nations became the dominant powers. There are eras of wars where various great and lesser powers participate in more destructive wars because the international order has broken down and isn’t there to restrain belligerents. There are also times when costly wars don’t end with a lasting “peace”, but an armistice before fighting resumes.
We seem to be at a point where the post World War II international order is breaking down. When that happens historically, there is usually a big war and destruction on the order of magnitude of World Wars I and II.
It has still been a relatively peaceful time in human history post fall of the Soviet Union even when you include Iraqi and Afghani deaths as a proportion to the world’s population. Wars still happened in that relative time of peace, but those conflicts were relatively contained to not create a new great power war.
Great powers haven’t entered in open conflict on the scale of World War II, which was chosen as a bench mark.
It has if you think only conflicts in western land matter. What’s more, the US might launder its military operations within proxy organizations and banking institutions but it absolutely has wars going on even outside Iraq and Afghanistan. Whistleblowers have confirmed the CIA as being behind every major terrorist attack in Chechnya and Xinjiang, and financing paramilitaries all over the world, as well as dealing with narcos and creating huge waves of drug violence in México, Ecuador and Colombia just to name a few.
Millions are dead as a direct result of US intervention in Iraq alone.
Still less than the dead of World War II
Sure, but this isn’t an "inordinately peaceful "time just because it isn’t as deadly as the single biggest war in all of history.
I didn’t just provide one example, though. There are cycles of war and peace in Europe that got mapped out to the globe as European nations became the dominant powers. There are eras of wars where various great and lesser powers participate in more destructive wars because the international order has broken down and isn’t there to restrain belligerents. There are also times when costly wars don’t end with a lasting “peace”, but an armistice before fighting resumes.
We seem to be at a point where the post World War II international order is breaking down. When that happens historically, there is usually a big war and destruction on the order of magnitude of World Wars I and II.