Will the Long Peace Endure?

Or will regional conflicts coalesce?

At the twilight of the Cold War in the 1980’s, historian John Gaddis described The Long Peace, predicting that we had entered a new era of tranquility due to the stability of the postwar international system. Almost forty years later, and in the eighty years since World War II, no major powers have directly battled each other, although China and India have had their skirmishes. Will this time of peace and prosperity endure?

The Changing Contours of Conflict

In the postwar period the US has however fought a continuous string of largely unsuccessful and tragic proxy wars. In spite of bloody regional conflicts, combatant and civilian war casualties have plummeted as a percentage of population. A world war is a totally different and destructive animal — for a short but amazing data animation watch The Fallen of World War II.