Peace Has Broken Out!

Well not quite yet. Strategy Page has posted one of their periodic War Updates A Perspective on the on all the world's wars going into the new year.

Worldwide violence continues to decline, but most people are unaware of this because the mass media will feature whatever wars and disorder they can find. This is an old journalistic technique, and it's good for business. But not so helpful if you are trying to keep track of what's really happening out there. Oddly enough, the most bloody conflicts (like Congo) get the least media coverage. Reporting tends to be distorted by how accessible wars are, as well as how easily your viewers could identify with the combatants. The media also has a hard time keeping score. For years, Iraq was portrayed as a disaster until, suddenly, the enemy was crushed and the war was won. Even that was not considered exciting enough to warrant much attention, and that story is still poorly covered. Same pattern is playing out in Afghanistan, where the defeats of the Taliban, and triumph of the drug gangs, go unreported or distorted. If you step back and take a look at all the wars going on, a more accurate picture emerges.

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All this continues a trend that began when the Cold War ended, and the Soviet Union no longer subsidized terrorist and rebel groups everywhere. The current wars are basically uprisings against police states or feudal societies, which are seen as out-of-step with the modern world. Many are led by radicals preaching failed dogmas (Islamic conservatism, Maoism), that still resonate among people who don't know about the dismal track records of these creeds. Iran has picked up some of the lost Soviet terrorist support effort. That keeps Hezbollah, Hamas, and a few smaller groups going, and that's it. Terrorists in general miss the Soviets, who really knew how to treat bad boys right.

They then have a country by country review. I will copy the two in which we currently have the most interest. The links by each country go to SP’s archive for that conflict.

Afghanistan

The headlines in the media are all about a stronger and more widespread Taliban, but it's the Taliban who are increasingly getting hammered. There hasn't been a "Taliban Spring Offensive" for the last three years, and the key Taliban financial resource; heroin in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, has been under heavy attack for the last year. The opium crop declined 25 percent this year, and drug gang income even more. The Taliban expected drug gang profits, al Qaeda assistance, and Pakistani reinforcements to turn the tide. But al Qaeda is a very junior, and unpopular, partner, and the Pakistani Taliban are sending refugees, not reinforcements. With all that, violence nationwide was up, mainly because there are more foreign troops in the country, being more aggressive against the Taliban and drug gangs. Foreign troops lost 295 dead in combat during 2008, and that increased 76 percent, to 519, in 2009. That's about half the casualty rate for foreign troops in Iraq during the peak year of 2007. Foreign troops lost 711 dead this year (a 37 percent increase), the casualty rate running at about the same rate of last year because there were more foreign troops in action this year. The Taliban roadside bomb weapon is losing its punch because of more MRAPs, and specialized intel and engineer troops moved in from Iraq. This has not helped civilians, who suffer far more deaths from Taliban action. In fact, independent minded tribes, warlords, corruption and drug gangs remain a greater threat to peace, prosperity and true national unity, than the Taliban (on both sides of the Pakistan border). The "Taliban" are not an organization, but a Pushtun movement that is active on both sides of the border, among less than ten percent of the 40 million Pushtun in the region. The Pakistani government finally agreed to take on the pro-Taliban tribes and various Islamic terrorist organizations. That has put pressure on Taliban on either side of the border. There is no longer a safe haven for the Taliban. Violence inside Afghanistan is growing, largely because of the drug gangs, and their support for tribes (especially pro-Taliban ones) that oppose the corrupt national government. The foreign nations, fighting their war on terror in Afghanistan, have finally realized that there has never been an Afghan national government that was not corrupt, and changing that is going to be more difficult than fighting the Taliban or finding bin Laden. NATO is now fully aware of the trans-national nature of the Pushtun tribes and the Taliban movement. The "war in Afghanistan" is more of a "Pushtun Tribal Rebellion," and is being handled as such.

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Iraq

Islamic terrorists are now a police problem. U.S. troops have withdrawn to suburban bases, and casualties are sharply down. U.S. deaths declined from 314 in 2008 to 150 in 2009, and 60 in 2010. This is way down from the 2007 peak of 904 (when there were three times as many U.S. troops around). Violence in general continues to be down over 80 percent from the bad old days of three years ago. More areas of the country are now at peace (as some have been since 2003.) The Sunni Arab minority has worked out peace deals with the majority Kurds and Shia Arabs. But some Sunni Arab Islamic radicals are still active, supported by Sunni Arab nationalists in the Persian Gulf, and former Saddam supporters in Syria. Some Sunni Arabs, who had fled the country, are returning, but nearly half the Sunni Arabs are still gone (either outside the country or hiding inside Iraq). The Shia militias have been defeated as well, mainly by Iraqi police and troops. Corruption and inept government are now the major problems, with potential Iranian meddling (or even invasion) a permanent threat. The major U.S. TV news operations have pulled out. The war is over. (bold text is mine)

Let us hope the trend continues.


Related: Democracy and Peace in a Unipolar World

NOTE: I have a love/hate relationship with this site. I don’t like their sourcing policy - they don’t - but if you want to you can usually find it with a quick google search, they have a tendency toward terminal curtness in titles style etc. but that is probably good marking. On the other hand they cover in a single place, in an easy format, items that would be impossible to keep up with otherwise, and there meta -analysis’ are usually among the most plausible and they do not spin their analysis to support agendas or either side in domestic politics. This type of article is SP at it’s best.

Democracy and Peace in a Unipolar World

Read the papers, watch the news, visit the news sites. The world is becoming less peaceful. Right??

Not!


Noted Political Scientists Daniel W. Dezner and R.J. Rummel recently commented on
The first Human Security Report which documents a dramatic, but largely unknown, decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuse over the past decade. Published by Oxford University Press, the Report argues that the single most compelling explanation for these changes is found in the unprecedented upsurge of international activism, spearheaded by the UN, which took place in the wake of the Cold War. [Introduction to the report]





Drezner summarizes the data:


The number of genocides and politicides plummeted by 80% between 1988 and 2001.
The number of armed conflicts around the world has declined by more than 40% since the early 1990s.
International crises, often harbingers of war, declined by more than 70% between 1981 and 2001.
The number of refugees dropped by some 45% between 1992 and 2003, as more and more wars came toan end.
The period since the end of World War II is the longest interval of uninterrupted peace between the major powers in hundreds of years.
The number of actual and attempted military coups has been declining for more than 40 years. In 1963 there were 25 coups and attempted coups around the world, the highest number in the post–World War II period. In 2004 there were only 10 coup attempts--a 60% decline. All of them failed. [I've touched on this point before as well--DD.]

Naturally, they offer different explanations for this good fortune.

Neither of then sees the "single most compelling explanation for these changes is found in the unprecedented upsurge of international activism, spearheaded by the UN, which took place in the wake of the Cold War." which the authors of the report claim, perhaps in defererence to funders of the report. The UN is a membeship organization. When the significant members decide to use it as the spearhead for activitism, much can be accomplished, otherwise UN activitism is so much empty motion at best.


Drezner sees this resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and resulting uni-polar international system.

I think the largest factor was the fall of the USSR. The lack of a rival superpower to the US means there is little point in powerful nations fomenting wars on the periphery of the rival superpower. The fall of the USSR made the containment and ultimate removal of Saddam Hussein possible, either of which would have been unthinkable before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The USSR would have backed Hussein, who was their client. That would have been that.

The second major change is the forming of the EU. More precisely the alliance formed by formerly vicious enemies France and Germany. The border over which both world wars started this century now doesn't even have passport control.

The major powers seem to be comporting themselves with restraint and reason today. Look at China or France. Both are adversaries and major trading partners of the US. Neither is fomenting wars designed to hurt the US or it's neighbors. The US returns the favor.


Rummel sees this as further proof to the Democratic Peace thesis, that democracies do not or very seldom go to war with each other.

[He says] look at the charts . . . for the growth in democracies in comparison to the great decline in violence.





As the number of democracies increase over the 58 years, they reach a tipping point in 1992 where armed conflict then steeply decline.

I predicted that a decline would occur with this growth of democracies in my 1979 book on War, Power, Peace (link here). For additional evidence of this decline and a related Q and A, see my democratic peace clock (link here) and my blog “Democracies Increase and Ipso Facto, World Violence Declines” (link here) chastising commentators for missing this. Yes, yes, I know, correlation does not prove causation. But, if there is a solid theory, consistent replications, and complimentary evidence, then it is no longer a working hypothesis, but fact. In sum, there is a sharp decline in internal and foreign violence worldwide, and the best explanation for this is the growth the number of democracies. This decline provides more evidence of the power for peace of the democratic peace.



These two ideas do not necessarily disagree with each other. Dezner is looking at proximate causes and Rummel at underlying causes. The break up of the Soviet Union created a number of new states, while many of these are in a transitional stage to democracy rather than democracies it is a move in the right direction. Also with out the threat of the Soviet Union the US became less tolerant of dealing with authoritarian regimes resulting in pressure to reform. The fact that it was the democratic West that one the Cold War provides an endorsement that democracy works.

This is good news. the same conclusions have been published in a number of places but they just are not as exciting as a good war for news coverage. Is the trend certain to continue, no, but it looks good. Peace is more a goal than a default status. It takes constant effort maintain a situation that promotes peace ( a democratic peace) or at least inhibits the chances of war (a balance of power.)



NOTE: The Human Security Report, is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the governments of Canada, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, and the U.K. it was formerly located at the Universityof British Columbia and recently relocated at Simon Fraisier University in Canada.

The graphics are from Rummel's website.