Certainly a good article. And you were right, my immediate response was to think that you were kinda crazy, because it surely doesn’t seem like war is in decline. But then you made your point and I sort-of started to see the sense in your argument.

But I have also read the various responses here, the ones that somewhat challenge your argument, and many- if not all- of them make quite valid points.

I think there is an inherent problem in your argument, the reason for which I find that I agree with you, but also with those who do not agree with you. And I think it has to do with the concept of war.

Indeed, in our minds, war still means the same thing it meant in the last century. The idea of warring parties battling on a specific geographic ground; the idea of combat, of guns and bombs.

However, I think war has come to mean much more. Just like democracy, as you say, has led to the decline of armed antagonism, so has it led to the rise of newer wars, stemming from the increasing prominence of social issues in political discourse. In fact, there is hardly-if any at all-one without the other; human rights is at the very center of politics.

Roger Hawcroft points out some of these: racism; the ‘war’ on terror, which has thrived on fear, victimizing refugees in the process and thereby contributing to the bigger cost of war, on lives. I think your numbers fail to take these into account. The number of people who, as a result, die in squalid refugee camps, for instance.

And this issue of numbers becomes another problem, because the statistics certainly cannot take into account all the ‘hidden’ statistics, like those who die slowly as a direct result of armed warfare. There is the tendency to attribute such deaths to the economic and social situations that emerge from armed warfare, such as the situation in Iraq after Bush’s needless war in that country. But, really, can we make that distinction?

I think true debate on this issue can only be if we recognize the changed face of war, which includes not just the parties involved (non-state entities against non-state entities and/or states, or even individuals), but also the ‘ground’ where it is exercised (in houses, in cities, in the virtual world, etc.). It may turn out that these newer wars are not any less costly.

But in the end, as for the ‘traditional’ nature of war, you make a compelling argument. And truth be told, I’d like to believe you. I really do. It would make my nights more peaceful.