As you predicted, my immediate response to this article was one of disbelief. I have to admit, too, that I remain skeptical about the notion of the situation being better.

Assuming that your figures are accurate [and I have no reason to doubt them] then, yes, less people are being killed and most people, I think, would agree that this is a good thing. On that basis, probably whatever I write will sound like sour grapes, for which I apologise. I agree that we should acknowledge when things improve and I accept that it serves the purposes of some to encourage fear in the public. I live in Australia and the recent series of conservative governments have played the “war on terror” fear card for all that it’s worth — and that perhaps leads me to a problem with the piece.

Again, before I proceed, I’d like to acknowledge that you haven’t claimed that, “all is well” and that the brevity of your article may not have allowed you the scope for a more thorough consideration of the issues around your main point.

So, what are my concerns or where does my skepticism lie:

• Australia now has the worst racism since the invasion of the continent by the British and its occupation and establishment of several colonies, at the expense of its rightful owners, the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
• I can’t support this with figures at this minute but I’d suggest that religious intolerance and insularity is greater now than it has ever been, notwithstanding the abomination of the crusades.
• As compared with the years immediately after World War II, the will of national governments to avoid civilian casualties and to both agree to and follow international covenants seems to have slowly eroded. Now, it appears that any country, a signatory to a convention or not, that decides it doesn’t want to go along with an agreement, just ignores it, as Australia has done in relation to refugees and the USA in regard to torture.
• Deaths may well have reduced relative to population size but I wonder how much of that is due to the changed nature of battle as compared with even World War II, let alone the thousands of years before then, when most combat was hand to hand and didn’t allow the “stand off and destroy” approach of modern warfare.
• I also wonder whether the number of deaths, tragic as death is, really gives any semblance of understanding of the tragedy and issues for those who are injured or have to pick up the pieces or live in the ruins left behind. Does it matter that only 2,000 people die rather than 10,000 when many who survive are badly injured, and their hospitals, homes, schools and infrastructure is in ruins?
• How much damage has capitalism, particularly the neo-liberal economics of Reagan and Thatcher, affected the lives of people around the world by destroying habitat [for both people and wildlife], exploiting the vulnerable and ignorant and building an ethos of “profit before people”.
• The time-line is interesting, too, for it has many spikes and, although, it appears to be flatter in the last decade or so, it is not and can’t be, predictive. We now have more nuclear powers than ever before and no sign that any nuclear non-proliferation treaties or agreements make any difference. “Fat boy”, killed only around 150,000 people in Hiroshima but twice that number subsequently died from its effects, usually a horrible and slowly lingering death. We now have the means for mass destruction from afar, and that capacity is increasing with drones and other technologically advanced means of delivery.

None of these points, of course, deny your basic assertion that *deaths* from war are declining. However, I do think it questionable to assert that such is evidence that *war is declining*. Clearly, I also believe that as good as it may feel to recognise progress, we need to be sure that such progress actually exists and is not simply a replacement of one evil by another.

Thank you for an interesting and inspiring article. I hope you will take my response without ire for I don’t write it to denigrate your work but simply to, from my point of view, add some perpective.