This is the Golden Age of Humanity
The world is much better than it seems at first glance
Since the formation of the first states, humanity has found itself in constant warfare. War has become the defining force in international politics and economics, in addition to having a dramatic impact on people’s daily life.
Throughout history, people took wars for granted, whereas periods of peace were considered temporary because they were inevitably interrupted. In our day and age, on the other hand, peace is thought by many to be a normal state of affairs and warfare as inconceivable. International affairs were governed by the so-called Law of Jungle, according to which even if two entities lived in peace, war could occur sooner or later.
Interstate wars were especially dangerous, for they included multiple players, possibly millions of people, and, if the warring countries possessed overseas colonies, as it was the case with European powers in the 18–20th centuries, conflicts could have spillover effects on the rest of the world.
One of the first truly global wars was the Seven Years’ War (1757–1764, known in the US as the French and Indian war). England and Prussia were fighting against France, Russia, and Austria. The war took place in three regions: Europe, North America, and India. The main opponents were France and England. Seven Years’ War ended in England’s absolute victory — it crushed its historical nemesis, France, in both India and North America, thereby paving the way to its world supremacy and undisputed naval primacy.
In spite of the fact that the Seven Years’ War was the European war, it became a truly global war because of a sheer number of territories involved in the conflict.
Other wars of this kind include WWI and WWII — they also began as strictly European conflicts but then spread to almost every corner of the globe.
Two world wars weakened Europe, and we can speak of the end of WWII as the termination of Europe’s supremacy. Former colonies, from India to Indonesia, declared their independence, and tens of new sovereign states were formed.
Since the end of the WWII, for 70 years, however, we haven’t witnessed a single great-power conflict. It is a truly unprecedented state of global affairs, which many people, unfortunately, do not realise.
As Y. N. Harari has put it,
For the first time in history, … more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals combined. In the early twenty-first century, the average human is far more likely to die from binding at McDonald’s than from right, Ebola or Al-Qaeda attack.
Nowadays, more people die from sugar diabetes than from all forms of violence. Sugar is more dangerous than gunpowder.
More people die from obesity than from starvation. In 2014, 2.1 billion people were overweight, compared to 850 million who suffered from malnutrition. Famine and malnutrition killed about 1 million people in 2010, whereas 3 million people died from obesity.
Europe, once the world’s primary battlefield, is today an incarnation of peace and stability. Although wars are still raging in Syria and Afghanistan, and rivalries between the US and other states intensify, evidence shows we live in a truly golden age.
Independent states, with rare exceptions, no longer invade neighboring countries. Since 1945, no independent country recognized by the UN has been annexed and wiped off the map.
Of course, in our millennia-long history, the have been periods of relative peace, such as Pax Romanica and Pax Mongolica.
But this time is different. Real peace is not the absence of war — rather, it is the implausibility of its occurrence. In the past, peace was the temporary absence of war, whilst today people take global peace for given.
If in 1913 someone said that there was peace between the UK and Germany, they meant that no conflict was going on between the two countries. If someone today says that there is peace between the UK and Germany, we mean that under no circumstances could the war between two states occur.
What are the reasons behind such a fundamental shift in international relations?
Liberal World Order
The formation of the US-led international world order is arguably the primary reason why live in such a peaceful time. The liberal world order is based on the ideas of free-market capitalism, democracy, rule of law, respect for human rights, and individual freedoms.
Liberal order, apart from espousing and protecting these principles, established a system of international institutions, such as the UN, World Bank, IMF, WTO that foster more effective development and help resolve global issues — and all this is backed by the US military supremacy, pervasive economic and political influence, as well support of its democratic allies.
Thanks to the US-led international order, countries like China, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and many others have been able to turn themselves from impoverished states into technological powerhouses. Liberal world order created an increasingly interconnected and interdepended global economic and financial system which has made it almost impossible to use military force, for the disruptive consequences would affect both the attacking and attacked, as well as the rest of the world.
To summarise, the US-backed world order, by ensuring the abidance by international law, punishing guilty, and enforcing peace has facilitated the age of “Great Peace” in which we now live.
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
Apparently, the Nobel peace prize should have been given to Oppenheimer and other participants of the Manhattan project, which created the first atomic bomb. Nuclear weapons make the war between superpowers a suicide, thereby ensuring that nobody will ever try to achieve world domination through force. It is exactly thanks to nuclear weapons that the standoff between the US and the Soviet Union — the Cold War — has not turned hot and triggered WWIII. However weird it may seem at first, the deadliest weapon of massive destruction is he guaranteer of the world peace.
Costs of waging a war far outweigh possible gains
In the age when the importance of natural resources is declining, the costs of war outweigh the benefits. Today, in the digital economy, wealth is defined not by oil, gold, or even factories — it is human capital and intellectual property that constitutes true wealth. In the material-based economy, assets are tangible (oil fields) and could be conquered and then exploited. But because knowledge cannot be conquered, wars are of no avail and are now restricted to developing countries.
Peace is now much more valuable
In the past, national economies were mostly self-sufficient, and trade and foreign investments played a trivial role. Therefore, wars did not yield as devastating consequences as they would do now.
There is a positive feedback loop between these factors. The threat of nuclear Armageddon facilitates pacifism, which in turn helps get rid of wars and spreads international trade, and trade both increases the profits of peace and the costs of war due to the increasing interconnectedness of the global economy, as Y.N. Harari notes.
Thanks to the confluence of these factors, we now experience the era of Great Peace and most countries are able to peacefully evolve and gradually improve the wellbeing of their peoples.
Unfortunately, just as a coin thrown in an empty jar makes a lot of noise, many people, especially in successful Western states, tend to exaggerate the dangers of terrorism, great-power rivalry, and civil wars. Then let us remember that, if we embrace a more holistic approach and take a look at the contemporary era from bird’s-eye view, humanity experiences its unprecedented golden age.
