While global anxiety rises over the recent Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks, it is also useful to note what is unlikely to happen. There is unlikely to be any reoccurrence of the violent events in the 20th century, when an economic depression was followed by a global crisis and war. In fact, over the past 20 years, warfare has been gradually decreasing. The world today is a less violent, less aggressive place than at any time in history, as proven by the decreasing number of undesirable events taking place today. Thus, I believe that the world is a safer place today than it was last century.
Although this may come as a surprise, especially to those who follow the media closely and constantly see news about conflicts and disputes unfold each day, levels of conflict, both in terms of magnitude and number, have been consistently decreasing since the end of the Cold War. The actual numbers run counter to what mass media is reporting and what we feel in our guts. There have been empirical analyses in the United States and Canada that have revealed that the number of wars declined throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century. The risk of anyone of dying violently in wars or is at its lowest.
The number of people killed in battle per 100,000 population has dropped 1000 times as civilizations evolved. Since World War II, no UN members have been forcibly removed from the map. Territorial disputes, which was the most common cause of wars in the 20th century, have declined dramatically, especially among major world powers, and international borders have stabilized. There were 69 electoral democracies in 1990; today there are 123, an increase of more than 60%. Today, countries are safe from annihilation or occupation by their neighboring states. .
Civil wars are also disappearing. Ethnic conflicts have declined to low levels. This is partly because global repression appears to have diminished: The number of minority groups around the world experiencing political or economic discrimination at the hands of states has dramatically declined since 1991.
