Peace On Earth Is Almost Here

My suspicion is that the decline in warfare since 1945 is mostly a result of U.S. military hegemony. Can anyone suggest a plausible alternative?

The explanation is important, because a lot of libertarians argue that the U.S. ought to devote a more typical (i.e., much lower) fraction of its GDP to its military. If my hypothesis is correct, that is a recipe for disaster.

1. Should we be normalizing for population?

2. Mexico doesn’t have any military conflict ongoing and hasn’t since the pacification of rebel armies in Chiapas and Guerrero in the mid 1990s. If we’re including violent criminal activity, why aren’t southern Italy and the USA and Brazil marked? Russia could be a deeper red.

3. I thought the rebellion in Burma had been relieved by liberalization. We’re even getting economic development reports on major media from there now. Is there still violent conflict ongoing?

4. The US drug “war” is producing about 4000-8000 murders a year while Mexico’s has produced 2000-12,000 per year over the past decade. The lower rate in the USA is probably mostly due to the intense focus of US medicine on superior acute trauma surgery facilities; drug related shooting rates are much closer. Wouldn’t the USA merit a big red blotch on the map?

5. Yes, Bryan, I do feel grateful. Less war and death is a wonderful thing.

This was very insightful, although BRian raises some good points regarding normalization as well as the US drug war.

“If you don’t feel grateful, you should.”

That’s like saying kidnapped victims should feel grateful if their sadists don’t torture them as much as they physically could. Gratitude is not the emotion that I naturally feel for that.

I don’t want to exist in a war time, but I don’t want to exist in a state of violence during peace time, either. I’m still forced to suffer against my will, even though government could have simply omitted their violence.

Btw, despite logically incorrect claims from prominent natalists, life is not freely disposable. Even during peace, suffering is mandatory.

Chris Koresko writes:

My suspicion is that the decline in warfare since 1945 is mostly a result of U.S. military hegemony. Can anyone suggest a plausible alternative?

The explanation is important, because a lot of libertarians argue that the U.S. ought to devote a more typical (i.e., much lower) fraction of its GDP to its military. If my hypothesis is correct, that is a recipe for disaster.

While I agree that generally a single power having hegemonic military might will tend to reduce inter-state warfare (and possibly intra-state warfare, but I have some doubts on that point given that proxy civil wars may be the only means for lesser powers to militarily challenge the hegemonic giant, if military challenge is a goal), I think other important trends are taking place too.

First and most obviously, nuclear weapons have effectively made war between major powers obsolete. The USSR and the USA didn’t go to war because one side has a huge conventional military advantage (though for much of the Cold War the Soviets did have a significant edge on land at least in the short to medium term), but because nukes made the cost of any war far too high even for the normal irrationality political leaders seem to show about this through history. Also obviously this cannot explain the decline in wars between non-nuclear powers or between non-nuclears and nuclears. However, US military might seems incomplete with those stories as well. Consider that the US and it’s allies are rather reluctant to intervene in wars with countries not seen as strategically vital (Rwanda, Sudan, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Congo, Angola, and Indonesia all being post-Cold War examples). Indeed invasions by non-US aligned nuclear powers against other countries also seem to not drive intervention (Georgia vs. Russia being the best example here). And yet there does seem to be some decline even in these conflicts (if less so than in the more strategically vital countries).

One possible explanation for this is a generalized cultural shift against violence a la Pinker’s Better Angels of our Nature. This theory seems to work best though with developed countries and perhaps some of the quicker developing countries. This shift is clearly not completely anti-violence yet, pacifism isn’t a very popular cause, but it helps. This might be expanding with increasing democracy world wide, but I’m not yet fully convinced by the empirical argument for decreased warfare from democracies (or even between them though I think the argument there is likely somewhat stronger).

Another idea is the greater interconnectedness of global markets (less so in labor but at least in capital and goods/services). Previous periods of wide scale global trade also seem associated with less inter-state warfare, such as the late 19th and early 20th century prior to World War One. The fact that that period ended with the First World War happening should put a bit of a caveat on that force for peace, but combined with nuclear armament I think it’s safe to be more secure that a catastrophe of quite that magnitude is less likely than that possibility was during the Belle Epoch.

Another alternative is that the emphasis on development in many poorer countries. Leaders focusing on development will tend to want to avoid as many wars, as warfare seems fairly well correlated in most countries with retarded economic growth for what should (except perhaps for the most unsophisiticated Keynesians) be obvious. This motive would likely weaken as countries feel more secure in their development paths, it might also lead to increased intrastate warfare as people in countries with poor growth prospects attempt to replace ineffectual regimes.

Another possibility is that technology is beginning to give regime large advantages over popular uprisings limiting the latter’s appeal. I wouldn’t put too much weight on this though given the persistence of relatively poorly armed groups against very well armed ones in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Libya (though the latter two have or have begun to benefit from major power support).

Finally, it may be that the US’s economic hegemony is as important if not more so than it’s military hegemony. Nations like Russia and China realize they cannot (as of yet) seriously challenge the US for world leadership. Thus the incentive for proxy wars on their part is low because even aligning large portions of the third world to their side is unlikely to represent a major challenge. Especially given that then influencing these countries to cut trade with the US and harm US growth would only come back to harm them (China in particular). Indeed Chinese geo-political strategy seems to be to win over the developing world with investment and aid rather than messy and potentially dangerous proxy wars.

So what does this mean for the size of the US military? It’s probably still too big considering that politicians are far more likely to listen to military special interests and military pork barrel projects for home constituencies than actual world peace concerns. For US defense, I find it hard to make an argument for anything beyond nukes. For world peace purposes, a significantly cut back military could likely perform most of the beneficial deterrent functions while being less likely to engage in actions that are likely to be on net harmful to global peace (such as invasions of already effectively military impotent countries like Iraq).

Murder by totalitarian states was the great scourge of the 20th century. Socialist totalitarianism was the overwhelmingly dominant cause of 20th century murder. See RJ Rummel’s very insightful research at:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MURDER.HTM

For historical data prior to the 20th century see:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB2.1B.GIF

Upshot: Megamurders by totalitarian states were an institutional and technological innovation of the 20th century. The logistical and organizational processes used by megamurderers Stalin, Mao, Hitler and even Pol Pot didn’t exist prior to the 20th century.

Fortunately, the state organizations created by the megamurders have come to nought. Their demise and disintegration, however, doesn’t mean the outbreak of utopian peace.

The 21st century decline in violence is probably a return to the levels of violence more typical in human history–the violence of limited wars and conflict between identity groups. Such violence is just as cruel as ever to those killed and maimed. Also, a return to totalitarianism and its murderous results certainly remains a possibility.

Lots of thoughtful comments here.

Seems to me that these questions are among the most important that social researchers could address. Some really high-quality research, correct, relevant, and good enough to convince people against their prejudices and preferences, might save a lot of lives.

@ Chris

Mil spending isn’t THAT high in the US:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?order=wbapi_data_value_2011+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=desc

I’d just like to try to add a little to Chris H’s, Shane L’s and Adam’s root cause analysis of why we have less conflict. One political science hypothesis I’ve heard is that true democracies are unlikely to wage war on one another. Because war usually has negative political consequences for those in power, democratic rulers like to avoid it. If the rulers on both side of a conflict are both war adverse a peaceful settlement is more likely. At the beginning of the 20th century few industrialized powers (i.e. countries with the greatest capacity to wage large scale war) had democratic rule. Today, I’d argue that close to two thirds of the G20 are actual democracies and of the G8 only Russia has weak democratic credentials, very different from the era of world wars.

@Alexei

Those numbers are still a bit higher as a portion of GDP than the late 90s. Furthermore, as a percentage of total world military spending it’s a huge amount. Arguably that later point is more important as military dominance is determined in reference to other countries not your own country’s potential (this article discusses a number of different measures of US military spending).

But think about it like this. Buying 5 pounds of ground beef in a given week may not take up a huge portion of my income, but if I’m only going to eat 2 pounds at most then it would still be crazy to spend the money on the extra 3 pounds. If the US does not need a military as large as it is for defense or for world peace purposes, then even if US spending isn’t that high (though it is by developed country standards) then it should still be cut.

The US is at war, or “helping” one side in a conflict, in 74 different countries. That we know about. Military spending is always setting records. This is pacification?

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/05/u-s-currently-fighting-74-different-wars-that-it-publicly-admits.html

Maybe my “Which Will Come First” should have been driverless cars versus peace on earth?

http://www.magnitudematters.com/2013/07/wwcf-driverless-cars-or-3d-printers-in.html