The Long Peace
In that 70 year period none of the world's top 47 economies have fought against each other and the world has been a relatively peaceful place compared to before 1939. Rich economies have fought poor economies (both successfully and un-successfully), but the scale of death is not comparable with WW2.
In WW2, on D-day at Omaha Beach, 2,500 US soldiers died on the beach in that one day. That is almost as many as died in the total 13 years of war against Afghanistan. That statistic alone should bring home the impact of WW2, and why survivors of that war are so keen on being sure it doesn't happen again.
My personal opinion is that the planet's gene pool was seriously affected by the deaths of around 70 million people in total, taking into account both civilian and military deaths.
I found a wonderful, interactive infographic documentary that attempts to put that period into perspective that is not possible just from a history book.
It will take about 15 minutes of your time to watch, but if you are in despair about how warlike the planet is right now, or despair of how stupid we seem to have become, it is well worth that time.
You can find it here - www.fallen.io/ww2/
If you are at all interested in history, I would like you to watch that video and see if it changes your opinion about the current state of play in the world.
Do you feel more optimistic knowing that the rich economies no longer fight each other?
Or does it plunge you into despair that the rich have figured out fighting each other is way too costly and it is better to fight poor economies because you don't have to spend so much either in humans or resources, and the spoils of war are still 'gold'?
Some other tasty statistics from my viewing..
Okinawa saw the deaths of 12,500 American servicemen in 82 days, 5,000 of those at sea, victims of Japanese suicide bombers in planes.
In the seige of Stalingrad, around 1 million Russian soldiers died, and around 500,000 Germans, with another 100,000 taken prisoner (only 6,000 of those prisoners lived).
Russia killed 2.5 million Nazi troops and the Russians lost 8.7 million.
Around six million Jews died in the holocaust, and of those, around 2.5 million were Polish Jews.
The civilian losses for Russia were staggering. 10 to 20 million died, many from starvation.
The total losses (both civilian and military) in Europe were in the region of 41 million people. In all theatres of war, around 70 million people died.
So, seeing the information in that presentation, do you think we are in the age of the 'Long Peace'?
Do you agree that WW2 may have been some kind of minor 'extinction event' for humanity, with the loss of strong and brave young men who died in the military?
So basically you, or this video or both- are arguing that we're in a long period of peace because the world's "largest economies" haven't fought a global war (since 1945)- and that's it? WHAT does the size of the economy have to do with anything? The death and destruction that war brings is just as painful to people suffering in Syria or Congo as it is for Americans. Especially when you realize that the largest barrier to economic prosperity is war itself. The thirty year long conflict in Vietnam cost millions of lives; and millions were lost in the wars in India (1940s) Korea(1950s), Cambodia (1970s) and Congo (2000s). Developed societies have also experienced devastating war- such as the breakup of Yugoslavia- I was shocked when I read one estimate as high as half a million deaths during those wars in the early 1990s... I will never forget the meeting of European leaders in 1995 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War 2and the Holocaust- at exactly the time a genocide was going on in Bosnia- concentration camps and the horrible Srebrenica massacre in which 8,000 unarmed men and young boys were slaughtered within a few days. Dutch UN 'peacekeepers' stood and watched the mass murder in Rwanda happen.
I don't see a peace time at all.. I see wars popping up in different regions of the world that can last for years.
It's not supposed to. It is an infographical representation of total deaths from WW2.
So basically you, or this video or both- are arguing that we're in a long period of peace because the world's "largest economies" haven't fought a global war (since 1945)- and that's it?
No, as far as I can tell the argument is about total deaths and worldwide involvement in wars since 1945. It's not just me, and it's not just this video. The 'Long Peace' is not a new invention. I suggest you do some comparing of total deaths, not just roughly speak about millions of lives lost here and millions of lives lost there. Do the body count, compare it to the 70million total deaths from WW2.
The death and destruction that war brings is just as painful to people suffering in Syria or Congo as it is for Americans.
The infographic does not focus on American deaths, and it does compare those wars post WW2 if you actually bother to get into the video around 18;00 minutes and onwards. It focuses on deaths from all nations impacted by WW2 and I can only presume you didn't really bother to look at it and get informed before you started stamping your feet about it.
Developed societies have also experienced devastating war- such as the breakup of Yugoslavia- I was shocked when I read one estimate as high as half a million deaths during those wars in the early 1990s
Conflicts and deaths after WW2 are addressed in that video. How does any conflict you can mention compare to the number of deaths worldwide in six years from 1939 - 1945? Seventy million people in 6 years. An average of 11.6 million each year. Has there been anything close to those numbers that you can reliably refer to as a comparison to support your 'no long peace' theory? Everyone is very vague as soon as I ask them this. Because 8,000 dead here, and 'millions' there are never validated or compared. I know it's nice to think that one's pet wars are the worst, but the numbers don't lie as far as I can see.
I don't see a peace time at all
That's your perspective, but as far as I can see, the actual numbers don't agree with you. As I have said to others, if you disagree with the website, go and add your comments to the discussion there - www.fallen.io/ww2/ ...plenty of naysayers already have.
Conflicts scattered throughout the globe, but never really erupted into a world war.
WW2 - Korean War - Vietnam War - Alfganistan (with USSR) - Gulf War - War on Terror - 2nd Gulf War
If you search throughout the human history... we are nearly at war in one kind or another at any given period of time.
also you are forgetting the fact that human population doubled after the ww2. you should study the numbers in percentage.
and im sure its more than 70 million. ill post links if youre interested.
always interested in learning things if the data is solid. I'm not sure that a doubling of the population achieved much if it came from a depeleted gene pool and since WW2 we have chosen paths that seem contrary to common sense. SLimmer TVs, but fatter people, more crops, but dead crop pollinators, that sort of thing.
So, seeing the information in that presentation, do you think we are in the age of the 'Long Peace'?
Do you agree that WW2 may have been some kind of minor 'extinction event' for humanity, with the loss of strong and brave young men who died in the military?
I have to admit I was a bit surprised with the numbers. I knew Soviet Union lost a lot of people in the war, but when you compare the numbers against other countries, it's insane.
I think that especially for us Europeans, Long Peace is an apt description. We've been so war like for so long, that the current era of peace is quite unheard of. I think for us and Russians, this certainly was an extinction type of event. Most likely for Chinese too. At least psychologically. You can sort of see this in people's attitudes as well; There's a kinda of collective memory that still remembers all the destruction.
Yeah the bee colony collapse syndrome is really alarming. If I recall, scientists thought it was due to some chemical or pesticide. But since it is always difficult to prove things 100%, people keep using the chemicals anyway. I think they tried to ban the pesticide in Europe. I don't know how successful they were. Probably not very.
I personally think that Spengler is correct and that civilization is a superorganism with a limited lifespan. I also think that civilization is a system that has increased socio-economic complexity, when compared to the more traditional societies. It has a tendency to increase that complexity as it tries to solve it's problems. So civilization is about expansion and exploitation. We (well at least in the west) tend to think that civilization is a great achievement, when in fact it has this dark undercurrent.
As for barbarians and civilized persons: I don't think there is much of a difference, other than where you were born. If you were born in Rome, then you thought yourself as being civilized. If you were born in to one of those Germanic tribes, then the Romans thought of you as uncivilized. Same thing is basically going on in the western civilization today.
The current thinking is that a cocktail of chemicals, rather than any single one, is the underpinning of bee deaths. Herbicides, pesticides and particularly fungicides, weaken the bee's immune system and makes them susceptible to parasite infections, which is what actually kills them. The research is starting to prove this theory more and more. So no simple 'pick one poison and ban it' solution, but a complex, 'change horticutural practices' to accomodate what scientists are discovering about something, we all know, deep down, is bad for us. Eating chemical concentrates we should not be eating.
So it's not one single pesticide or a chemical, but the way we do agriculture in general? - Sounds about right. That would also explain why the system is resisting any change, even when faced with a disaster like this.
Between 1975 and 1990, real per capita income fell by more than 20%, wiping out almost three decades of economic development. The manufacturing industry, which had experienced a period of uninterrupted growth until the mid-1970s, began a process of continuous decline.
The extreme dependence on state support of the many protected industries exacerbated the sharp fall of the industrial output. The degree of industrialisation at the start of the 1990s was similar to its level in the 1940s.
In the early 1970s, per capita income in Argentina was twice as high as in Mexico and more than three times as high as in Chile and Brazil. By 1990, the difference in income between Argentina and the other Latin American countries was much smaller.
Starting with the Rodrigazo in 1975, inflation accelerated sharply, reaching an average of more than 300% per year during the 1975–1991 period, increasing prices by a factor of 20 billion
When Martinez de Hoz assumed power as finance minister prices in the previous month had increased at an annual rate of 5,000% and output had declined sharply.[112] In 1976, the era of import substitution was ended, and the government lowered import barriers, liberalized restrictions on foreign borrowing, and supported the peso against foreign currencies.[7] This opening exposed the fact that domestic firms could not compete with foreign imports, in part because of the overvalued currency, but also because of long-term structural problems.[111] A financial reform was implemented that aimed to liberalize capital markets and link Argentina more effectively with the world capital market.[112]
After the relatively stable years 1976–78, fiscal deficits started to climb again and the external debt tripled in three years.[113] The increased debt burden interrupted industrial development and upward social mobility.[114] Beginning in 1979 the rate of exchange depreciation was pre-fixed with a tablita, an active crawling peg based on a timetable which announced ahead of time a gradually declining rate of depreciation.[112][115] These announcements were repeated on a rolling basis so as to create an environment where economic agents could discern a government commitment to deflation.[112] Inflation responded to this policy and gradually fell throughout 1980 to below 100%.[112] But gradually, during 1978 and 1979, the real exchange rate appreciated because inflation consistently outpaced the rate of depreciation.[112] The overvaluation ultimately led to capital flight and collapse of the financial system.
The failure of Banco de Intercambio Regional in March 1980 led to runs on other banks.[116]Growing government spending, large wage raises, and inefficient production created a chronic inflation that rose through the 1980s, when it briefly exceeded an annual rate of 1,000%.[7] Successive regimes tried to control inflation through wage and price controls, cuts in public spending, and restriction of the money supply.[7] Efforts to stem the problems came to naught when in 1982 Argentina came into conflict with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands.[113]
In August 1982, after Mexico had announced its inability to service its debt, Argentina approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance, as it too was in serious difficulties.[113] While developments looked positive for a while, an IMF staff team visiting Buenos Aires in August 1983 discovered a variety of problems, particularly a loss of control over wages affecting both the budget and external competitiveness, and the programme failed.[113] With the peso quickly losing value to inflation, a new peso was introduced in 1983, with 10,000 old pesos exchanged for each new peso.[7]