1945-2016. Great era of peace
We attach great importance to the word "world". But how to measure peacetime? Sometimes only a reminder of the horrors of past wars allows us to notice that we are surrounded by the world.
The forty most developed economies in the world have not fought each other for the past 70 years. Mankind has not known such a strong and long period of peace since the time of the Roman Empire. And the longer this world lasts, the stronger its foundations become. These are the general trends of the last half of the XX - early XXI centuries.
If television reports still do not inspire you with optimism, then maybe the numbers will help you to understand in what an amazing period stories we are living.
So, the forty most powerful and developed countries have not fought each other for the past seven decades. The age of those who were directly involved in the last and most terrible war, is now approaching 90 years. We have long been abandoned by all the politicians and military leaders of that era who were responsible for making decisions: Stalin, Churchill, Eisenhower ... With each passing day, fewer and fewer witnesses remain of how hell could be on earth.
In Europe, major battles did not occur in principle. The only event that was exceptional, and therefore only confirming the contrast of the epoch, was Hungary of 56. However, this lightning war in its scale and the number of casualties was not in any comparison with the events of the Second World War. Suffice it to recall that during the battles in Budapest, the number of dead on both sides was 20 times less than during the operation at Balaton (Hungary-1945).
In Asia, the largest conflict was about. Damansky (1969 g.). The “war” between the USSR and China lasted for a whole week, without going beyond the limits of the island on the r. Ussuri.
It is worth noting that all of the listed conflicts are related to 50-60. last century. In the following decades, the tendency was only to decline, and nothing like this was observed anymore.
The secret participation of military advisers, the verbal “battles” in the UN and the support of satellites in local conflicts - all this was insignificant fuss against the background of the events of the Second World War that were horrendous in scale.
The Cold War has not gone beyond the newspaper pages. In reality, its unwitting participants were strictly forbidden to use weapon. The word "interception" has become synonymous with the usual rapprochement with the plane of a "probable enemy." Any incident was worth the length of the proceedings, and incidental losses, for the most part, were due to a violation of safety precautions than by the malicious actions of a “likely adversary”.
Black Sea, 1988 year. Instead of shooting the American cruiser, the patrol ship "Selfless" for some reason decided to lean on the USS Yorktown, trying in a mild form to push the intruder out of the Soviet terrorists
Any plans for the start of the Third World, the insane “Dropshot” and the PIO remained the dreams of defective theorists, who in reality were not close to the “red button”. People of a completely different scale had access to it, and they understood that even a thin world is better than a “good” war.
The strong avoided wars with the strong.
But the strong, it happened, fought with the weak. For example, American losses in all 15 years of the war in Afghanistan were less than in one day on the beach of Utah, during a landing in Normandy in 1944.
In this example - the whole scale of modern "wars".
Korea, Vietnam, Iraq - for the sake of justice, compare these “sandboxes” with Stalingrad or the Kursk Bulge. Or at least, with the Ardennes and the storming of Okinawa.
The irretrievable losses of the USSR in nine years in Afghanistan turned out to be ten (!) Times less than in one week of the Kharkov operation (1942).
The scale and significance of local conflicts is greatly exaggerated by modern media. Now, thanks to the Internet and technology, professional reporters and amateurs are constantly posting videos from the combat zone every minute. To a certain extent, it is a pity that Youtube was not in 1941. We do not have so many cadres from that war, but even there are enough to understand how terrible that war was.
Since then, much has changed.
Strong states "projected" their power, exerted pressure and support to the allied regimes, but they did not dare to get involved in the classic all-arms battle on the ground and in the air.
War is a costly undertaking. Especially when everything has its price. A classic example is the oil wars. Oil during the XX century cost in the redistribution of 3 dollars per barrel (the equivalent of modern 30), and the supply of it exceeded the demand. Oil could be purchased in almost every corner of the world (Africa, Middle East, USSR, Gulf of Mexico, Indonesia, etc.). That is why it never occurred to anyone to equip many-thousand army and go to fight for the “black gold”, which was literally under their feet.
Wars on the territory of the countries of the “third world” were fought mostly for zones of political influence. The superpowers tried to keep the opponent out of their area of interest, while trying to do "wet work" at a minimum cost, by proxy. Because the "hot spots" remained just points on the map. And the army and military equipment, created to destroy all life in the upcoming superwar, demonstrated extremely low efficiency in modern-type conflicts. Where every civilian who accidentally came under fire could have been the cause of an international scandal.
The colonial wars in the traditional sense ended in 1977 year. Forty years ago (little Djibouti was the last to become independent).
More often, the weak fought the weak. Such conflicts can be divided into two categories:
- international conflicts;
- civil wars, both with and without foreign intervention.
Terrorism does not count here: a war with it makes no more sense than a war with entropy. In fact, terrorism is just a tactic, single attacks to create a "black PR" and intimidation of the population. As a result, counter-terrorism measures are the destiny of the police and special services. Rockets and Tanks to fight ideas are useless.
As for all the other “wars” of the recent past, by their tasks, scope, magnitude of the forces and losses involved, they did not even stand close to one single operation on the Eastern Front.
Combined, all armed conflicts, civil wars, and genocides of the last 70 years have claimed fewer lives than the Second World War. This is even more surprising, given the nearly threefold increase in the population of the Earth. The residents of developed countries have almost no chance of becoming a victim of armed conflict.
The epoch of the great world lasts for 70 years. And there are no real prerequisites for a reverse trend.
“Wars do not solve problems. The only solution is the industrial revolution, industry and capital. China knows how war and crisis are dangerous for its economy, and never get involved in crisis or war ”(from a speech by General Qiao Liang to graduates of the Defense University of China, July 2015).
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