Andrew Mack has an important op-ed piece in this morning's WaPo:
Seen through the eyes of the media, the world appears an evermore dangerous place. Iraq is sliding toward civil war, the slaughter in Darfur appears unending, violent insurgencies are brewing in Thailand and a dozen other countries, and terrorism strikes again in Bali. It is not surprising that most people believe global violence is increasing.
However, most people, including many leading policymakers and scholars, are wrong. The reality is that, since the end of the Cold War, armed conflict and nearly all other forms of political violence have decreased. The world is far more peaceful than it was.
Why has this change attracted so little attention? In part because the global media give far more coverage to wars that start than to those that quietly end, but also because no international agency collects global or regional data on any form of political violence.
You could have read a similar story here on August 30, 2004. Of course this does not mean peace on earth is arriving. It does mean that the nature of violence is changing. More about this after I get back from Venezueala - but look here for the challenge that this should present to just war theologians.
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