Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide

In this volume, the author argues that peacekeeping is working. As the author contends in this book, the military-civilian death ratio has remained at around 50-50 for centuries, and the world is currently in the midst of a general decline in armed conflict that is truly extraordinary in human history. 2010 had one of the lowest death rates from war, relative to population, of any year, ever. No national armies are currently fighting one another: all current wars are civil wars. UN peacekeeping actually works very well, and 67 percent of Americans support the UN, according to a recent poll. The author has compiled evidence ranging from the histories of UN peacekeeping missions to the latest Swedish data on armed conflicts. He tells the stories of peacekeeping failures such as Bosnia and Rwanda, but also the less heralded success stories such as Mozambique and El Salvador. In this "boots on the ground" account, the author shows why global peacekeeping efforts are working - how large-scale looting, sexual assault, and genocidal atrocities are being stopped - and how we can continue winning the war on war.