Real World News: Are Wars Increasing?

Are Wars Increasing?
Have the frequency and intensity of wars really been increasing in recent years?

(c) Real-World-News.org

3 Jan. 2008

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the Thirty Years' War which ended in 1648 was "the most horrible military episode in western history prior to the 20th century." Cautious estimates say that about 7 million died in the Thirty Years' War. When we come to modern times we find that World War I (1914 to 1918) in just over 4 years killed approximately 20 million people. But only 21 years later World War II began (1939 to 1945), resulting in the loss of 62 million lives, triple the loss of World War I, while the monetary costs quadrupled from an estimated $340 billion to an estimated $4.5 trillion. There can be no question that there has been a great increase in the intensity of warfare.

"It has been calculated by a former president of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, aided by historians from England, Egypt, Germany, and India, that since 3600 B.C., over 14,531 wars have been waged in which 3,640,000,000 people have been killed." (Harold L. Willmington, Signs of the Times, Tyndale House, Wheaton, Ill, 1981, p. 18.)

"Since World War II there have been at least 12 limited wars in the world, ... 74 rebellions for independence, and 162 social revolutions, either political, economic, racial or religious." (U.S. News and World Report, September 25, 1967)

From these figures it is easy to see that wars and revolts have greatly increased. For example, during the 5,500 plus years since 3600 B.C., an average of about 657,000 people died as a result of war per year (including WW I and WW II). Whereas, if we average the 82 million deaths of WW I and WW II alone using the entire 100 years of the 20th Century we arrive at an average of 820,000 deaths per year from war. This is not counting the deaths from the over 260 other wars, rebellions and revolutions of the 20th Century.

To name some of the wars since WW II there have been the Chinese Civil War (1945-49), French Indochina War (1945-54), Arab-Israeli Wars (1948-), Korean War (1951-53), French-Algerian War (1954-62), Sudanese Civil War (1956-72), Iraqi Coups (1959-66), Kurds (Iraq) (1961-70), Indonesia / Malaysia War (1962), Ethiopian Civil Wars (1962-92), Vietnam War (1965-73), PLO / Israel War in Lebanon (1975-92), Iran Islamic Revolution (1979), Iraq's war on the Kurds (1980s), Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), Afghanistan (1980-89), Biafran War (1967-70), Gulf War (1990-91), Shia Rebellion in Iraq (1991-93), Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-95), Georgia, (1992-93), Ethiopia / Eritrea (1998-). The Kurd Tribe in the Mid-East, and the Karean Tribe in Burma have been fighting for their independent states. There have long been religious wars in Sri Lanka, Ireland, India, and the in Middle East. North Korea, China, and the Islamic Arabs are a constant threat to peace.

Today at least 35 nations have nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia alone having a total of 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads and about 48,000 smaller tactical nuclear weapons. The combined total of both superpowers nuclear power equaling a total of about 1,350,000 Hiroshima size bombs! Many people are worried that nuclear warheads can reach any part of the Globe within 30 minutes, and that the superpowers have stock-piled enough nuclear explosives to equal 300 pounds of TNT for every man, woman, and child on Earth.

"There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." (Isa. 57:21) "For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape." (1 Thess 5:3)

During the coming Tribulation a full half of the population of the Earth will die from self inflected wars and other causes during the first half of the 7 years of the Tribulation after God Almighty declares war on the World.

Afterwards, however, true peace will come. But only when Christ comes back and brings it. Then and only then will there be true peace. Mankind has consistently proven himself incapable of bringing peace to this world. But when Jesus Christ, "the Prince of peace" (Isa. 9:6) comes back again there will be true peace. "Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end ..." (Isa. 9:7), "... and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Mic. 4:3).

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