Summary: | WarfareÆs evolution, especially since 2001, has irrevocably changed the meaning of war. In the twentieth centuryùhumankindÆs bloodiestù231 million people died in armed conflicts. Battlefield deaths since then have been steadily declining, despite the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by 2012 less than 1 person in a million dies in war every year. This drastic change has led some academics to label our era one of peace, recalling the erroneously named ôHundred YearsÆ Peaceö or ôPax Britannicaö of the nineteenth century, which nonetheless saw many violent conflicts. But war hasnÆt gone extinct.
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