This is from Time?!
Must be stopped clock syndrome.
I was literally just thinking about this very thing as I went to bed last night. MAD, IMHO, LITERALLY kept us out of WWIII. And with general economic prosperity it would have been stupid for anybody to start something.
Both barriers to a big war have been eliminated...
What on earth is this doing in Time magazine?
I guess, given long enough, some truths are too obvious to be ignored. All those comedians like George Carlin who think it’s funny to note that lately we’ve only been waring with “brown people”? They’re missing the fact that the big, bad white guys have nukes, which takes some of the edge off their observations. Much better to drop ordinance on people crawling through the jungle with AK-47s than risk Total Global Nuclear Holocaust.
I have absolutely no doubt the U.S. and the Soviet Union would have gone to all-out war without nukes.
As others have noted, odd to see in Time.
Another even longer period of general peace between major powers was from 1815 to 1914. Very unusual when compared to previous centuries.
IMO the primary thing in common is the dominance of a single power. 1815 to 1914 this power was Britain. Their power was naval, so no direct threat to European nations. But it limited conflicts to the Continent.
The US has similarly dominated the world since 1945. Those who want to end US dominance on the theory that doing so will bring “whirled peas” really need to reexamine their theory.
I agree 100%. I've said this sort of thing for years. Nukes deserve all the credit for ending wars between the most industrialized nations. Anyone who loves peace should put little shrines to nuclear weapons in their homes, and big posts of mushrooms clouds on their walls.
The number of annual casualties due to war was steadily increasing over time - until Hiroshima, at which point the numbers immediately levels out.