Twenty-Five Years of Local Wars

Peaceful coexistence is one of the prevailing ideas of our age, yet it would be erroneous to use this term as a basic characteristic of the present state of world. While it is true that the nuclear powers have not come into conflict, and one hopes they will not do so, it is also true that many wars have been waged since the Second World War and several are still in process in '.arious parts of the world. It is primarily in respect to Europe and North America, then, that the world presents a relatively peaceful picture; it is much less peaceful from the perspective of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The countries of Europe and North America are living in relatively peaceful circumstances, as no war has been fought on their territories for quite a long time. Yet several of them, and especially the U.S.A., are very active as belligerents far from their own territorial boundaries. There is at least a relative peace in these countries, while in other parts of the world, local wars are not infrequent. They are, in fact, steadily increasing in number. Our world is witnessing the coexistence of peaceful coexistence and local wars. The subject of this study are the 97 wars waged in the 25 years since 1945. (See Appendix) It would be practical to approach the complex problem of a war definition from its negative side and include what has not been regarded as war, however marginal the incident may have appeared: