The "Long Peace" is a term for the unprecedented historical period of relative global stability following the end of World War II in 1945 to the present day.[1][2] The period of the Cold War (1947–1991) was marked by the absence of major wars between the great powers of the period, the United States and the Soviet Union.[1][3][4] First recognized in 1986,[5][6] the period of "relative peace" has been compared to the 200-year-long stability of the Roman Empire, called the Pax Romana,[7] or the Pax Britannica, a century of relative peace that existed between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, during which the British Empire held global hegemony.
In the 1990s, it was thought that the Long Peace was a unique result of the Cold War;[3][8][9] however, when the Cold War ended, the same trends continued in what has also been called the "New Peace".[10] The period has exhibited more than a quarter of a century of even greater stability and peacefulness and has also shown continued improvements in related measurements such as the number of coups, the amount of repression, and the durability of peace settlements.[10] Though civil wars and lesser military conflicts have occurred, there has been a continued absence of direct conflict between any of the largest economies by gross domestic product; instead, wealthier countries have fought limited small-scale regional conflicts with poorer countries. Conflicts involving smaller economies have also gradually tapered off.[11] Overall, the number of international wars decreased from a rate of six per year in the 1950s to one per year in the 2000s, and the number of fatalities decreased from 240 reported deaths per million to less than 10 reported deaths per million.[2][11]
In 2012, the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for over six decades [having] contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe" by a unanimous decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.[13] Major factors cited as reasons for the Long Peace have included the deterrence effect of nuclear weapons, the economic incentives towards cooperation caused by globalization and international trade, the worldwide increase in the number of democracies, the World Bank's efforts in reduction of poverty, and the effects of the empowerment of women and peacekeeping by the United Nations;[10] however, no factor is a sufficient explanation on its own and so additional or combined factors are likely. Other proposed explanations have included the proliferation of the recognition of human rights, increasing education and quality of life, changes in the way that people view conflicts (such as the presumption that wars of aggression are unjustified), the success of non-violent action, and demographic factors such as the reduction in birthrates.[7][10][11]
In the book The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker considers that to be part of a trend that has continued since the beginning of recorded history,[2][14] and other experts have made similar arguments.[11][15] While there is general agreement among experts that we are in a Long Peace and that wars have declined since the 1950s,[2][11] Pinker's broader thesis has been contested.[11] Critics have also said that a longer period of relative peace is needed to be certain,[16] or they have emphasized minor reversals in specific trends, such as the increase in battle deaths between 2011 and 2014 due to the Syrian civil war.[10] In the 2020s, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been recognized, including by Pinker himself,[17] as having interrupted some of the trends of the Long Peace.[18][19] Pinker's work has received some publicity, but most information about the Long Peace and related trends remains outside public awareness, and some data demonstrate a widespread perception that the world has become more dangerous.[10][11]
See also
- Balance of power
- Balance of terror
- Deterrence theory
- Dissolution of the Soviet Union
- Historiography of the Cold War
- Mutual assured destruction
- Pax Americana
- Pax Atomica
- South American Long Peace
References
- ^ a b Gaddis, John Lewis (1989). The Long Peace: Inquiries Into the History of the Cold War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504335-9.
- ^ a b c d Freedman, Lawrence (2014). "Stephen Pinker and the long peace: alliance, deterrence and decline". Cold War History. 14 (4): 657–672. doi:10.1080/14682745.2014.950243. ISSN 1468-2745. S2CID 154846757.
- ^ a b Saperstein, Alvin M. (March 1991). "The "Long Peace"— Result of a Bipolar Competitive World?". The Journal of Conflict Resolution. 35 (1): 68–79. doi:10.1177/0022002791035001004. S2CID 153738298.
- ^ Lebow, Richard Ned (Spring 1994). "The Long Peace, the End of the Cold War, and the Failure of Realism". International Organization. 48 (2): 249–277. doi:10.1017/s0020818300028186. JSTOR 2706932. S2CID 155032446.
- ^ Gaddis, John Lewis (1986). "The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System". International Security. 10 (4): 99–142. doi:10.2307/2538951. ISSN 0162-2889. JSTOR 2538951. S2CID 59686350.
- ^ Vasquez, John A; Kang, Choong-Nam (2012). "How and why the Cold War became a long peace: Some statistical insights". Cooperation and Conflict. 48 (1): 28–50. doi:10.1177/0010836712461625. ISSN 0010-8367. S2CID 154868730.
- ^ a b Inglehart, Ronald F; Puranen, Bi; Welzel, Christian (2015). "Declining willingness to fight for one's country". Journal of Peace Research. 52 (4): 418–434. doi:10.1177/0022343314565756. ISSN 0022-3433. S2CID 113340539.
By 1984, the world had already experienced the longest period without war between major powers since the Roman Empire.
- ^ Gaddis, John Lewis (1992). "The Cold War, the Long Peace, and the Future". Diplomatic History. 16 (2): 234–246. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1992.tb00499.x. ISSN 0145-2096.
- ^ Duffield, John S. (2009). "Explaining the Long Peace in Europe: the contributions of regional security regimes". Review of International Studies. 20 (4): 369–388. doi:10.1017/S0260210500118170. ISSN 0260-2105. S2CID 145698353.
- ^ a b c d e f Fettweis, Christopher J. (2017). "Unipolarity, Hegemony, and the New Peace". Security Studies. 26 (3): 423–451. doi:10.1080/09636412.2017.1306394. ISSN 0963-6412. S2CID 148993870.
- ^ a b c d e f g Human Security Research Group, Simon Fraser University (2013). "Human Security Report 2013: The Decline in Global Violence" (PDF). Retrieved November 11, 2018.
- ^ Herre, Bastian; Rodés-Guirao, Lucas; Roser, Max (March 20, 2024). "War and Peace". Our World in Data.
- ^ "The Nobel Peace Prize for 2012". The Norwegian Nobel Committee.
- ^ Pinker, Steven (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-02295-3.
- ^ Joshua S. Goldstein (2012). Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide. Plume. ISBN 978-0-452-29859-0.
- ^ Clauset, Aaron (2018). "Trends and fluctuations in the severity of interstate wars". Science Advances. 4 (2) eaao3580. Bibcode:2018SciA....4.3580C. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aao3580. PMC 5834001. PMID 29507877.
- ^ Pinker, Steven (2022). "Is Russia's war with Ukraine the end of the Long Peace?" (PDF).
- ^ Europe, The Lancet Regional Health- (April 1, 2022). "The regional and global impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine". The Lancet Regional Health – Europe. 15 100379. doi:10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100379. ISSN 2666-7762. PMC 9072997. PMID 35531494.
- ^ Walsh, Bryan (February 26, 2022). "The war in Ukraine could portend the end of the "long peace"". Vox. Retrieved August 7, 2025.
Periods of regional and relative peace | ||
|---|---|---|
| Contemporary | .svg){kind=small} | |
| Historical | ||
