Tri-Service

Is The World Really A Dangerous Place?

If you listen to the sounds emanating from the television and radio, or read the Opinion and Editorial pages of the newspapers you'd be forgiven for thinking the world is close to World War III.

Syria is on the brink of something, although few pundits can say what. Afghanistan is about to go under. A third Intifada is revving up. NATO is sending more troops to the old Soviet borders.

Oil is creeping back - a sure sign that no one is in control. Gold is up - a sure sign that a global problem is slipping into crisis status.

But is the world really in such a social and security meltdown? Could it just be that the globe is coping with little local difficulties and not much more? A quick round-up from East to West is in everyone's interests.

North Korea's beloved leader Kim Jong-un said a couple of days ago that his country is easily ready to defend itself if the United States starts trouble. His corps de ballet militaire performed exquisitely in Pyongyang's main square, jets flew above in tight formation, tanks and full missile carriers rumbled below and Mr Kim made his first public speech in three years. Then they went home. Not even a missile test worth the bang.

China is building artificial islands in South China Sea. America and Japan says they should not, so China has carried on building knowing that no-one is going to war over this.

In Sri Lanka, the civil war moral tragedy is a matter for the United Nations but no-one is fighting.

To the north, Pakistan and India still disagree over Kashmir, but apart from a few practise shots, no one is going to war over that blunder as once they did.

In Afghanistan, the security mess will get worse. The Taliban both in Afghanistan and from Pakistan will make inroads. The US will deploy troops for longer than expected, but there is nothing going on that suggests a return to the events of the opening decade of this century.

In Africa, there is no way that Libya is on the road to peaceful government but nor is the carnage of just a couple of years back being repeated.

Further south the Boko Haram threat is broadened but not any greater. The gunmen are on the streets of Guinea but the elections will go ahead as planned.

The UN has 19,000 troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 12,500 in South Sudan, 12,000 in the Central African Republic and 10,000 in Mali. Something's working there in spite of minor conflicts, skirmishes, coups and corruption.

In Europe, there is Ukraine. Potentially but mostly theoretically, there is a chance of an East West confrontation but not really. Why? Because in spite of posturing and statements from NATO, the Alliance will not go to the mattresses over Ukraine and Russia bets on this. There's nothing doing in the rest of Europe other than a few separatist groups.

Of course there is Syria, etc. Is it so bad in historical warfare terms? Just about. Two years from the original protest in Damascus in March 2011, the deaths had reached 100,000. That was a landmark figure that continued to multiply and does not look like stopping.

Daesh, Islamic State, or whatever we are to call the butcher terrorists, is all about asymmetric warfare. It is not 'state on state' and thus, and this is hard to say, not so bad as might have been.

So this very crude audit of world warfare says there is plenty of politics, plenty of expensive ordnance being used but not so many killed.

In truth 95% of the world is not at war. Most people have never heard a shot fired in anger. We might think on that as part of the reason that there are no boots on the ground anywhere that matters.

Christopher Lee is the BFBS Defence Analyst. As well as appearing on Forces TV he can be heard on Sitrep, the only weekly radio programme devoted to discussing the big issues in Defence. It can be heard on a Thursday, live on DAB or you can download the podcast by clicking here.