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Introduction
The first Human Security Report presents a
comprehensive and evidence-based portrait of
global security. It identifies and examines major
trends in global political violence, asks what fac-
tors drive these trends and examines some of
the consequences. It poses major challenges to
conventional wisdom.
Over the past dozen years, the global security climate
has changed in dramatic, positive, but largely unheralded
ways. Civil wars, genocides and international crises have
all declined sharply. International wars, now only a small
minority of all conflicts, have been in steady decline for a
much longer period, as have military coups and the aver-
age number of people killed per conflict per year.
1
The number of genocides and
politicides plummeted by 80%
between 1988 and 2001.
The wars that dominated the headlines of the 1990s
were real—and brutal—enough. But the global media have
largely ignored the 100-odd conflicts that have quietly
ended since 1988. During this period, more wars stopped
than started.
The extent of the change in global security following
the end of the Cold War has been remarkable:
The number of armed conflicts around the world has
declined by more than 40% since the early 1990s (see
Figure 1.1 in Part I).
2
Between 1991 (the high point for the post–World War II
period) and 2004, 28 armed struggles for self-determi-
nation started or restarted, while 43 were contained or
ended. There were just 25 armed secessionist conflicts
under way in 2004, the lowest number since 1976.
3
Notwithstanding the horrors of Rwanda, Srebrenica
and elsewhere, the number of genocides and politi-
cides plummeted by 80% between the 1988 high point
and 2001 (Figure 1.11).
International crises, often harbingers of war, declined
by more than 70% between 1981 and 2001 (Figure 1.5).
The dollar value of major international arms trans-
fers fell by 33% between 1990 and 2003 (Figure 1.10).
Global military expenditure and troop numbers de-
clined sharply in the 1990s as well.
The number of refugees dropped by some 45% be-
tween 1992 and 2003, as more and more wars came to
an end (Figure 3.1).
4
war and peace in
the 21st century
O V E R V I E W
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Five out of six regions in the developing world saw
a net decrease in core human rights abuses between
1994 and 2003 (Figures 2.6 and 2.7).
The positive changes noted above date from the end
of the Cold War. Other changes can be traced back to
the 1950s:
The average number of battle-deaths per conflict per
year—the best measure of the deadliness of warfare—
has been falling dramatically but unevenly since the
1950s. In 1950, for example, the average armed con-
flict killed 38,000 people; in 2002 the figure was 600,
a 98% decline.
The period since the end of World War II is the longest
interval of uninterrupted peace between the major
powers in hundreds of years.
5
The number of actual and attempted military coups
has been declining for more than 40 years. In 1963
there were 25 coups and attempted coups around the
world, the highest number in the post–World War II
period. In 2004 there were only 10 coup attempts—a
60% decline. All of them failed.
6
Inter national terrorism is the only form of politi-
cal violence that appears to be getting worse, but the
data are contested. Although some datasets have shown
an overall decline in international terrorist incidents
since the early 1980s (Figure 1.12), the most recent data
suggest a dramatic increase in the number of high-
casualty attacks since the September 11 attacks on the
US in 2001.
Myths and misunderstandings
Public understanding of global security is hampered by
many myths and misunderstandings about its nature.
Some of these originated in the media; others were prop-
agated, or reiterated by, international organisations and
NGOs. Such myths include claims that:
The number of armed conflicts is increasing.
Wars are getting deadlier.
The number of genocides is increasing.
The gravest threat to human security is
international terrorism.
90% of those killed in today’s wars are civilians.
7
5 million people were killed in wars in the 1990s.
2 million children were killed in wars during the
last decade.
80% of refugees are women and children.
Women are the primary victims of war.
There are 300,000 child soldiers serving around the
world today.
Not one of these claims is based on reliable data. All are
suspect; some are demonstrably false. Yet they are widely
believed because they reinforce popular assumptions. They
flourish in the absence of official figures to contradict them
and conjure a picture of global security trends that is gross-
ly distorted. And they often drive political agendas.
A consistent theme in The Human Security Report 2005
is the inadequacy of available data, especially comparable
year-on-year data that can be used to document and mea-
sure national, regional and global trends. In some cases,
data are simply non-existent.
International terrorism is the only
form of political violence that ap-
pears to be getting worse, but the
data are contested.
To address these challenges when prepar ing this re-
port, the Human Security Centre has drawn on a variety
of data compiled by research institutions around the world
and commissioned a major public opinion poll on popular
attitudes to security in 11 countries. The Human Security
Centre also commissioned a new dataset from Uppsala
University’s conflict Data Program. The Uppsala/Human
Security Centre dataset is the most comprehensive yet
created on political violence around the world. Its find-
ings, the first of which are published in this report, will
provide key trend data for future editions of the Human
Security Report.
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Structure and contents
The Human Security Report 2005 has a five-part structure:
Part I: The changing face of global violence looks
mainly at long-term global and regional trends in po-
litical violence.
Part II: The human security audit presents the find-
ings of the new dataset on political violence around
the world. It also examines other threats to human
security.
Part III: Assault on the vulnerable explores the
impact of political violence on refugees, women
and children.
Part IV: Counting the indirect costs of war examines
some of the long-term, indirect effects of war.
Part V: Why the dramatic decline in armed conflict.
examines the major drivers of the radical improvement
in global security since the end of the Cold War.
The period following the end of
World War II was the longest interval
in many centuries without a war
between the major powers.
The following discussion briefly outlines the main
themes of the report and reviews some key findings from
the various sections.
War trends
In the early 1990s, at precisely the point that media com-
mentators in the West began to fret about a worldwide ex-
plosion in ethnic violence, the number of armed conflicts
began to drop (Figure 1.1). This little-noticed decline, which
has been carefully tracked by the research community, has
continued ever since.
The five-decade period following the end of World War
II was the longest interval in many centuries without a war
between the major powers, and scholars sometimes refer
to it as the ‘Long Peace’. This description is deeply mis-
leading. Although no wars between the major powers in
this period, every decade saw sharp increases in political
violence in the rest of the world.
Between 1946 and 1991 the number of state-based armed
conflicts being fought worldwide trebled (Figure 1.2), with
most of the killing taking place in poor countries (Figure 1.9).
Moreover, although it is true that the major powers did
not fight each other during this period, their post–World
War II history has been anything but peaceful. Indeed, the
UK, France, the US and the Soviet Union/Russia top the
list of countries involved in international wars in the last
60 years (Figure 1.3).
The end of the Cold War brought
remarkable changes to the global
security climate.
‘Realist’ scholars attributed the Long Peace between the
major powers to the security-enhancing effect of a bipolar
security system underpinned by mutual nuclear deterrence.
Many worried that the end of the Cold War would usher in
a new era of severe crises, even wars, between the major
powers.
8
But today, 15 years after the end of the Cold War,
the number of international crises is just a small fraction of
the 1981 high-point (Figure 1.5) and the prospect of war be-
tween the major powers has never seemed more remote.
The end of the Cold War brought remarkable chang-
es to the global security climate. Security pessimists saw
the upsurge of secessionist violence in the former Soviet
Union, the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation, genocide
in Rwanda and other ethnic confrontations as portents of
an increasingly violent future.
This pessimism was quite unfounded. Between 1992
and 2003, the last year for which complete data are cur-
rently available, the number of armed conflicts (Figure 1.2)
dropped by 40%. The number of wars—the most deadly
category of armed conflict—declined even more sharply.
In most parts of the world the drop in conflict num-
bers started after the end of the Cold War (Fig ure 1.2). But
in two important regions the decline started earlier. In the
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Middle East and North Africa, political violence began to
decrease at the beginning of the 1980s. In part this was
because the front-line Arab states recognised that fight-
ing wars with a conventionally superior and nuclear-
armed Israel was a fruitless endeavour, and in part be-
cause ruthless state repression was succeeding in crush-
ing domestic insurgencies.
In East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania the decline in
both the number and deadliness of armed conflicts started
in the mid-1970s (Figures 1.2 and 1.9). This was a period
in which massive external involvement in the region’s con-
flicts was rapidly winding down, and in which countries in
the region were experiencing the highest rates of economic
growth in the world. As Part V of this report shows, the
probability of war decreases as national income, and hence
state capacity, increases (Figure 5.4).
The challenge of Africa
Most of the world’s armed conflicts now take place in sub-
Saharan Africa (Figure 1.2). At the turn of the 21st century
more people were being killed in wars in this region than
in the rest of the world combined (Figure 1.9).
Violent conflict exacerbates the
conditions that gave rise to it in the
first place, creating a ‘conflict trap’
from which escape is extraordinarily
difficult.
Almost every country across the broad middle belt of
the continent—from Somalia in the east to Sierra Leone in
the west, from Sudan in the north to Angola in the south—
remains trapped in a volatile mix of poverty, crime, unstable
and inequitable political institutions, ethnic discrimination,
low state capacity and the ‘bad neighbourhoods’ of other
crisis-ridden states—all factors associated with increased
risk of armed conflict.
9
The combination of pervasive poverty, declining GDP
per capita, poor infrastructure, weak administration, exter-
nal intervention and an abundance of cheap weapons, plus
the effects of a major decline in per capita foreign assis-
tance for much of the 1990s, mean that armed conflicts in
these countries are difficult to avoid, contain or end.
Moreover, violent conflict exacerbates the very con-
ditions that gave rise to it in the first place, creating
a classic ‘conflict trap’ from which escape is extraordi-
narily difficult. Unsurprisingly, sustaining peace settle-
ments is a major challenge in many of the continent’s
post-conflict countr ies.
Yet even in Africa there are signs of hope. The new
Uppsala/Human Security Centre dataset shows that the
number of conflicts in Africa in which a government was
one of the warring parties declined from 15 to 10 between
2002 and 2003 (Figure 2.1). The number of cases of ‘one-
sided’ violence—defined as the slaughter of at least 25 ci-
vilians in the course of a year and called one-sided because
the victims can’t fight back—declined from 17 to 11 (Figure
2.1), a drop of 35%. Meanwhile, reported fatalities from all
forms of political violence were down by more than 24%
(Figure 2.4).
These changes reflect the increased involvement of
the international community and African regional or-
ganisations in conflict resolution and post-conflict re-
construction, rather than major changes in the underly-
ing risk factors. Africa remains the world’s most conflict-
prone continent.
Wars have fewer victims today
The decline in the numbers killed in wars has been even
more dramatic than the drop in the number of conflicts,
although it has taken place over a much longer period and
for quite different reasons.
The Human Security Report 2005 draws on a new data-
set on battle-deaths that occurred between 1946 and 20 02
in conflicts where a government was one of the war ring
parties. As Figure 1.6 shows, nearly 700,000 people were
killed in the wars of 1950, while in 2002 the figure was
just 20,000.
This substantial long-term decline in battle-deaths
is due primarily to a radical shift in modes of warfare.
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The wars of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and to a lesser
degree the 1980s, were characterised by major bat-
tles fought by large armies armed with heavy con-
ventional weapons and supported by one or other super-
power.
Today most wars are fought in poor countries with
armies that lack heavy conventional weapons—or su-
perpower patrons. In a typical low-intensity conflict
weak government forces confront small, ill-trained reb-
el forces equipped with small arms and light weapons.
Sk irmishes and attacks on civilians are preferred to
major engagements. Although these conflicts often in-
volve gross human rights abuses, they kill relatively few
people compared with the major wars of 20 or more
years ago.
In addition to low-intensity conflicts, a small num-
ber of high-tech wars have been fought by the US and
its allies since the end of the Cold War. In the Gulf War,
Kosovo and Afghanistan, the huge military advantage
enjoyed by coalition forces, plus increased use of pre-
cision-guided munitions, meant that victory on the
battlefield was gained quickly and with relatively few
battle-deaths.
The current conflict in Iraq is the exception: while
the conventional war that began in 2003 was over quickly
and with relatively few casualties, tens of thousands have
been killed in the subsequent—and ongoing—urban
insurgency.
The battle-death data also demonstrate how the
world’s deadliest killing zones have shifted locale over time
(Figure 1.9):
From the end of World War II to the mid-1970s, by far
the greatest numbers of battle-deaths were in East
Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
In the 1980s, most of the killing took place in the
Middle East and North Africa, Central and South Asia,
and in sub-Saharan Africa.
By the turn of the 21st century, sub-Saharan Afr ica
had become the world’s most violent region, ex pe-
riencing more battle-deaths than all other regions
combined.
Refugees and displaced persons
While the major wars of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were
associated with very high death tolls, the available data
suggest that these wars did not generate commensurately
large flows of displaced people.
10
In fact, the figures in-
dicate that the really big increases in people fleeing their
homes in fear of their lives did not start until the 1980s.
Between 1980 and 1992 the total number of people
estimated to have been displaced increased from 16 mil-
lion to more than 40 million. While the data, especially
on internally displaced persons, are questionable, there
is little doubt about the remarkable upward trend during
this period.
Increased targeting of civilians appears to be a ma-
jor reason for the huge increase. As one UN report put it,
‘Refugee movements are no longer side effects of conflict,
but in many cases are central to the objectives and tactics
of war.’
11
The battle-death data demonstrate
how the world’s deadliest killing
zones have shifted locale over time.
While displacement is a humanitarian tragedy and
puts people at greater risk of succumbing to disease and
malnutrition, it also prevents many violent deaths. Indeed,
had the millions of people displaced in the 1980s and early
1990s not fled their homes, hundreds of thousands, pos-
sibly more, would likely have been killed. So the massive
displacement in this period is likely part of the reason for
the declining number of battle-deaths.
Genocide
Genocides and other deliberate slaughters of civilians are
usually counted separately from armed conflicts, on the
grounds that the killing of unarmed innocents does not
constitute warfare.
Such killings usually—but not always—take place
within the context of a war. So if wars decline, we would
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expect that cases involving the slaughter of civilians would
decline as well. This is precisely what has happened, but
the 80% decline in the number of genocides (Figure 1.11)
since the end of the Cold War has been twice as great as
the drop in the number of conflicts
Until now there has been no systematic annual report-
ing of the death tolls from such one-sided violence. This
omission is addressed by the new Uppsala/Human Security
Centre dataset discussed in Part II of this report. The data
for 2002 and 2003 suggest that cases of one-sided violence
are as common as cases of state-based armed conflict, but
that one-sided violence kills far fewer people.
12
Terrorism
Like genocide, terrorism is directed primarily against civil-
ians. But although the focus of enormous attention, inter-
national terrorism has killed fewer than 1000 people a year,
on average, over the past 30 years.
The trends in international terrorism have been the
subject of considerable recent controversy. The US State
Department has published data on international terrorist
incidents around the world for more than 20 years—a rare
exception to the general rule that governments do not col-
lect statistics on trends in political violence.
International terrorism is a develop-
ment issue for the global South, as
well as being a vital security issue
for both the North and South.
The State Department’s data for 2003 (Figure 1.12)
showed a 60% decline in the number of international ter-
rorist attacks since the early 1980s, and in 2004 the Bush
administration cited this finding to support its claim that
the US was winning the ‘war on terror’. But these data
were profoundly misleading—they conflated relatively
triv ial incidents with ‘significant’ attacks. The former
have indeed decreased, but the latter have shot up more
than eightfold since the early 1980s (Fig ure 1.13).
In April 2005 the Bush administration published new
data showing a dramatic increase in ‘significant’ interna-
tional terrorist attacks in 2004.
Despite the relatively low death toll resulting from
international terrorism, it is still a major human security
concern for several reasons:
First, the war on terror has provided a large part of the
rationale for major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Second, as recent opinion survey data show, the US-
led counterterror campaign has been associated with
extraordinarily high levels of anti-Americanism in the
Muslim world.
13
This has almost certainly increased
the number of potential terrorist recruits.
Third—and perhaps most important—terrorists may
at some stage acquire and use weapons of mass de-
struction (WMD). This prospect is of particular concern
because terrorists, unlike states, cannot be deterred by
threats of nuclear retaliation.
Much of the attention paid to possible WMD attacks
has focused on the threat posed to the US and other
Western countries. But mass-casualty terror attacks also
pose a major threat to poor countries—even when they are
not directly targeted.
The likely consequence of a successful high-casualty
WMD attack against the US, for example, would be a major
downturn in the global economy. According to the World
Bank, the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001 pushed
millions of people in the developing world into poverty,
and likely killed tens of thousands of under-five-year-
olds—a far greater toll than the total number of deaths di-
rectly caused by the attack.
International terrorism is thus a development issue
for the global South, as well being a vital security issue for
both the North and the South.
Human rights abuse
The Political Terror Scale (PTS) database, which is main-
tained by researchers at the University of North Carolina,
Asheville, records global and regional trend data on hu-
man rights abuse in the developing world. It uses a
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composite indicator that captures such core human
rights abuses as torture, extrajudicial executions, the
‘disappearance’ of dissidents and officially backed death
squads.
14
Drawing on information compiled by Amnesty
International and the US State Department, it ranks each
country on a five-point scale every year.
Some 20 years of these data are shown in Figures 2.6
and 2.7. Half the regions of the developing world saw
the level of state repression increase somewhat between
1980 and 1994, while five out of the six regions discussed
showed a modest decrease from 1994 to 2003. Under-
reporting and different coding standards in the 1980s likely
mean that the reduction in core human rights violations is
greater than the trend data suggest.
There has been a dramatic world-
wide decline in authoritarianism
over the past quarter century.
The most insidious forms of repression occur where the
coercive power of the state is so pervasive that actual physi-
cal repression rarely has to be used. What might be called
‘rule by fear’ is most prevalent in highly authoritarian states.
However, there is room for optimism here too, since
there has been a substantial worldwide decline in authori-
tarianism over the past quarter century (Figure 5.3).
Indirect deaths
Many of the costs of war are obvious—battle-deaths, dis-
placed people, flattened cities, destroyed infrastructure,
capital flight and slashed living standards. Less obvious are
the high numbers of ‘indirect’ or ‘excess’ deaths—non-vio-
lent deaths that would not have occurred had there been
no fighting. In most of today’s armed conflicts, war-exac-
erbated disease and malnutrition kill far more people than
missiles, bombs and bullets.
It is no surprise that poor countries suffer most from
these indirect deaths. As Part IV of this report demon-
strates, these countries experience the most wars, their
citizens are more susceptible to disease and malnutrition
to beg in with, their health systems are fragile and under-
funded, and the humanitarian assistance they receive is
often too little and too late.
Indirect deaths receive little attention in the media
because it is almost impossible to disting uish them from
‘normal’ deaths caused by malnutrition and disease. Few
outsiders notice a statistical increase in already high
mortality rates—even thoug h the number of additional
deaths is likely to be many times greater than the number
of battle-deaths. In some cases the ratio of ‘indirect’ to
‘direct’ deaths exceeds 10 :1.
Yet only when the death rate from malnutrition
and disease escalates suddenly—as has recently hap-
pened in Sudan’s Darfur reg ion—do indirect deaths en-
gage the attention of the media and generate pressure
for action.
The indirect costs of warfare will be a central theme
of the Human Security Report 2006. Ignorance of the scope
and impact of these costs hampers effective planning for
humanitarian assistance and post-conflict reconstruction
programs. Donor governments, international agencies and
NGOs often complain about the lack of information, but
few do much to address the problem.
Then, there is the issue of accountability. Neither gov-
ernments nor rebels are normally held legally or morally
responsible for the indirect deaths caused by their actions,
in part because the linkage between war, disease and mal-
nutrition is not well understood.
A government or rebel group that slaughters hun-
dreds of civilians in wartime can, in principle, be brought
to justice before the International Criminal Court. But if
the same government or rebel group acts in a knowingly
reckless and negligent manner, and in so doing causes tens
or even hundreds of thousands to perish from disease and
hunger, it is unlikely ever to be charged with a crime, let
alone be successfully prosecuted.
Violent crime
While violent crime is clearly a threat to human security,
attempts to track global and regional trends in criminal
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violence are hampered by lack of data, under-reporting
and under-recording, conflicting definitions and, in some
cases, the reporting of war deaths as homicides.
Part II includes a review of the available data on global
trends in homicide (Figure 2.9) and rape (Figure 2.10). But
the discussion is in part an exercise in demonstrating how
little we know. The rape data are particularly problematic.
It is impossible, for example, to determine whether the in-
crease in rape rates in many regions is a function of in-
creased rape, increased reporting, or both.
Between 1946 and 1991 there was a
twelvefold rise in the number of civil
wars—the greatest jump in 200 years.
The extent of rape in war is examined in Part III, but
here, too, the discussion is hampered by the absence of
reliable cross-national data. However, a major recent
case study in Sierra Leone found a clear association be-
tween displacement and being a victim of sexual violence.
Displaced women were twice as likely to be raped as those
who remained in their homes.
Case study evidence indicates that this association may
exist in other conflict zones as well. If so, then it is reason-
able to assume that the fourfold increase in displacement
between the early 1970s and the early 1990s (Figure 3.1)
was associated with a major increase in the incidence of
sexual violence.
The causes of peace
Over the past three decades two epochal changes in inter-
national politics have had a huge but little analysed im-
pact on global security. These changes help explain both
the increase in ar med conflict around the world from the
end of World War II to the early 1990s and its subsequent
sharp decline.
Between 1946 and 1991 there was a twelvefold rise in
the number of civil wars—the g reatest jump in 200 years.
15
The data suggest that anti-colonialism and the geo-
politics of the Cold War were the major determinants of
this increase (Fig ure 5.2).
By the early 1980s the wars of liberation from colonial
rule, which had accounted for 60% to 100% of all inter-
national wars fought since the early 1950s, had virtually
ended. With the demise of colonialism, a major driver of
warfare around the world—one that had caused 81 wars
since 1816—simply ceased to exist.
Then, in the late 1980 s, the Cold War, which had
driven approximately one-third of all wars (civil as
well as international) in the post–World War II period,
also came to an end. This not only removed the only
risk of violent conflict between the major powers and
their allies, it also meant that Washing ton and Moscow
stopped supporting their erstwhile allies in many so-
called proxy wars in the developing world. Denied
external support, many of these conflicts quietly ground
to a halt.
With the colonial era and then the Cold War over,
global warfare began to decline rapidly in the early
1990s. Between 1992 and 2002 the number of civil wars
being fought each year plummeted by 80%. The decline
in all armed conflicts—that is, wars plus minor armed
conflicts—was 40% .
The end of the Cold War not only removed a major
source of conflict from the international system, it also
allowed the U N to begin to play the security-enhancing
role that its founders had intended, but which the organi-
sation had long been prevented from pursuing.
With the colonial era and then the
Cold War over, the number of armed
conflicts began to decline rapidly in
the early 1990s.
With the Security Council no longer paralysed by Cold
War politics, the UN spearheaded a veritable explosion of
conflict prevention, peacemaking and post-conflict peace-
building activities in the early 1990s. Part V of this report
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9
describes the extent of this unprecedented surge in activ-
ism, which included:
A sixfold increase in the number of preventive di-
plomacy missions (those that seek to stop wars from
starting) mounted by the UN between 1990 and 2002.
A fourfold increase in peacemaking activites (those that
seek to stop ongoing conflicts) over the same period
(Figure 5.5).
A sevenfold increase in the number of ‘Friends of
the Secretary-General’, ‘Contact Groups’ and other
government-initiated mechanisms to support peace-
making and peacebuilding missions between 1990
and 2003.
An elevenfold increase in the number of economic
sanctions in place against regimes around the world
between 1989 and 2001.
A fourfold increase in the number of UN peacekeep-
ing operations between 1987 and 1999 (Figure 5.6).
The increase in numbers was not the only change.
The new missions were, on average, far larger and
more complex than those of the Cold War era and
they have been relatively successful in sustain-
ing the peace. With 40% of post-conflict coun-
tries relapsing into war again within five years,
the importance of preventing wars from restarting
is obvious.
The UN did not act alone, of course; the World Bank,
donor states, a number of regional organisations and thou-
sands of NGOs worked closely with U N agencies and of-
ten played independent conflict prevention, conflict miti-
gation and peacebuilding roles of their own. Prior to the
end of the Cold War there had been little sustained activity
in any of these areas.
Not one of the peacebuilding and conflict prevention
programs on its own had much of an impact on global se-
curity in this period. Taken together, however, their effect
has been profound.
As the upsurge of international activism grew in scope
and intensity through the 1990s, the number of crises, wars
and genocides declined. Correlation does not prove cause,
of course, and Part V reviews other possible explanations
for the dramatic decline in political violence in the post–
Cold War era.
Over the long term the evidence suggests that
the risk of civil war is reduced by equitable economic
growth, increased state capacity and inclusive democracy.
Development is a necessary condition for security––and
vice versa.
But Part V demonstrates that none of these factors can
account for the sharp decline in political violence around
the world that started in the early 1990s and has continued
ever since. It argues that the single most compelling expla-
nation for this decline is the upsurge of international activ-
ism described brie.y above and in more detail in Part V.
As the upsurge of international
activism grew through the 1990s,
the number of crises, wars and
genocides declined.
The Human Security Report 2006 will include a more
detailed examination of the debates that continue to divide
the scholarly community about the causes of peace.
No grounds for complacency
The dramatic improvements in global security documented
in this first Human Security Report are real and important.
But they are no cause for complacency. Some 60 wars are
still being fought around the world and the post–Cold
War years have also been marked by major humanitarian
emergencies, gross abuses of human rights, war crimes,
and ever-deadlier acts of terrorism. But the conflicts that
remain—in Iraq, Darfur and elsewhere—continue to exact
a deadly toll.
Moreover, the fact that wars come to an end does
not necessarily mean that their underlying causes have
been addressed. Indeed, a recent UK government report
arg ues that much of the decrease in armed conflict is due,
in fact, to its ‘suppression or containment, rather than
H U M A N   S E C U R I T Y   R E P O R T   2 0 0 5
10
resolution’.
16
In addition to creating a legacy of bitter hos-
tility that hampers reconciliation, armed conflicts invari-
ably exacerbate the str uctural conditions that led to their
outbreak in the first place. This is why the greatest single
risk factor for armed conflict is a recent history of politi-
cal violence.
Some current developments suggest that the progress
of the past dozen years now may be at risk. In May 2005
the International Crisis Group reported that ten conflict
situations around the world had deteriorated in the pre-
vious month; only five had improved.
17
In June 2005 the
in.uential Peace and conflict 2005 report noted that ‘risks
of future genocides and political mass murder remain high
in a half-dozen countries and a significant possibility in a
dozen others.’
18
The risk of new wars breaking out—or old ones re-
suming—is very real in the absence of a sustained and
strengthened commitment to conflict prevention and
post-conflict peacebuilding. The post–Cold War decline
in conflict numbers was not inevitable—and it is certainly
not irreversible.
But while there is no room for complacency, nor is there
any cause for pessimism. The international community’s
successes in reducing armed conflict worldwide in the
post–Cold War era have been achieved despite inadequate
resources, ad hoc planning, inappropriate mandates (in
the case of UN peace operations) and lack of support from
the countries most able to help. With additional resources,
more appropriate mandates, and a greater commitment
to conflict prevention and peacebuilding, far more could
be achieved.
Effective policy doesn’t just need extra resources and
greater political commitment. It also requires a better un-
derstanding of global and regional security trends—and
of why some conflict prevention and mitigation strategies
succeed while others fail.
Providing the data and analysis to further such an un-
derstanding is the central goal of the Human Security Report.
H U M A N   S E C U R I T Y   R E P O R T   2 0 0 5
11
1.   References for all statistics in the Overview are found in the main body of the Report unless otherwise noted.
2.   The data cited here refer to conflicts in which a state is one of the warring parties. Until 2002 no data were collected for
armed conflicts in which a state was not a party.
3.   This finding—from Monty G. Marshall and Ted Robert Gurr, Peace and conflict 2005, Center for International Development
and conflict Management (College Park, MD: University of Maryland, May 2005)—is not discussed in the Human Security
Report 2005 because Peace and conflict 2005 was published after the relevant section of this report was written.
4.   There was no comparably sustained decrease in the number of internally displaced persons—that is, those who had .ed
their homes but had not crossed into another country and become refugees.
5.   John Mueller, Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (New York: Basic Books, 1989).
6.   Heidelberg Institute on International conflict Research, conflict Barometer 2004 (Heidelberg: Insitute on International
conflict Research, University of Heidelberg, 2005), www.hiik.de/en/conflictBarometer_2004.pdf (accessed 31 May 2005).
These findings will be discussed in detail in the Human Security Report 2006.
7.   Note that this claim refers to people killed in fighting, not those who die of war-induced disease and/or malnutrition.
8.   See John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Why We Will Soon Miss the Cold War’, August 1990, http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/
index.asp.document=713 (accessed 31 May 2005).
9.   The discussion on Africa draws on a paper prepared for this report by Monty G. Marshall and Ted Robert Gurr and on their
Peace and conflict 2005.
10.   While the UN was collecting refugee data during this period, little effort was made to collect data on internally displaced
persons (IDPs). The IDP data, which are now collected by independent organisations su ch as the Global IDP Project, almost
certainly underestimate the true number of people displaced within their own borders between the 1960s and the begin-
ning of the 1980s.
11.   UN High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World’s Refugees: Fifty Years of Humanitarian Action (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000).
12.   This is not always the case, of course. More people were killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 than on all the world’s
battlefields in 1950, the year with the highest battle-death toll in the post–World War II era.
13.   Pew Research Center, ‘A Year After Iraq: Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists’, Survey Reports,
Pew Research Center website, http://people-press.org/reports/disp lay.php3.PageID=796 (accessed 15 August 2005).
14.   The central focus of the Political Terror Scale is state repression; however, the identity of the perpetrators of human rights
abuses is not always clear, so some of the violence that is recorded may be perpetrated by non-state groups.
15.   Note that civil wars are defined here as conflicts that have incurred at least 1000 battle-deaths. Only armed conflicts in
which a government was one of the warring parties are discussed.
16.   Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, ‘Investing in Prevention: an International Strategy to Manage Risks of Instability and
Improve Crisis Response’, The Challenges of Instability: Overview of Instability, http://www.strategy.gov.uk/downloads/
work_areas/countries_at_risk/report/chapter1.htm (accessed 30 August 2005).
17.   International Crisis Group, ‘Crisis Watch’, no. 21, 1 May 2005, International Crisis Group website, www.crisisgroup.org/
home/index.cfm.l=1&id=3399 (accessed 31 May 2005).
18.   Monty G. Marshall and Ted Robert Gurr, Peace and conflict 2005.
o v e r v i e w
ENDNOTES