Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Ignoreland

Shorter John Tierney:

"If you ignore all the unneccessary death and destruction, you'll see we actually live in a very peaceful world!"

What Tierney fails to consider is that the nature of armed conflict and warfare is changing. Traditionally, warfare has been understood as a symmetrical conflict between national armies. This isn't the case anymore. What we see today is more internalized and asymmetrical conflict in the form of terrorism. What Tierney doesn't say in his article is that the report will point this out. While it may be true that warfare (in the traditional sense) might be decreasing, the fact that international terrorism is increasing demonstrates that the world isn't such a tranquil place after all.

And they want me to pay for this crap?