Peace in our time? Scientist makes bold prediction that war is on the wane and will halve over next 40 years University of Oslo research suggests number of countries at war will fall from one in six to one in 12 Higher education, lower infant mortality and lower population growth are reasons why the world can expect a more peaceful future
Current conflicts in Libya, Tajikistan, Syria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Iraq will probably be over
The risk of conflict will be greatest in India, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia and Tanzania
By LEON WATSON
PUBLISHED: 13:58 GMT, 23 November 2012 | UPDATED: 17:10 GMT, 23 November 2012
It may be difficult to believe, but according to research published next month a world without war may be getting nearer.
Futurologists from the University of Oslo in Norway and the Peace Research Institute Oslo have predicted that global conflict will
halve in the next 40 years.
Their study claims the combination of higher education, lower infant mortality, smaller youth cohorts, and lower population growth are a few of the reasons why the world can expect a more peaceful future.
World at war: Soldiers who support Guinea-Bissau's breakaway military leaders known as The Junta fire at a position held by Senegalese soldiers
Conflict zone: Palestinians burn a U.S. flag near the United Nations office in Gaza City earlier this month. The on-going tension in the region will die down by 2050, research suggests Professor Håvard Hegre predicts conflict will be on the wane by 2050.
Here's how the war map will change That will mean in the next five years the current conflicts in Libya, Tajikistan, Syria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Mauritania and Iraq will probably be over, the research suggests.
As the risk of war decreases worldwide, by 2017 it will be greatest in India, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Uganda and Burma.
And by 2050, as the number of countries at war falls from one in six to one in 12, the risk of conflict will be greatest in India,
Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
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Afghanistan base
The conclusions were made by Håvard Hegre, a professor in the university's department of political science, who has devised a statistical model in collaboration with Oslo's Peace Research Institute.
The model, it is claimed, is capable of telling us what is likely to happen in the future.
'The number of conflicts is falling,' said Professor Hegre. 'We expect this fall to continue. We predict a steady fall in the number of conflicts in the next 40 years.
'Conflicts that involve a high degree of violence, such as Syria, are becoming increasingly rare.
'We put a lot of work into developing statistical methods that enable us, with a reasonable degree of certainty, to predict conflicts in the future.
'A conflict is defined as a conflict between governments and political organisations that use violence and in which at least 25 people die. This means that the model does not cover either tribal wars or solo terrorists like Anders Behring Breivik.
'In the 1700s it was normal to go to war to expand your country's territory. This strategy has passed its sell by date. But, demands for democracy may be suppressed with violence and result in more violence in the short term. As in Libya.'
His research has found there has been a decrease in armed conflicts and the number of people killed since World War II and this
trend will continue.
'War has become less acceptable, just like duelling, torture and the death penalty.'
Infant mortality, calculated by the UN up to 2050, is one of the key factors in Professor Hegre's model.
'Countries with a high infant mortality rate have a high probability of conflict. Infant mortality is now decreasing everywhere.'
The UN has also estimated population structure up to 2050. The population is expected to grow, but at a slower pace than
today, and the proportion of young people will decrease in most countries, with the exception of countries in Africa.
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna has extrapolated the level of education up to 2050.
The simulation model is also based on the last 40 years' history of conflicts, of all countries and their neighbours in the
world, oil resources and ethnicity. The conflict data were collated by the Uppsala University
'Economic changes in society have resulted in both education and human capital becoming important. A complex economy makes political violence less attractive.
Kurdish soldiers patrol the mountainous Iraq-Turkey border region where conflict has raged Nigeria is one of the countries where the
risk of war will be greatest in 2050. Here Nigerian soldiers march towards protestors during a demonstration against spiraling fuel prices in Lagos earlier this year
Risk of war: An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya, last month
'It has become too expensive to kill people. Modern society is dependent on economic development. It is too expensive to use
violence to destroy this network. It has also become harder to take financial capital by force.
'It is easy to move capital across national borders. Therefore, a cynical leader will be less likely to choose violence as a strategy.'
It is hard to discern the most important reason why the future will be more peaceful, but some studies suggest that education is the crucial factor.
'Education may be a fundamental causal explanation, but this is difficult to show with our methods. Demographers believe that more education leads to fewer children. There are fewer mouths to feed.'
Another explanation is the UN's peacekeeping operations. The world has become better at employing means of preventing states using violence.
'The UN operations in Bosnia and Somalia failed. But the UN's operations have been more successful since 2000. Of course, the UN cannot prevent conflicts, but fewer die and the intensity is lower when they intervene.'
Drawing to an end?
Anti-government fighters celebrate the fall of Sirte in Syria in October last year
Tension continues: An unidentified U.S. soldier stands in front of the blast-shattered Khobar Towers building in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Prof Hegre used data from 1970 to 2000 to check whether or not the conflict model works as intended. He wanted to see if the model could predict the actual conflicts between 2001 and 2009
'For 2009 we estimated that the likelihood of a conflict was more than 50 per cent in 20 countries. 16 of these countries ended
up in a real conflict. We missed by four countries.'
The simulation programme, which for statistical reasons must be run 18,000 times, was programmed by Joakim Karlsen, a research fellow at Østfold University College.
But changes had to be made as the on-going instability in the Middle East impacted the model.
'Prior to the Arabian spring, we expected 5 per cent of the countries in the world to be involved in a conflict in 2050. This percentage has now risen to 7 per cent.
'The conflicts in the Middle East weaken the clear correlation between socio-economic development and the absence of civil war.
The conflicts in Syria and Libya show that we also have to include democratisation processes in the model.
'To achieve this, we are now working on projecting democratic systems of government and regime changes,' explains Prof Hegre.
The study is due to be published in the periodical International Studies Quarterly next month.