In Part 4 of the Signs of the End I went two major birth pang indicators: pestilence and famine. In this latest installment I will go over two more birth pang indicators that are interrelated: wars and rumors of war.
Like with previous birth pang indicators, if we are near the end times we should be seeing a noticeable change in the prevalence of war and rumors of war. I will start by looking at trends in war before looking at rumors of war.
Wars and Commotions
The Center of Systematic Peace (CSP) reports that there have been “over 320 distinct episodes of major armed conflict in the world’s 162 countries” since the end of World War 2.[1] The CSP notes the following trends in warfare, which is also summarized in the following figure.
- Interstate warfare (warfare between countries), “has remained at a relatively low-level since the end of the Second World War”.[2]
- Societal warfare (which is a category of warfare that encompasses ethnic, civil, and communal war) “has been the predominant mode of warfare” since the mid 1950s.[3]
- The number of states affected by wars has declined worldwide in conjunction with the rise of globalization and democratization.
The war indicator indicates that we are not near the end times yet because the overall level of warfare has been declining over time. If we were very close the start of the end times we would see a major uptick in the number of wars in the world like we have seen a huge surge in the number of earthquakes around the world recently.
Rumors of War:
I do not have data to make a numerical or statistical comparison between the prevalence of the rumors of war today versus the prevalence of the rumors of war in the past. However, I know a lot of people feel that we have rumors of war today. Every day we hear about how the U.S. or Israel will eventually need to confront Iran or how Israel might have another war with Hezbollah. I am not going to dispute that there are rumors of war today.
However, I do not know if we can say that there are more rumors of war today than there was during the Cold War. Although I am too young to remember living in the Cold War, I am aware that there was always a degree of fear that America and the Soviet Union would go to war with each other (though sometimes the fear was very high like during the Cuban Missile Crisis and sometimes low like during the era of Détente). I get the feeling that Iran is drawing the attention of people who study Bible prophecy much like the Soviet Union did back in the Cold War. I could be wrong because I am too young to remember living in the Cold War, but this is my impression from studying politics and history.
I believe that rumors of war involving Israel are not yet at a historic high. Israel has been at odds with its hostile neighbors ever since its recreation in 1948. People have always worried about Israel being caught in a war against its neighbors. However, the rumors of war involving Israel will likely increase dramatically in the future with the U.S. apparently ready to turn its back on Israel.
Future Potential of Wars and Rumors of War
It is very likely that the prevalence of war and rumors of wars will increase dramatically in the future. As mentioned earlier, the two main reasons why we have seen a gradual decline in the number of conflicts over the past few decades are: the rise of democratization in the world and globalization.
The Democratic Peace
The Democratic Peace is a term used to describe an astounding historical finding: democracies rarely fight each other in war. However, this does not mean that democracies are less war-prone than non-democracies because academic studies show that they participate and initiate wars at the same rate as other regime types. This also does not mean that democratic states do not get into disputes with each other because there are numerous cases where they do get into disputes. However, just about all of these disputes have fallen short of war. The following figure demonstrates how rare it is for democratic states to go to war with each other.
There have been several explanations offered by political scientists to explain why democracies refrain from fighting other democracies. Two main explanations center on the idea that there are institutional constraints on democratic leaders and democratic leaders are far less prone than non-democratic leaders to have misunderstandings about each other since they are usually required to be relatively more transparent in releasing information to the public than non-democratic leaders about many issues including military strength.
Regardless of why democracies do not fight each other, the Democratic Peace helps account for why there has been a lack of wars involving major power opponents since the end of World War 2. The vast majority of major powers since the end of World War 2 have been democracies so the restraining characteristics of democracies have kept major powers from facing off against each other in war. In addition, the number of wars has declined since the end of the Cold War as the number of democratic states around the world has increased dramatically. The next figure illustrates how the total number of wars has declined while the number of democracies has exploded since the end of the Cold War.
(On an aside: the Democratic Peace has probably caught the eye of American foreign policy decision makers and is perhaps one motivation behind why the U.S. is trying to bring democracy to the Middle East).
Globalization
Globalization reduces the probability of world war because countries become interdependent on each other. Each country integrated into the global economy is dependent on their economic partner(s) to provide them goods and services at a relatively lower cost than what they can produce domestically. The average leader understands this independence and is hesitant to go to war with their economic partner(s) since war will damage their economy.
The Catalyst to Change Everything
The coming economic and financial collapse is vital for bringing an end to the constraints of war and rumors of war. When the world’s economic and financial system breaks down you are very likely going to see a lot more war and rumors of wars because the restraints of war will be lifted and desperate political leaders will be searching for an excuse to shift the public’s attention away from domestic problems and for ways to secure the necessities of life for their people.
- If you’re interested in reading more the nuts and bolts into how the coming economic and financial collapse will bring war worldwide you can access my free book: Prophecy Proof Insights of the Next World War.
References
[1] Marshall, Monty and Benjamin R. Cole. Global Report 2009: Conflict, Governance, and State Fragility. Fairfax: Center for Systematic Peace and Center for Global Policy. December 7, 2009. http://www.systemicpeace.org/Global%20Report%202009.pdf Pg.4
[2] Ibid. Pg. 4
[3] Ibid. Pg. 4
