Are fewer people dying in wars?

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program and the Peace Research Institute Oslo have tracked deaths from fighting in the world's armed conflicts back to 1946, counting a conflict once it kills at least 25 people in a year. The years right after the Second World War were already violent, with wars underway in China, Indonesia, and Indochina. The toll peaked in 1950, the year the Korean War began, at 550,676 deaths, the highest single year in the series.

The decline since then has not been steady. The total fell to a low of 12,437 in 2005, the quietest year in the series, before climbing again as war returned to Ethiopia and Ukraine: the 2022 toll of 284,981 was the highest in fifty years. By 2025 the count stood at 153,643, well below the mid-century peak but still far above the 2005 low.