Ethics, Scientists, Engineers and the Military - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 321

now defi ned as a war. Data is now collected for the following three types of violent
confl ict (Themnér and Wallenstein 2012 ):
1. State-based confl icts, which involve at least 25 battle-related deaths in a calendar
year with at least one of the parties a state government.
2. Non-state confl icts which involve only non-state armed groups, whether formally
or informally organised.
3. One-sided violence which involves the intentional targeting of civilians by a
state or an organised group.
While there has been a slow decline in the number of confl icts and their scale and
the resulting deaths, the rate of successful confl ict resolution has also dropped,
leading to increasing numbers of protracted or recurring confl icts (Melvin 2012 ).
All three types of violence are most prevalent in Africa. Armed confl ict leads to the
largest number of deaths due to the facts that state governments are more organised
and have more resources (Themnér and Wallenstein 2012 ).
Some statistics on the numbers and types of confl icts will now be presented:
1. In 2011 there were 37 armed confl icts in 30 locations and six major confl icts or
wars.
2. This is a considerable reduction from the peak of 16 major confl icts or wars in
1988 (Themnér and Wallenstein 2011 ) and over 50 confl icts in the early 1990s
(Themnér and Wallenstein 2012 ).
3. There have been 248 armed confl icts in 153 locations worldwide between the
end of World War II and 2011.
4. There were 73 state-based confl icts, 223 non-state confl icts and 130 organisa-
tions carrying out one-sided violence in the decade 2002-2011 (Themnér and
Wallenstein 2013 ).
5. There was a small decline in violent confl icts over the decade 2001-2010, with
the greatest decline in the number of wars.
The consequences of these confl icts have also been very serious and include the
following:
1. Mortality due to war or confl ict, including noncombat civilian mortality, has
been estimated at 50-51 million for the period 1945-2000 (Leitenberg 2001 ).
2. Mortality due to war or confl ict, including deaths in German concentration
camps, has been estimated as 130-142 million for the whole of the twentieth
century (Leitenberg 2001 ).
3. Mortality due to national political decision making (Hobsbawn 1996 ),
including genocide, starvation and deaths in prison camps, as well as
confl ict has been estimated at 214-226 million for the twentieth century
(Leitenberg 2001 ).
4. Changes in the nature of war mean that about three quarters of those killed are
now civilians, many of them children (Langley 2006 ) .