This is what the trend lines look like. The Interdisciplinary Research Programme at Leiden University (PIOOM) considers any conflict that kills 1000 or more people a year to be "high-intensity". The US public appears to share that definition, but for our purposes I will consider PIOOM’s high-intensity to be the upper end of our "low-intensity", while PIOOM’s LIC is the lower end of our "low-intensity.
What is really important about this illustration is that low-intensity conflicts are rising steadily, while political and ethnic violence has gone through the roof.
I will hasten to note that while day-to-day reality demands that we pay greater heed to non-traditional lower-intensity conflicts, there is still a need to be ready for any of over ten higher-intensity regional wars, as well as tens of intra-state conflicts that could boil over into regional troubles.
TRANSITION: We must understand the ethnic and environmental conditions associated with these conflicts.
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