Belong to the 19th century. the transformation of international relations goes well beyond border changes. harvard s steven pinker, who will be on the show later, points out in a recent essay that after a 600-year stretch in which western european countries started two new wars a year they have not started one since 1945, nor have the 40 or so richest nations anywhere in the world engaged each other in armed conflict. colonial wars, a routine feature of international life for thousands of years, are extinct. wars between countries, not just major powers, not just in europe, have also dropped dramatically by more than 50% over the last three decades. scholars at the university of maryland have been tabulating the number of new conflicts that have arisen across the world. they find that the past decade has seen the lowest number since world war ii.