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There are a lot of claims that there have only been 26 days of peace since 1945.

For example: How many days peace has the world had since 1945?

I believe none, because there has always been some form of war at sometime, in some place. No, in total 26 days of peace since 1945. A little sad.

Is there evidence for this claim for only 26 days of peace since 1945.

SwiftPushkar
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Mou某
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2 Answers2

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It is difficult to give a straight answer to the question, because if we define peace as the absence of war (example), we still have the problem of the nebulous definition of war. Does war include guerilla wars, civil wars, insurgencies and other forms of conflict? Does war have a clearly defined start and end date?

For example, when did World War II end? While the Japanese ceased-fire and announced surrender in August 1945, signed the paperwork in September 1945, signed the peace treaty in 1951, and were no longer occupied by the US in 1952. Some argue that some countries never signed a peace treaty, but just stopped fighting, so are technically still at war. [Reference - not a strong source, but this isn't controversial.]

Notwithstanding that, I am taking advantage of the looseness of the quote in the question, which uses a very broad "some sort of war", to include Civil Wars and Rebellions. The following conflicts overlapped each other, leaving no days where the entire world was at peace.

These are, by no means, the only conflicts during that time, but I picked some of the longer conflicts to cover the entire period.

Oddthinking
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    @Oddthinking Your link for Hukbalahap rebellion say "In September 1945, Luis Taruc and other Huk leaders were freed from prison. Luis Taruc formally announced the end of the resistance movement." There may have been peace until the August 24, 1946 murder of Juan Feleo. – DavePhD May 02 '15 at 19:43
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    It's easier to prove when you include 'civil war' and 'rebellion' as "war". Admittedly they're not "peace". – ChrisW May 02 '15 at 19:53
  • @DavePhD: Thanks, I've reinforced the evidence of continuous violence during that period with more ongoing conflicts. – Oddthinking May 03 '15 at 01:05
  • @ChrisW: Yeah, the definition of 'war' is disputable. The quoted claim says 'some form of war', and the question asks about peace, so I think this is a legitimate answer. – Oddthinking May 03 '15 at 01:06
  • @Oddthinking: as for anti-soviet resistance, the ending date is kind of doubtful, because things did deescalate rather quickly. – vartec May 04 '15 at 03:08
  • @Oddthinking: but truly most of your argument rests on _1960-1996, Guatemalan Civil War_, which I doubt that can be actually called "a war" during whole period of 47 years. – vartec May 04 '15 at 03:12
  • @vartec: I suspect I could replace that with many other conflicts to cover the same period, but before I attempt to, we should resolve the definition of "some sort of war" or "non-peace" that we are using, so we don't repeat this with the next set. I don't have a good one; would you like to suggest an appropriate one? – Oddthinking May 04 '15 at 03:43
  • @Oddthinking: I agree that there is not good definition, thus this question is unanswerable. Anyway, my point is that stretching definition too far, you'd be able to say that North Ireland conflict is a war, which started in 1913 and is still ongoing (IRA -> Provisional IRA -> Real IRA; latter is still active). – vartec May 04 '15 at 04:47
  • @Oddthinking: and think of it, North Ireland conflict fits broad definition perfectly _"a state of armed conflict between autonomous organizations (such as states and non-state actors)"_. – vartec May 04 '15 at 05:09
  • @vartec: I thought the best way to deal with the poorness of the definition was to make it explicitly clear in the answer. Let me know if you are happy with this approach. – Oddthinking May 04 '15 at 08:56
  • @Oddthinking: fair enough, I mean it's not your fault that there isn't any good definition, making this question unanswerable – vartec May 04 '15 at 17:58
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This claim is made in REGIONAL CONFLICTS IN THE THIRD WORLD: DIMENSIONS, CAUSES, PERSPECTIVES (1988) by MIR A. FERDOWSI of Third World Research Section at the Geschwister - Scholl Institute University of Munich, published in Law and State: A Biannual Collection of Recent German Contributions to These Fields.

The claim is at page 32

since the Second World War the globe has only been without a war for a few days, to wit, for 26 days in September 1945

Also, a 1974 version of the claim is Proceedings of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs at page 287:

there were only 26 days (between 2 and 29 September 1945) during these thirty years when there was no war waged the whole world over

The significance of 2 September 1945 was the formal surrender of Japan.

However, Ho Chi Minh also declared Vietnam independent 2 September 1945.

And, conflict in Viet Nam had started by 13 September 1945

Furthermore revolution in Indonesia started 17 August 1945 and continued through 1949.

It depends where you draw the line between war and peace, but it seems there was significant conflict during September 1945, rather than 26 days of world peace.

DavePhD
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  • This deals with 1945-1949. What about the rest of the time? – Oddthinking May 02 '15 at 15:44
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    FYI, footnote 1157 of [this book](https://books.google.com/books?id=fXh0sFrRKewC&q=Some+150+wars+or+conflicts#v=snippet&q=Some%20150%20wars%20or%20conflicts&f=false) cites "War institutes" as the source of this **1986** statistic. Following up on Berger–Levrault might lead to something more substantial. –  May 02 '15 at 19:00
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    @Oddthinking right, I was only trying to address the specific 26 days during September 1945 of supposed peace. – DavePhD May 02 '15 at 19:13
  • @coleopterist Some cite the book "Kriege nach 1945 Eine empirische Untersuchung" (1982) Istvan Kende (or earlier work by Kende) as the source. http://www.dadalos.org/frieden_int/grundkurs_2/krieg.htm and http://forum.skalman.nu/viewtopic.php?t=30993 – DavePhD May 02 '15 at 19:31
  • What's the significance of the end date, 29/30 September 1945 (in the sources that you cited as examples of this claim)? – AlabamaScholiast Mar 01 '22 at 16:28
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    @AlabamaScholiast they don't say, but maybe civil war in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weixian%E2%80%93Guangling%E2%80%93Nuanquan_Campaign – DavePhD Mar 01 '22 at 17:04