The conclusion was getting hard to avoid even before the advent of nuclear weapons: the game of war is up, and we are going to have to change the rules if we are to survive. The brief, one-sided campaigns of well armed Western countries against dysfunctional Third World autocracies killing the tens of thousands, and the genocidal ethnic conflicts of fragile post-colonial states are local tragedies, but during the last two years of World War II, over one million people were being killed each month. If the great powers were to go to war with one another just once more, using all the weapons they now have, a million people could die each minute. They have no current intention of doing that, but so long as the old structures survive, Big War is not dead. It just on holiday.
-From War: the Lethal Custom by Gwynne Dyer.
Gwynne Dyer is cited by Dan Carlin in Carlin's Punic Nightmare podcasts on Hardcore History. Carlin interviews Dyer here.
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