The figure below shows the observed and predicted global incidence of internal armed conflict. The upper line shows the proportion of countries in the world that had an internal armed conflict (minor or major) going on in each year from 1970 to 2009 and our predicted proportion from 2010 to 2050. The share of countries in conflict increased steadily up to 1992, declined to about 2003, and increased somewhat afterwards. In 2009, about 17% of all countries had an internal conflict. We project this share to decline steadily to about 7% in 2050. The lower line in the figure shows the proportion of countries in major conflicts. This peaked at 10% in 1988 and declined to about 4% by 2011. We project this decline to continue, to about 1% of the world’s countries in 2050. The grey shades represent the variability in our simulations.
Håvard Hegre 