Why the declines? Peace researchers point to crosscurrents of global events.
For one thing, the Cold War's end and breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989 to 1991 ignited civil and separatist wars in the old East bloc and elsewhere, as the superpowers' hands were lifted in places where they'd long held allies in check. Those wars surged in the early 1990s.
"The decline over the past decade measures the move away from that unusual period," said Ernie Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares.
At the same time, however, the US-Russian thaw worked against war as well, scholars said, by removing superpower support in "proxy wars," as in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Cambodia. With dwindling money and arms, warmakers had to seek peace.
The UN and regional bodies, meanwhile, were mobilizing for more effective peacemaking worldwide.
"The end of the Cold War liberated the UN" -- historically paralyzed by US-Soviet antagonism -- "to do what its founders had originally intended and more," Mack said.
Last year alone, from Ivory Coast to the Solomon Islands, 14 multilateral missions were launched to protect or reinforce peace settlements, the highest number of new peace missions begun in a single year since the Cold War, the Stockholm institute will report.
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