Little Time Remains!
Back to 1The Bible’s Greatest Prophecies Unlocked!
Consider: From 1900 to 1946 the world experienced more than 120 armed conflicts—over two per year. Between 1946 and 2001 there were 225 wars—over four per year.
In his book Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski estimated that 87.5 million people lost their lives from war between 1900 and 1999. (This included about 33.5 million military deaths and 54 million civilian deaths.) But there are higher estimates.
Above those directly killed in warfare, Brzezinski estimates no fewer than 167 million more people died as a result of war-related oppression in just the twentieth century. Together, these numbers are “the approximate equivalent of the total population of France, Italy, and Great Britain; or over two-thirds of the total current population of the United States…This is more than the total killed in all previous wars, civil conflicts, and religious persecutions throughout human history.”
Consider a few of the many wars, conflicts, revolutions, civil wars and coups that occurred just between 1967 and 1987: The Six-Day War (Israel vs. Egypt, Syria, Jordan); India vs. Pakistan; the Vietnam War; Iran vs. Iraq; Afghanistan vs. USSR; civil wars in Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua and South Africa; the Falkland Islands (Great Britain vs. Argentina); Grenada; France vs. Libya and Chad—the list goes on.
Dozens of countries today, such as Somalia, Sudan and Afghanistan, have armed guerilla groups seeking the overthrow of their governments. What is taking place in the world today far outpaces anything seen by Alexander the Great or even George Patton, the renowned WWII general.
Also, considered only a footnote by most, there is the problem of landmines. Around the world, huge numbers of unexploded mines—in 1996 the UN estimated 110 million—have never been retrieved. These cause adults, and often little children, to lose limbs and sometimes their lives. Easy to lay down, they are difficult to recover.
Deadly Technology
Incredible new weapons technology has permanently altered the face of war. “Smart” bombs, which are laser-guided to bring precision and efficiency to the art of killing, have replaced many types of “dumb” bombs. Military scientists have now developed cluster bombs, called “daisy cutters.” Named after their pattern of explosion, these cut down large numbers of human beings like a lawnmower cuts grass. Also, there are “bunker-buster” bombs that before detonating can penetrate deep into the earth in pursuit of enemies hiding in caves.
More and better precision-guided missiles are also continually appearing. But these are nothing compared to the defensive missiles, called “kill vehicles,” that are now reported to be “loitering” in outer space awaiting a signal to seek and destroy, regarding any nuclear launch that needs to be quickly knocked out after offensive missiles containing warheads have become airborne.
Various highly sophisticated and incredibly lethal attack aircraft now exist—helicopters, jets, bombers, gunships and drones—that have brought conventional warfare to a pinnacle of destructive capability never before known. Large, precision, satellite-guided bombs have gigantic “kill zones” of more than a thousand yards. Then there is the so-called “MOAB,” or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (also known in the military as the “Mother of All Bombs”), which is a conventional bomb that creates almost the same blast effect as a small nuclear weapon.
Of course, all of these kill and maim indiscriminately. So this can sometimes involve “friendly fire” casualties, in which one’s own troops or civilians are hit. This is generally considered to be “acceptable and necessary collateral damage.”
Modern military thinkers and strategists now speak in terms of protection from, or delivery of, “weapons of mass destruction.” The killing capability of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and, now, radiological or “dirty bombs,” is indescribably horrible. Yet these weapons are now apparently in the hands of unstable countries and regimes, which may not be capable of controlling their use or safeguarding their inventory.
This is why the famous American General Douglas MacArthur, while attending the signing of Imperial Japan’s surrender on September 2, 1945, said, “Men since the beginning of time have sought peace…Military Alliances, Balances of Power, Leagues of Nations, all in turn failed leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The utter destructiveness of war now blots out this alternative. We have had our last chance.
“If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system Armageddon will be at our door. The problem basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence and improvement of human character that will synchronize with our almost matchless advances in science, art, literature, and all material and cultural developments of the past two thousand years. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh…” (The Reports of General MacArthur).
Bear in mind that MacArthur spoke 60 years ago! Since then, it seems the whole world has become a “killing field.”