WAR

A group of academics and historians has compiled this startling information: Since 3600 B.C., the world has known only 292 years of peace! During this period there have been 14,351 wars large and small, in which 3.64 billion people have been killed. The value of the property destroyed is equal to a golden belt around the world 97.2 miles wide and 33 feet thick. Since 650 B.C., there have also been 1,656 arms races, only 16 of which have not ended in war. The remainder ended in the economic collapse of the countries involved. 

Today in the Word, June 19, 1992.

A few years ago, a Dutch professor took time to calculate the cost of an enemy soldier's death at different epochs in history.  He estimated that during the reign of Julius Caesar, to kill an enemy soldier cost less than one dollar. At the time of Napoleon, it had considerably inflated--to more than $2,000.  At the end of the First World War, it had multiplied several times to reach the figure of some $17,000. During the Second World War, it was about $40,000. And in Vietnam, in 1970, to kill an enemy soldier cost the United States $200,000. 

Plain Truth, April, 1988, p. 15.

Global military expenditure is now running at well over $1 million per minute, according to New Internationalist magazine. One in every five scientists worldwide, says the magazine, is now engaged in military work, and the average military product is 20 times as research-intensive as a civilian product. 

World Vision, April, 1984.