If it has happened "countless times", then why haven't you been able to name any?
The Hundred Years War ended in 1453. The War of the Castilian Success broke out in 1475, and the Italian Wars began in 1494, which erupted periodically all the way until 1559. That was barely over before the Eighty Years' War began, during which time Europe also saw the Habsburg-Ottoman wars. Neither was over when the Thirty Years' War began in 1618.
The Peace of Westphalia was followed within four years by the first of the Anglo-Dutch Wars in 1652, and by 1688 Europe was embroiled in the Nine Years' War. Less than a decade after that the War of the Spanish Succession broke out. The War of the Quadruple Alliance soon followed. Two decades later the War of the Austrian Succession took place, to be followed by the rematch called the Seven Years' War eight years later.
Peace after the Seven Years' War didn't last three decades before the Storming of the Bastille and Europe descended into the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The Crimean War erupted 38 years after the Council of Vienna. The Belle Epoch only lasted 40 odd years before going down in the flames of the Great War. The inter-war period lasted a mere two decades before Europe plunged into the Second World War.
And that brings us to today, 67 years and counting with no end in sight. So you tell me.
The rest of the world did not experience a surge of fighting, much less due to peace in the First World. That's nonsensical.Over the past few decades, we have extremely effectively been able to "re-route" war to..."less civilized" regions of the world to feel at peace here at "home".
---------- Post added 2012-12-29 at 05:59 AM ----------
Actually, proportionally, a lot fewer people died the last century.