According to Michael Brzoska
According to Michael Brzoska, “All major definitions of war . . . have three common core
elements: there needs to be fighting; such fighting is conducted by organized groups; and at
least one of the parties has to be the government.” By such a definition, there were more than
110 million people killed in more than 250 wars during the twentieth century alone. It is almost
a measure of the modernity of war how large a fraction of war-related deaths are made up of
civilians. In World War I, only about five percent of those killed were civilians; in World War II, it
was close to 50 percent. In wars fought in the 1960s, it is estimated that civilians accounted for
more than 60 percent of war dead; in those fought in the 1980s, the estimate is nearly 75
percent.