The_Riddler:
My analysis of the European Union was a general one, not an in-depth one. There's a lot to it that I don't understand, for sure, but in layman's terms it explains more or less how Europe is suffering some of these woes. There are cultural, religious, political and very specific economical aspects involved in the Political Integrations of Europe, and some critics could even say, in its failure (this last part is very debatable).
As far as war goes: yes it is a learning curve. Just because human beings keep engaging in wars, doesn'tt mean they haven't learned positive things form them. Let me give you some examples to strengthen my point:
-Human Rights. They were, in large part, based around atrocities in wars, amongst other situations. Sure, there's still violations left and right, but trust me: the world is far safer today, than it was in the feudal ages, or even the renaissance.
-Less casualties. Even if were to exaggerate the casualties in today's conflicts, modern warfare causes much reduced casualties. They are still too high, and there are still atrocities, but they are much, much more isolated than before. In feudal Japan, the very fabric of society was based around constant warfare. During Attila the Hun's time, waves upon waves of soldiers simply died. The reason for this, is that our weaponry now provides much better force multiplication (a single soldier can wield a light machine gun which in past eras would've required several armed men to just match the same firepower).
Both World Wars were a BIG eye opener in the way we fight wars. Not only was chivalry sent out the window, but a semi-mandatory body of law was set to regulate them. Yes, countries still break these laws (such as illegal weaponry), but International Scrutiny plays a much bigger role today, than it did before. This is the reason why military superpowers remain "friendly to the world" even as they wage war: they can't fight them all.
Unless a country shoots itself into a Total War policy, wars today are much more limited. Look at NATO conflicts, for example: The U.S. (and other miltiary superpowers) could obliterate an average opposing force very, very fast if it held nothing back, but international pressure would ensue. It's now a game of cloak and dagger.
That evolution, is all the result of lessons learned through warfare. Human beings have only truly been around for a very small amount, and while sometimes we repeat the same mistakes, for the most part we do learn.
The human race as a whole has no learning curve as it involves different people over time, that make the same mistakes repeatedly. As for your examples:
-Human Rights is an artificial legal term. In reality, humans behave like humans always have. International laws do not prevent or change this behaviour.
-The DAILY AVERAGE casualty rate increases with time as weapons become more efficient, conflicts are larger on a geographical scale and wars are mostly fought on a nationstate basis.
-The largest military superpower, the U.S., is currently involved in numerous wars and has fought in the top 3 nationstate based wars, by death toll, in the past 100 years.
The world has not seen a single second/minute/hour/day without war in the last few thousand years. Some of the largest wars, measured by daily average casualty rate, were in the past 100 years. With current weapons of mass destruction and the knowledge that humanity uses everything in its ability, the long term trend is very clear. An analysis of the bigger picture unambiguously predicts more wars to come.